Can Democrats win without White Male votes? (yes!)

From this week's Salon.com:

So long, white boy

Could 2008 be the year that Democrats finally admit an old sweetheart is never coming back, and stop pandering to the white male voter?

By Thomas F. Schaller

Sept. 17, 2007 | Those who have been closely following the politics of the Democratic primaries may have noticed that someone is missing -- and I'm not referring to Bob Shrum, the Rev. Al Sharpton or an as-yet-undiscovered "Gravel Girl."

I'm talking about the white male voter, or at least a certain long-coveted variety thereof. He is variously known as "NASCAR dad" -- that shirt-sleeved, straight-talkin', these-colors-don't-run fella who votes his cultural values above all else -- or "Bubba," as Steve Jarding and Dave "Mudcat" Saunders affectionately call him in their book, "Foxes in the Henhouse." Start looking on milk cartons for Bubba because he has vanished, and not a moment too soon: The Democratic obsession with the down-home, blue-collar, white male voter, that heartbreaker who crossed the aisle to the Republicans many decades ago, may finally be coming to a merciful end.

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A note on Liberals

I found this passage from a Slate article by Charles Taylor to ring true:

"Liberals have an unfortunate tendency to confuse compromise with corruption, to mistake the ballot box for the confessional and assume the choice made therein should leave our souls clean. (That's why so many of us have gone off the deep end and voted for Nader.) The challenge the Clintons have always posed to liberals is the challenge of growing up and realizing how things get done. "