Centerfield

No, it's not rocket science to any of us, but explain that to the money behind the Democratic party.

Peter Beinart (editor of The New Republic) has some related thoughts. (Warning--cherry-picking selective citation on my part--read the whole thing for a liberal's view of the current state of disarray in the Dem party.)

Lieberman's problem is that bloggers like Kos aren't very ideological either. Temperament defines them, too. It's just the opposite temperament. For Kos and the other Lieberman-haters, liberalism means confrontation, at least in the Bush era. In their view, politics should be guided by the spirit of war. If you don't want to crush conservatives, you are not a liberal....Kos and MoveOn have conveniently convinced themselves that the war on terrorism is a mere subset of the struggle against the GOP. Whatever brings Democrats closer to power, ipso facto, makes the United States safer. That would be nice if it were true--but it's clearly not, because, sometimes, Bush is right, and because, to some degree, our safety depends on his success. National security will never be reducible to the interests of the Democratic Party.

Try this map for a better view that shows the urban concentration of Dems.

Here's another one, somewhat based on the same principles.

What always fascinates me about all those maps, Tully, is that you can actually see the Mississippi River in them. After the Civil War, many freed slaves did not move very far from the plantations. That swatch of blue going up the middle of the country in the South are heavily majority-black counties, which have been majority-black for over 100 years.

Yep. I commented on these maps extensively last year after the elections. The urban/rural divide really stands out, as does the fact that Dem counties are either major urban or poor ethnic.

Here's another good link for various views, including the "Purple America" concept, which better shows why Dems can win local and gubernatorial elections, but not national ones. Check out especially the "flatter" angle view of the first map that I linked above. Population density plays a MAJOR role in political demography. The only "flat" blue areas are pockets of ethnic poverty.