Do Democrats Need a Bubba Strategy?

The party shouldn’t give up on NASCAR voters, says Dave “Mudcat” Saunders.
By Mason Adams – Politico

On a balmy summer afternoon, Dave “Mudcat” Saunders sits in the shade of his porch in Roanoke, Va., with a tall cup of iced tea, a highlighter and a copy of I Heard My Country Calling. That’s the new book by former U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, a Reagan Democrat whose 2006 upset over one-time GOP star George Allen in Virginia represents the last time Mudcat could claim victory for his “Bubba Strategy.”

‘Mudcat’ Saunders vows to run a ‘national campaign’ against Eric Cantor

By Alex Pappas – The Daily Caller.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Famed southern Democratic operative Dave “Mudcat” Saunders has signed up to take on a new target: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

In a Tuesday interview with The Daily Caller, Saunders — the colorful consultant who has worked for southern Democrats like Jim Webb, Mark Warner and John Edwards — confirmed that he’s working for Democratic congressional candidate Wayne Powell, a retired Army colonel challenging Cantor for his U.S. House seat in Virginia.

“We’re going national,” Saunders told TheDC of the Powell campaign. “And we’re going to be doing a lot of national shows.”

The campaign’s message against Cantor? “He screwed us, and us is pissed.”

Mudcat takes up Cantor challenge

By Dan Casey, The Roanoke Times
June 17, 2012

My old friend Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, the renowned hunter, reformed drunk, Downtown Roanoke real estate developer and nationally known political strategist, lives in a humble cabin alongside Back Creek in Roanoke County.

Sometimes he’s a humble guy — this past year, he’s been quietly spending time in Haiti working on earthquake relief. Other times he’s not so humble. Lately, it’s tending toward the latter.

Saunders is up to his old political tricks again, and he’s just getting wound up. His target’s a big one: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Republican from suburban Richmond and one of the most powerful politicians in Congress.

The President Tries to Heart Nascar. Can He?

By Elizabeth Dwoskin, Businessweek
April 13, 2012

On Tuesday, President Obama will host Nascar champion Tony Stewart and a group of Nascar executives at the White House. How does a president who spends his weekends playing golf and basketball bring Nascar fans into his camp? We called Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, a political strategist who’s spent years advising Democrats on how to appeal to red-state voters, to find out.

America’s Crooked Road

LITTWIN: America’s crooked road

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News
Published August 9, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

“Gah-dayem, son,” Mudcat says. “It’s not about race. It’s about the gah-dayem culture.”

He offers up this pearl of socio-political wisdom as we cruise through the hills of western Virginia – Mudcat driving, me riding shotgun – to test his theory of how culture trumps race here. It’s not just any theory. All that’s at stake is quite possibly who becomes the next president of the United States.

Mudcat on the Race for Governor

Exclusive Interview: Mudcat Saunders on the Virginia Governor’s Race
Lowell Feld
Blue Commonwealth, Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I just interviewed Dave “Mudcat” Saunders – formerly senior strategist to Mark Warner, Jim Webb and John Edwards – about the Virginia governor’s race. Here are the highlights of what Mudcat had to say, including some most definitely “quotable quotes!”

Appalachian activist targets rural voters (Toronto Star)

By Olivia Ward
Link to the original article: http://www.thestar.com/News/USElection/article/519730

David “Mudcat” Saunders, a rural strategist for Barack Obama’s Democrats, is aiming to “clip off enough votes to win the state” from the Republicans.

ROANOKE, VA.–Mudcat is in a down mood. He’s just in from a hunting trip and the deer got away. Having winged it with an arrow shot from his trusty bow, he has decided he must go back to make sure it isn’t still thrashing in the bush.

It’s rare that David “Mudcat” Saunders misses his target, he allows with unabashed candour. And that holds true for the kill-or-be-killed world of politics.

While Mudcat the Hunter is the central casting image he revels in – crouched in a tree eyeballing his prey in the hills of rural Appalachia – Saunders, the Democratic rural strategist, is gunning for bigger targets than Bambi. He aims to pick off the likes of Republican John McCain and fellow hunter Sarah Palin in a state that traditionally sends Republicans to the White House, but is now swinging toward Barack Obama’s Democrats, mainly due to the new demographics of suburban northern Virginia.

The Appalachian Problem (The New Yorker)

Will Jim Webb’s Scots-Irish populism work for Obama in the hill country?

Obama goes to rural Virginia.
by Peter J. Boyer, October 6, 2008

Barack Obama’s September 9th trip to Lebanon, Virginia, in the southwestern hill country, came at a moment of deep unease among Democrats. John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, eleven days earlier, had yielded rich results, in Republican enthusiasm and in polling numbers. Several polls showed McCain pulling ahead of Obama, and some Democrats worried that Obama’s slogan of “Change” was a frail substitute for an emphatic message spelling out just what change he hoped to bring about. It seemed that the Obama camp had been knocked off balance by the Palin factor. Some Democrats feared that Obama himself—cool, cerebral, aloof—was a problem, reflected by the campaign’s apparent inability to counter McCain’s bold communications strategy effectively. Most disturbing, polling revealed that voters were increasingly inclined to trust McCain on the economy—an issue on which the Democrat should have the advantage.

The Pugilist at Rest (L.A. Weekly)

John Edwards’ Rural Advocate Mudcat Saunders Pipes in From the Sidelines

By Joe Donnelly
Published on September 03, 2008 at 6:37pm

Those who bothered to check out the Rocky Mountain News before the Democratic National Convention were greeted by a picture of the enigmatic Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, whose nickname and job description — rural advocate — became indelibly marked in my consciousness this past spring during John Edwards’ doomed primary campaign.

Pondering the cultural baggage of elitism, slickness and otherness that adversaries have been trying to saddle on the Democratic nominee — a clever trick considering that Barack Obama is as much a poor white boy from Kansas as he is anything else — I wondered if ol’ Mudcat would be doing any advocating for the campaign of the rural sort, and set out to find him.

America’s Crooked Road (Rocky Mountain News)

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News
Published August 9, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

“Gah-dayem, son,” Mudcat says. “It’s not about race. It’s about the gah-dayem culture.”

He offers up this pearl of socio-political wisdom as we cruise through the hills of western Virginia – Mudcat driving, me riding shotgun – to test his theory of how culture trumps race here. It’s not just any theory. All that’s at stake is quite possibly who becomes the next president of the United States.

We’re taking “The Crooked Road” music trail – an aptly named back road that, I’m told, will lead us directly to music heaven, which is apparently located on a stage in the back of the Floyd Country Store. Every Friday night, when they hold their gospel and bluegrass and old-timey-music jamboree, this town of 432 turns into a festival of banjo-pickin’ and flat-footin’ – a mini-bluegrass Woodstock, except with no nudity in evidence but, as compensation, some mighty nice-looking store-bought coveralls.