Southern outlook cheers the GOP
By James W. Brosnan
November 6, 2003
WASHINGTON - Republicans Wednesday were proclaiming the South is solid once again while Democrats were left scratching their heads about how they can win below the Mason-Dixon line.
Tuesday's victories by Republicans Haley Barbour in Mississippi and Ernie Fletcher in Kentucky left Democrats holding the governor's chairs in only two Southern states, Tennessee and Virginia, with the Louisiana governor's race to be decided Saturday.
Next year Democrats face the uphill challenge of defeating an incumbent president while holding onto the seats of retiring Democratic senators in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and possibly Louisiana.
Republicans were careful not to claim a mandate from just two races, but said the GOP victories in Kentucky and Mississippi were a sign that President Bush remains popular in the South.
Republicans will hold at least 29 governorships representing 70 percent of the population, noted Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. "We are emerging as possibly the dominant party, not just in the South, but throughout the rest of the U.S."
"I don't see it as a huge sea change," disagreed Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen. "The Democrats still have issues that are important to people - health care and the environment, and especially jobs and the economy."
Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., said Bush should take a lesson that, like stockholders in a company, voters will throw out an executive who isn't producing jobs and good schools.
Ford said that if he runs for the Senate in the future he would run a more positive campaign than Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat who focused his campaign ads on attacking Barbour's lobbying career.
"It takes a certain kind of candidate. One who's willing to speak to people's aspirations. One who's not afraid to talk about his values, or her values. And one who's willing to confront wrong when they see it, in his own or the opposing party," said Ford.
Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., said he disagreed with retiring Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., that the national party can't compete in the South. Tanner said he and other "Blue Dog" centrist Democrats have shown they can win in the South with a message of "social tolerance and fiscal responsibility."
Shelby County Mayor AC Wharton said his party needed to take a time out for four or five days and figure out what it stands for.
"The advantage the Republicans have is that they choose four or five guiding principles, jump on that elephant and ride it," said Wharton.
The county's Democratic Party chairman, state Rep. Kathryn Bowers, D-Memphis, said the party needs to recruit younger voters and the rising number of Hispanics moving into the South.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., who is favored to hold onto her seat next year, said Democrats need to focus on issues of concern to everyday people.
Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Ricky Cole accused the Republicans of using the Confederate flag "to exploit the ancient racial divisions that have so plagued progress in the South."
But Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie charged that it was the Democrats who used race as an issue. He displayed a leaflet that he said was put on windshields at Saturday's Jackson State football game. It showed Barbour with a burning cross in the background.
Democrats were having to deal with their own "flag" controversy. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said Wednesday he did not mean to condone the use of the Confederate flag when he said he wanted to be a candidate for Southerners who display that flag on their pickup trucks.
Dean, one of several Democrats running for president, said he wanted to have a "serious discussion about race" but that he started it "in a clumsy way."
Lexie Carter, a member of the Dean steering committee for Memphis, said Dean started a "painful" but needed dialogue about how to "reclaim voters who are clearly voting against their own economic interest while embracing a flag which symbolizes 'racial divide' to a great many people."
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