Election result leaves McAuliffe in limbo
'04 impact weighed after Mississippi and Kentucky votes
hillnews.com
By Peter Savodnik
Democrats across the country rallied to support Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe yesterday, a day after the party lost governorships in Kentucky and Mississippi and less than four weeks after losing the gubernatorial race in California.
But on a morning of bitter misgivings for Democrats there were also rumblings in Mississippi, California, New York, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, with many party rank- and-file members complaining that the DNC has written off the South, taken black voters for granted and picked a poor 2004 convention site in Boston.
“Terry McAuliffe is out there on his own agenda, which does not involve the South,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the only black member of his state’s congressional delegation.
“It does not involve African Americans to the extent that they need to be. There are some real organizational problems at the Democratic National Committee that need to be corrected if in fact this party is to ever regain a majority status in Washington.”
Nevertheless, DNC leaders, members of Congress and party officials from Alaska to New Mexico to North Carolina said McAuliffe could have done little to prevent Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky.) from trouncing Democratic Attorney General Ben Chandler and Haley Barbour (R) from beating Gov. Ronnie Musgrove (D) in Mississippi.
Other Democrats, including DNC officials, said that if anyone is to blame for those losses it is the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) and Democratic state and local leaders. A DGA spokeswoman said it had been hard raising money to channel into state races. “This is a federally focused town,” the DGA’s Nicole Harburger said.
Democrats also pointed out that, in Kentucky, Chandler was saddled with scandals surrounding Democratic Gov. Paul Patton. They further argued that Mississippi, which gave President Bush a 17-point victory over Democrat Al Gore in 2000, was too conservative to fight for and that Musgrove had been an aberration.
California’s Oct. 7 recall had been a “perfect storm,” they said, combining voters’ widespread antipathy for Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) fame and fortune, and many conservatives’ support for a centrist over a right-winger to make it impossible for Democrats to hold onto the governorship.
But there were significant complaints on Capitol Hill about the party’s direction.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) said Democrats in Washington had complicated congressional Democrats’ efforts to hold on to the governorship. National party figures had impeded efforts to rally around Davis and, at the same time, come up with a viable alternative, she said. Ultimately, the party tried to do just that, tapping Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) made it clear she wouldn’t run, but it was too late.
“We were fought publicly, privately, by Democrats, by Davis’s people, of course, donors, party people, people who believe they are the major structure of the Democratic Party,” Sanchez said. She added that national party leaders had been “dismissive” of California’s 33-member Democratic delegation. “A lot of time and effort and resources were lost in that struggle, and I think that typifies a struggle going on in the party.”
Other Democratic officials defended McAuliffe but criticized party leaders on Capitol Hill, particularly Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), citing division within party ranks about the Iraq war.
Sanchez and Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), who lost his leadership bid to Pelosi, credited the minority leader with working cooperatively with House members.
Still others said state and local Democratic leaders in the South had failed to build the party machinery needed to turn back the Republican tide that has swept all levels of government in that part of the country since the civil rights movement of the mid-1960s.
In South Carolina, for example, former Gov. Jim Hodges (D) had neglected to build a party organization for statewide campaigns, said former DNC Chairman Don Fowler, now a political science professor at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia.
Fowler said Southern Democrats had failed to take their message of greater economic opportunity and racial equality to the people, calling themselves Democrats while distancing themselves from national leaders in Washington.
“I feel like one of those Old Testament prophets crying in the wilderness because it is so damn simple,” said Fowler, whose 1995-1996 tenure coincided with President Clinton’s reelection. “Do what’s common sense. That’s what we haven’t done.”
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt and Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.), who announced Monday he would not seek a fourth term, epitomize the kind of Democrat the party needs to recapture the South, Fowler said.
The gubernatorial defeats in Kentucky and Mississippi came at the same time that Democrats have been grappling with how to re-engage with southern voters and hold onto the four open Senate seats they must now defend in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina (see Weyant cartoon, P 14).
Last week, Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) endorsed President Bush and lambasted his party for turning its back on the South. Miller maintained that national party leaders could not campaign for Southern candidates because it would hurt the candidates’ odds.
Also, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D), now leading the pack for the Democratic presidential nomination, recently said he wants “to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.”
The comment prompted outrage from Dean’s Democratic rivals, particularly Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) and Al Sharpton, highlighting difficulties faced by the party in reaching out to white rural voters while placating its liberal base.
DNC officials and Democratic House members, including Reps. Frost and Barney Frank (Mass.), downplayed the gubernatorial elections, arguing that the committee is right where it wants to be. DNC officials insisted that the party is looking forward to hosting its national convention in Boston.
Many Democrats have questioned the wisdom of hosting the big event in liberal Massachusetts instead of taking their case to New York, where the GOP will be, or Miami, site of the Florida post-election meltdown in 2000.
“It’s the seat of the American revolution,” DNC spokeswoman Deborah DeShong said of Boston, “and we hope it’s going to be the seat of another revolution, and that’s taking over the White House.”
Mark Brewer, a DNC vice chairman and the Michigan Democratic Party chairman, contended that Tuesday’s election results were a mixed bag for both parties. He noted that Democrats made gains at the state and local levels in key battleground states like Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And he praised McAuliffe’s stewardship of the DNC, adding that the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform, which was opposed by both parties, had made McAuliffe’s job that much more difficult.
Still, losing a few governorships hasn’t boded well for party chiefs in the past. After Democrats beat Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia in 2001, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Jim Gilmore was fired.
Democrats dismissed any parallels, noting that the White House had been particularly displeased about losing the Old Dominion, given that Gilmore was then governor of the state, and that party leaders were frustrated with RNC fundraising.
On Wednesday, Republicans were anything but frustrated. The party’s gubernatorial wins in Kentucky — the first in more than 30 years — and Mississippi showed the president’s broad appeal, current RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said at a press conference.
Looking forward to the Nov. 15 Louisiana gubernatorial election, in which Republican Bobby Jindal is running neck and neck with Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Gillespie said voters want a positive message.
“What we saw again here were examples of the candidates running on issues,” Gillespie said, referring to the Kentucky and Mississippi races, “talking about creating jobs, talking about improving schools, talking about making healthcare more affordable for their citizens, and Democrats running very negative campaigns.”
Lizzie Andrews and Brooks Halliday contributed to this report. |
