re: Kerry puts and ambulance chaser on the ticket...
Joe, you party hacks are all alike, with your phoney one liners and insults.
Open Season in the South
By JACK BASS
Published: July 8, 2004
HARLESTON, S.C. — Some question John Kerry's selection of John Edwards as his running mate, calling the decision a wasted choice. They accept the received wisdom that the South now belongs to the Republicans and that not even a native son will be able to change electoral and demographic destiny. They ask whether Mr. Kerry would have been wiser to choose Richard A. Gephardt — someone with a shot at delivering his home region.
But Mr. Kerry made the right choice. The view that the South has become an entrenched Republican stronghold is a myth. Despite substantial Democratic electoral losses in the region in 2002, Democrats have made net gains here since 1998. In the 11 states that formed the Confederacy, the number of Democratic governors and senators has risen (from three to four and from seven to nine, respectively).
In fact, the choice of Mr. Edwards means that President Bush can no longer take the South for granted. North Carolina, South Carolina and Louisiana now all join Florida as battleground states. Republican resources might have to be spent in solidly G.O.P. states, like Virginia and Tennessee, both with Democratic governors. And Democratic candidates running for contested open Senate seats across the region will probably get a boost with Mr. Edwards on the ticket.
Despite a slight Republican tilt in state politics, genuine two-party competition has emerged in the South, with political independents holding the balance of power. A South Carolina survey last fall, for example, found that 31 percent of registered voters identified themselves as independents; many of them are suburban dwellers who can identify with Mr. Edwards's upward mobility. In addition, Mr. Edwards's "two Americas" speech resonates both with blacks and working-class whites, especially the tens of thousands in the Carolinas who have lost jobs as textile and apparel plants have moved overseas.
Even in South Carolina, with a Republican governor and Legislature, having Mr. Edwards on the ticket puts the state in play. For starters, there is pride in having a native son on a major-party ticket for the first time in more than 150 years. What's more, Mr. Edwards won South Carolina's Democratic presidential primary, earning 45 percent of the vote in a record turnout. The presence of Mr. Edwards, who ran especially well among independents, also means that Inez Tenenbaum, the state education superintendent who is trying to keep Ernest F. Hollings's Senate seat for the Democrats, can comfortably associate herself with the national ticket, rather than run away from it.
The ticket is similarly strong in North Carolina, where Mr. Edwards lives. There, too, his candidacy is bound to have wider effects, helping Erskine Bowles, the former White House chief of staff, who is hoping to keep Mr. Edwards's seat for the Democrats.
The Kerry-Edwards combination could put Louisiana in play, as well. Mr. Kerry's religious background will help him in the heavily Catholic southern half of the state, while Mr. Edwards will appeal to voters in the north, where the culture reflects more of the deep South. Mr. Edwards should also complement the ticket in northern Florida, where his economic message and Southern identity will resonate with the many transplants from adjoining Alabama and Georgia. (Mr. Kerry, on the other hand, should do well with Florida's retirees and Jewish voters.)
In Tennessee, with the presence of a popular Democratic governor and a twinge of remorse about the loss of Tennessean Al Gore in 2000, the selection of Mr. Edwards means that Mr. Bush can't count on the state. Same for Virginia, which elected a Democrat, Mark Warner, governor in 2001, and Arkansas, which has five Democrats among its six members of Congress.
There are limits to all this, of course. Mr. Edwards is unlikely to make much difference in Georgia, where Democrats are in disarray and Republicans are almost certain to win the seat being vacated by Senator Zell Miller, whose party allegiance has switched in all but name only. Alabama, Mississippi and Texas all remain beyond Democratic reach, too.
This is not to say that Mr. Bush might not face further complications down the road. A few days ago, Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, criticized the Bush campaign, saying he was "appalled" at its effort to use church rosters to reach voters. "The bottom line is, when a church does it, it's nonpartisan and appropriate," he said. "When a campaign does it, it's partisan and inappropriate."
If Mr. Edwards can play on these growing tensions and begin to assure Southern voters that the Democrats can be trusted, he just might turn a few red states to blue.
Jack Bass, professor of humanities and social sciences at the College of Charleston, is the co-author of "The Transformation of Southern Politics." |
