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Democrats in South see prospects brighten
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Rick Lyman NYT
Wednesday, June 2, 2004
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Bush's troubles generate spirited races
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina Not so long ago, the South provided a bleak landscape for Democrats. Struggling to recover from devastating defeats in the 2002 off-year elections, the party saw five of its incumbent senators announce their retirements - John Breaux in Louisiana, John Edwards in North Carolina, Ernest Hollings in South Carolina, Zell Miller in Georgia and Bob Graham in Florida.
Because President George W. Bush won all five states in 2000, Republicans saw the vacancies as fertile ground for solidifying control of the Senate.
But now, some of those election contests are shaping up as unexpectedly spirited. With a sluggish regional economy, continued bloodshed in Iraq and a certain distance from their own party, Southern Democrats say they sense political daylight - and a slim possibility of recapturing the Senate.
Independent experts say there is more to the Democratic claims than election year spin.
"I think the Democrats are going to end up winning a few of these races," said Charlie Cook, editor of The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan publication based in Washington. "The president will certainly win in the South, but he's not going to be the asset for other Republican candidates that you might normally expect."
The stakes are high and extend well beyond the South. Citing Bush's declining approval rating, Democrats have begun to talk openly about the possibility - slim though it may be - of the party's recapturing one or both houses of Congress in November. In the Senate, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 51 to 48 (there is one independent), even one or two victories in the South would be a major step toward that goal, giving the Democrats a cushion if they lose elsewhere.
"I think the Democrats are turning out to have a legitimate shot of winning back control of the Senate, maybe a 30 percent to 40 percent chance, and the South is going to be huge in that effort," Cook said.
For both parties, much hinges on the top of the ticket. Even as they distance themselves from their own party, Democrats insist that Bush's sinking fortunes will hurt Republicans.
"We started in the worst of all of these retirements," Brad Woodhouse, communications director for the Democratic senatorial Campaign Committee, said. Now, Woodhouse said, "We think there is no question you are seeing the president drag down Republican candidates across the country, including in strongholds in the South."
Nonsense, Republican strategists respond, the Democrats are just whistling Dixie. "This is like Custer's Last Stand for them," said Katon Dawson, the Republican chairman in South Carolina. "Look at how they're running from their nominee. I mean, their candidates in the South are just absolutely getting on a bus and running away from John Kerry."
The Republican candidate for Senate in North Carolina, Representative Richard Burr, put it this way, "I think Democrats are desperate to find a state or a region where they can say, 'Look here, people have missed it, but we really are competitive.'"
Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, a nonpartisan organization that has conducted polls in the region, says both sides have a point. "Where President Bush is vulnerable in the South is on the economic issues, whether it's high gas prices or the perception that the economy is recovering too slowly," Coker said. "But where he has the advantage over Kerry is in defense and the military. As a whole, the South continues to be much more supportive of the president on these issues than the country as a whole."
Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst, warned that although "there is some light at the end of the tunnel for the Democrats," the tunnel may prove to be too long - Democrats have to emerge before the election - and there may be some bumps at the end.
The New York Times
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