Well, the Democrats controlled the South in the 1960s -- it was as close to a one-party state as existed in America. Even a casual observer can see that, from that standpoint, things have changed a great deal.
Much has been made of "The Southern Strategy," first used by Richard M. Nixon in his 1968 presidential campaign. Since that time, the Sunbelt has bloomed. Well over half of the voters in the area now hail from other parts of the country. The South has changed, and if the Democrats do not face up to the truth of the midterm elections, they are doomed for 2004.
Here is the reality of the Georgia midterm elections. Barnes and Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., spent the least amount of their time campaigning in the fastest-growing parts of the state. They forgot that many of the people voting in this election had no emotional tie to either of them. They forgot to earn the votes.
Barnes and Cleland both ran against the same person to win election in the first place. In 1996 Cleland defeated Republican millionaire businessman Guy Milner to win his Senate seat. In 1998, Barnes beat him to win the governorship.
Many independent voters and moderate Republicans voted for Barnes and Cleland because Milner was not, in the opinion of many, an attractive candidate. In 2002, neither incumbent gave those voters a reason to vote for them again.
Barnes alienated families in North Atlanta over his stance on the Northern Arc, a proposed east-west limited access connector highway between U.S. 41 and SR 316 in Northern Georgia. This was the same group of voters former Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Barr underestimated on his way to losing a primary to fellow Republican incumbent John Linder. They don't show up in polls because they work during the day and they are transporting children at night -- but they do vote and in very high numbers.
The education reforms that Barnes pushed through alienated teachers, administrators and families. His "my way or the highway" style of management further alienated blocs of voters throughout his term.
Cleland did not seem, to many, to really want the job to which he was elected. He failed to reach out to many of the groups who had not supported him in his first run for Senate -- which he won by only 28,000 votes in 1996.
That was a major mistake. As the campaign went on, Cleland seemed tired and distracted. These weaknesses coupled with a very strong campaign by Republican Saxby Chambliss, supported by President George W. Bush, led to Cleland's defeat.
Once the election was over, however, national political writers suddenly discovered that the flag issue had led to the defeat of both incumbents and to near-historic GOP victories elsewhere in the state.
One of the first steps Barnes took onto the national stage involved his ramming through a new design for the state flag through the Legislature, one that de-emphasized the St. Andrew's Cross -- also known as the Confederate battle flag -- in the design.
In talking to these self-proclaimed "flag nuts," one learns that only about 20 people worked on the issue full time -- perhaps enough to get 1,000 people to show up at a rally against the change but hardly enough to swing an election. When pollster John Zogby surveyed residents in Second Georgia -- the part outside of Atlanta -- he found that the changing of the flag was sixth on the list of issues.
No Republican candidate used the battle flag in any advertising or at any event. When people showed up with the flags, they were told to put them away. Rep. Mike Snow, a Democrat from Chickamauga, Ga., took a decidedly different approach.
Snow used the emblem in his state legislative campaign. His signs read, "I voted to keep your flag, so now you vote to keep me."
The bottom line is that Barnes and Cleland were seen as a team. If you were against one, you were against both.
The South is now a diverse and strong two-party region, but it still leans to the right. Democrats in the South are, generally, more conservative than the party's national leadership. As political scientists Merle and Earl Black demonstrated in their recent book, "The Rise of the Southern Republicans," when southern Democrats in Congress start voting like national Democrats, they tend to lose.
When the Democrats ran the South, the result was Jim Crow and segregation. Someone needs to tell Clinton, who purports to be an expert on the backroads and byways of the region, about the new reality. If she represents the future of her party, she needs to get reacquainted.
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(Martha Zoller hosts a daily political talk show on WDUN AM 550 in Gainesville, Ga. She appears regularly on Fox 5 Atlanta's "The Georgia Gang" as well as The Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC. E-mail her at [email protected].)
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("Outside View" commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers who specialize in a variety of important global issues.)
http://accesswdun.com/article/2003/2/183095