Southern White Democrats Pushed Closer to Extinction

Chet Edwards of Texas Spratt of South Carolina & Perriello of Virginia on list of At-Risk Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas From Virginia to Florida to Texas some 24 southern Democrat Congressional seats are on most everyones susceptible-to-the-Republican-wave list. Democrats are facing a situation where its only safe presence in the South is urban & predominantly black districts. Is the southern white Democrat long endangered at risk of being pushed one step closer to extinction? 

Representatives John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina the chairman of the Budget Committee Chet Edwards of Texas and Tom Perriello of Virginia are among those on the list of at-risk Democrats.

For the first time since Reconstruction Republicans also are well-positioned to control more state legislative chambers and seats than Democrats in the South which would have far-reaching effects for redistricting. Its not a good prospect for the Democratic Party in the South" said Glen Browder a former Democratic congressman from Alabama. It should be a moment of reflection for Democrats. When you forfeit the South your sights tend to drift too far left." There are 59 Democrats in House seats across the South from the 11 states of the old Confederacy totaling 43 white representatives and 16 black ones. Of those seats in predominantly white districts nine are leaning Republican eight are tossups and at least five more are competitive according to the latest rankings by The New York Times creating the prospect of the biggest Democratic losses since 1994 when 19 seats fell. Should a large number of Democratic candidates lose it would mark a significant step in one of the most fundamental if slow-moving political realignments in American politics. The swing has been under way since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 when President Lyndon B. Johnson predicted that his fellow Democrats would face a backlash of white voters that would cost the party the South. It continued with Ronald Reagans election and reached a tipping point in the Republican sweep of 1994 with more than one-third of the victories coming from previously Democratic seats in the South. This year retirements of Democrats have left the party scrambling to retain four open seats in Arkansas and Tennessee that have been in their control for most of the last century. Those districts along with others held by incumbents in Alabama Georgia Mississippi and North Carolina are central to the Republican strategy to win the House. The vulnerable Democrats across the South have moved to distance themselves from the partys agenda and President Obama. Several candidates have declared they would not support keeping Nancy Pelosi of California as House speaker if the party holds its majority. Former President Bill Clinton who spent his career navigating between his partys liberal sensibilities and the far more centrist instincts of Democrats in his home region warned voters You are being played" and urged people to cast ballots with their economic self interest in mind.

If its a referendum on Democrats against some imagined perfection well get whacked" Mr. Clinton said in a brief interview. If its a real informed choice well do fine."

At every stop the Democratic Congressional candidate Chad Causey stood at Mr. Clintons side smiling as the former president offered a lesson on the economy a defense of Mr. Obama and a plea for voters not to act out of anger on Election Day. Mr. Causey allowed Mr. Clinton to do most of the talking but he pledged not to be a rubber stamp for the Obama administration or a Democratic Congress. Mr. Clinton also took his pitch to Little Rock where Republicans are poised to pick up another open Democratic district and later to Mississippi where Representative Travis W. Childers a first-term Democrat is locked in a tough battle to hold a seat that had been in Democratic hands for a century until 1994. The campaigns along with the cotton and corn harvest were in full swing last week across a wide area of the Mississippi Delta. Many of the competitive districts are stitched together on a map from Arkansas to Tennessee to Mississippi and Republicans argue that a political realignment is overdue considering the underlying conservatism of the region. Rick Crawford a farm broadcaster here in Jonesboro is the Republican candidate seeking to replace Mr. Berry who was elected to the House in 1996 after working on agriculture policy in the Clinton White House. Mr. Crawford said that a cultural and generational change was under way with voters willing to give a Republican candidate a chance that years ago they would not have. Its getting easier to run as a Republican here" Mr. Crawford said in an interview.

We have a lot of folks who have moved into Arkansas who were not necessarily brought up with the idea that they had to vote Democrat because their daddy did it and their granddaddy did it that way."

Democratic candidates across the South are working to adjust to the new realities. Democrats concede that at least three Florida seats might be out of reach while several districts in North Carolina are suddenly competitive. The ranks of Southern Democrats could be significantly thinner next year with the makeup of rural lawmakers particularly different. Don Fowler of South Carolina who is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee said the party could lose those seats for years to come if Republicans win the districts in November. In those places where there has not been a demographic change and you are relying on a split between most white people and African-Americans the move toward Republicans is going to proceed at pace" Mr. Fowler said. But if there were 18 to 20 losses this year that would be catastrophic."