John Edwards Should Be Thanking John Kerry

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CXL

"Everybody always makes the mistake of looking South."

Michael Dukakis's former lieutenant governor disses an entire region of the country.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is discounting notions that any Democratic candidate would have to appeal to Southern voters in order to win the presidency, calling such thinking a "mistake" during a speech at Dartmouth College.

Kerry's remarks Saturday were so starkly antithetical to how many southern Democrats feel their party should campaign for the presidency, that a former South Carolina state Democratic chairman told ABCNEWS that Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., who endorsed Kerry last week, perhaps "ought to reconsider his endorsement."

‘Mistake of Looking South’

During a town hall meeting on the Dartmouth campus, Kerry noted that former Vice President Al Gore would be president if he'd won any number of other non-Southern states in 2000, including New Hampshire, West Virginia, and Ohio.

"Everybody always makes the mistake of looking South," Kerry said, in response to a question about winning the region. "Al Gore proved he could have been president of the United States without winning one Southern state, including his own."

"I think the fight is all over this country," Kerry said. "Forget about those red and blue states. We're going to change that now, and we're going to go out there and change the face of America."

Kerry spokesman David Wade insisted Kerry thinks campaigning in the South, "is important, too. Fritz Hollings [D-S.C.] wouldn't have endorsed John Kerry if he didn't believe he was committed to, and would and could carry states in the South against George Bush."

Wade noted that the minority leader of the South Carolina state house and former Georgia Democratic Sen. Max Cleland has endorsed Kerry and is campaigning on his behalf.

In addition, Kerry will travel to South Carolina late this week to campaign and take part in Thursday night's debate there.

"If he's the nominee, John Kerry believes there are Southern states he can carry," Wade said. "But by the same token, no one should take New Hampshire for granted." Kerry has made similar remarks before — though not as a frontrunner and not so close to the South Carolina primary, looming on Feb. 3, or the contests in Tennessee and Virginia a week later.

‘Wrong Message’

Many national Democratic leaders are concerned that the party's nominee will lose by not picking up any Southern states, and to some, Kerry's comments were not reassuring.

"If that's any indication of how he intends to conduct his primary campaign and a general campaign, then I think Fritz Hollings ought to reconsider his endorsement," Dick Harpootlian, former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, told ABCNEWS in an exclusive interview.

"It's the wrong message to be saying at this point," said Harpootlian, who noted Kerry was the only major Democratic candidate not running TV ads in his state.

"I'm shocked he would be talking about a strategy of avoiding the South," Harpootlian added. "He's got to demonstrate an ability to compete outside liberal Iowa and the liberal Northeastern United States. He's got to be able to play in Middle America."

Hollings could not be reached for comment.

Kerry's opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination were quick to pounce.

"As I've said from the beginning of my campaign, I'm not going to concede any part of America to the Republicans," former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont told ABCNEWS in a statement. "We have to reach out to voters in every state in every region of this country, if we're going to beat George Bush and take this country back."

"This fight against Bush is going to be a tough one," Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., told ABCNEWS in a statement. "Why would we start at a disadvantage by writing off an entire region of the country?"

Edwards said he wasn't, "going to cede a single part of this country to George Bush, and I can compete with him everywhere. The truth is, Democrats have never won the White House without winning four or five Southern states."

Kerry and the South

Harpootlian said he had been talking with Kerry and his staffers Saturday about increasing the Massachusetts senator's visibility in the state, and they had seemed eager to do so. But Kerry's remarks, Harpootlian said, "were consistent" with scathing arguments about Democrats' views of Southerners recently made by Sen. Zell Miller, a Georgia Democrat who has endorsed President Bush.

In his 2003 book, A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat, Miller wrote, "Once upon a time, the most successful Democratic leader of them all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, looked South and said, 'I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.' Today, our national Democratic leaders look South and say, 'I see one-third of a nation and it can go to hell.'"

Merle Black, a professor at politics at Emory University in Atlanta and co-author of the 2002 book, The Rise of Southern Republicans, said the "Forget the South" strategy is feasible as long as the Democratic nominee also wins 70 percent of the electoral college votes from the remaining states. But Black questioned the wisdom of making such remarks publicly.

"Usually, if you write off a group or a region, you don't say it," Black noted. "That creates an issue that could clearly be raised by his opponents in South Carolina this week. It's against all the rules of politics."

Black said Kerry's comments "undercut his own campaign in the South." He noted Kerry's remarks "may be a widespread view of Northeastern Democrats, who are tired of moderating their campaign," but they reinforce an image of Kerry "as someone who doesn't think he even needs to campaign in the South."

Mixed Messages?

The Kerry campaign's message about the South has, to many observers, not seemed particularly coherent. Many political observers thought he was taking great steps to avoid being caricatured as an aloof, elitist Boston Brahmin — one who once served as Dukakis' lieutenant governor — when he kicked off his presidential campaign at the USS Yorktown in Mount Pleasant, S.C.

But since then, despite the Hollings endorsement, Kerry has disappointed many Southern supporters who see him as having forgotten about the South Carolina primary, where he faces competition from Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley Clark of Arkansas, both of whom have claimed their Southern roots enhance their electability.

A Kerry campaign aide pointed out that, "It doesn't seem to matter much where a candidate is from; Tennessee's Al Gore lost West Virginia, while Massachusetts' Mike Dukakis won it."

Dean has long discussed pursuing Southern voters, though he was criticized for his phraseology and imagery after he said he wanted, "to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."

Dean sought to clarify his remarks in Columbia, S.C., in December, saying, "There is nothing black or white about having to live from one paycheck to the next. Worrying about making ends meet does not discriminate."

The day before the Iowa caucuses, Dean appeared at a church with former President Jimmy Carter in Plains, Ga.

Should Democrats Cede the South?

Whether or not Democrats should cede the South for the November 2004 election and focus resources elsewhere has been fiercely debated privately in many Democratic circles.

History is not on the side of those who would argue in favor of doing so.

The last three Democratic presidents — Bill Clinton from Arkansas, Jimmy Carter from Georgia, and Lyndon Johnson from Texas — were from the South.

The last four Democratic presidential nominees to not win one Southern state — Sen. George McGovern in 1972; former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984; Gov. Mike Dukakis in 1988; and Gore in 2000 — lost.

Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Carter in 1980 were able to win one Southern state apiece, though in the end they lost to Republicans nationwide. Of the victorious Democrats, Carter won 10 Southern states in 1976, and Clinton won four in both 1992 and 1996.

But for more than a decade, some Democratic strategists have argued that former President Richard Nixon's strategy of having Republicans court Southerners — by using polarizing racial and social issues, claim Democrats, though Republicans deny it — has solidified support down South for the GOP.

The Democratic strategists argue Democrats would do better to focus on rust belt states like Ohio, and Southwestern ones like Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada.

Last August, Newsweek magazine wrote: "As for winning the presidency without the South, [Dean campaign manager Joe] Trippi likes to point out that with the Gore states plus New Hampshire, the Democrat wins in November."

But Trippi's assertion is factually incorrect. As a result of the 2000 census, the red "Bush" states gained seven electoral votes — so the blue "Gore" states plus New Hampshire would this year only bring a candidate 264 electoral votes, and 270 are needed to win.

Added Harpootlian, "You don't necessarily need to go through Dixie if you're driving from Massachusetts to Florida. There's a saying around here, 'You can go around your ass to get your elbow.'" But doing so, he said, would be a "serious strategic mistake."

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Core's Law of New Media strikes again!

One is tempted to think that, if John Kerry becomes the Democrats' presidential nominee, he has already handed the election over to George W. Bush.

See also The "Democratic Demolition Derby" and "A National Party No More".

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 01/26/04 10:09:09 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & John Kerry & Political.