The Democrats' Keys to Victory

In today’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd’s column about Barack Obama and his “second chance” to shine as a black candidate for president raises some interesting points.

My argument has been and remains that, for the Democratic nominee to win, whoever that nominee turns out to be, the scenario for success in the general election hinges on the outcome in the South.

The last three Democratic nominees who were elected president -- Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton -- had Southern roots. Carter and Clinton had been elected governors of Southern states before running for president. And Johnson was an influential senator from the South (rising to majority leader) and then vice president before becoming president after John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

In the last half century, the rest of the Democratic nominees, except Kennedy, lost the South by varying margins. The one who came closest to defeating his Republican opponent, Al Gore in 2000, came from Tennessee, and it’s fair to say that he owed his defeat to a unique set of factors.

Nevertheless, he still won the popular vote.

I think it will continue to be important for the Democrat to win in the South -- if that Democrat is going to have any hope of winning the general election.

In the Rocky Mountain and Western regions, while the margins may be down from what they’ve been, Republicans can be expected to win most of the states. In the Pacific Coast and Northeast, the races will continue to swing in favor of the Democrats. And battles will continue to be fought in the Heartland and Industrial Midwestern states.

Which leaves the Southern states as the keys to victory.

I grew up in the South, and I’ve spent much of my life observing political campaigns here. And, despite what we’ve heard for years about poll respondents saying, overwhelmingly, that they would vote for a qualified woman or black for president, I don’t believe the time has come when a majority of Southerners can step into the polling booth and vote for a woman or a black seeking the presidency.

It may seem racist or sexist to say that now. To be sure, the time will come when a woman or a black can win states in every region of the country, including the South. But that’s the kind of change the South isn’t ready for. Not yet.

Southern states have elected women to the Senate and House -- and a few times as governor. Here in Texas, for example, Democrat Ann Richards was elected governor in 1990, Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison was elected to fill the remainder of Lloyd Bentsen's uncompleted term as senator in 1993, and three women hold House seats from Texas today.

Blacks haven’t been successful on the Senate level or in races for governor in the South, but they’ve won numerous House seats across the region. Three blacks hold House seats from Texas, and you will find black members in the House delegations from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. And you could include Tennessee on that list until 2006, when Rep. Harold Ford chose to give up his House seat to run, unsuccessfully, for the Senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist.

So, while the political influence of both groups has been increasing, I don’t think either group can produce a candidate who can be successful on the presidential level.

There are those who might point to Hillary Clinton’s years as first lady of Arkansas during President Clinton’s gubernatorial administration and say that gives her credibility in the South. But Mrs. Clinton was raised in Illinois. Her husband was raised in Arkansas.

I lived in Arkansas for most of Bill Clinton's gubernatorial tenure, and I can say that Arkansans appreciated many of the things that Mrs. Clinton did as their first lady. But first lady is not an elective post, and Arkansans never voted for Mrs. Clinton for anything.

(Today, however, a woman holds one of the Senate seats from Arkansas.)

No matter how often you hear her lapse into a Southern drawl when speaking to Southern audiences (frequently Southern black audiences) or how many times you hear her refer to her days as a "Goldwater girl" in her youth, Mrs. Clinton is not a Southerner and native Southerners know it.

Obama has been making an effort to win over evangelical Christian voters in South Carolina, but a group of ministers there endorsed Mrs. Clinton this week. And that is seen as a huge roadblock in preventing Obama from getting support he needs to win the nomination.

Success with evangelical voters may be more important in the South than any other region of the country. Indeed, if former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who was a Southern Baptist minister before he became governor, wins the Republican nomination (or is, at least, the running mate on the ticket), the evangelical vote will make it even more difficult for his Democratic opponent to score victories in the South.

That mission will be virtually impossible if a black or a woman is atop the Democratic ticket in 2008.