John Kerry should never have said it out loud, but he was right: He can beat President Bush without winning a single Southern state. Forget the hundred years of history that says a Democrat never won without the South. Just look back to the last presidential election when it almost happened.
In 2000, Vice President Al Gore, you will recall, won the popular count by more than a half-million votes–including a virtual tie in the state of Florida. The reason we are not engaged in Gore’s re-election campaign is the Electoral College system, which requires a candidate to win 270 out of the nation’s 538 electoral votes. Gore missed the magic number by four.
Remedial civics lesson: States are allotted electoral votes based on the number of their U.S. representatives, which is a reflection of population, plus two more for their two senators. That gives sparsely populated states such as Vermont, Wyoming and the Dakotas a little extra heft considering each one has only one representative but two senators. Whether that’s fair or not is another story.
So, yes, if you concede that Gore actually lost Florida, he lost most of the South, a bundle of the Plains states and most of the cowboy West. Those Republican states were colored red on television’s iconic electoral map. But among those red states are a handful that need not have gone that way–and may well go Democratic blue this year.
For example, Gore lost New Hampshire by a mere 7,211 votes, while Ralph Nader’s leftish third-party effort netted 22,198 votes, plenty more than needed to swing the state’s four electoral votes into Gore’s column–even if you also allotted Pat Buchanan’s 2,615 votes to his fellow conservative.
That would have given Gore 270 electoral votes and the presidency. The Nader vote would have given Gore Florida as well.
In other words, by defending every state Gore won and taking back New Hampshire–a state Bush can’t count on staying red this year because, among other things, it’s hurting economically–Kerry could be elected without winning even one of 11 key Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia). Well, not quite. Since the 2000 census, a few more electoral votes have migrated from blue states to red states.
So Kerry–if you assume his nomination–has to pick up another state or two. But he needn’t look South. Rather, he can gaze Southwest and Midwest for states far more switchable than any in the old Confederacy other than Florida.
Gore eked out a 366-vote win in New Mexico–with a more comfortable margin possible because of Nader’s 21,251. That’s due to a growing Hispanic population and an influx of workers and retirees who are not dyed-in-the-cotton Southerners.
Also, seniors have not been won over by Bush’s Medicare plan; there is even evidence of a backlash. In this respect, New Mexico shares some demographics with Florida, which is still in play. As a sign of Democratic consolidation, New Mexico elected its first Hispanic governor, former Clinton Cabinet member Bill Richardson.
Hispanic growth
Next door in Arizona, a similar dynamic–Hispanic growth –could shift politics in the state. Gore lost its eight electoral votes by fewer than 100,000 votes while Nader was getting 45,645. In 2002, Arizona elected its first woman governor–a Democrat. It is clearly within reach.
But it gets even better.
Missouri, a presidential weather vane state, went very narrowly Republican. The combined Bush-Buchanan vote was only about 50,000 more than Gore-Nader. A shift of 1 percent of the Missouri vote into the Democratic column–achievable in large part through increased black voter turnout–can turn Missouri and its 11 electoral votes blue. This is a pivotal state in a Southwest-Midwest strategy.
Ohio is another. Gore-Nader lost 21 electoral votes to Bush-Buchanan by less than a percentage point. As the political demographer Ruy Teixeira of the Century Foundation notes, Ohio is heavily unionized–37 percent of its voters are in union households–and it has lost one-sixth of its manufacturing jobs since Bush took office. Bush’s lifting of steel tariffs made him even more enemies there. It’s another strong candidate for color change.
Gore lost a lot of Ohio voters with the perception that he wanted to confiscate the guns of hunters. This is also considered the central reason that frequently Democratic West Virginia’s five electoral votes went south. Kerry has essentially taken this issue off the table by demonstrating that he is a hunter, familiar with rifles and “believes in the 2nd Amendment.” With Appalachia hurting badly economically, even West Virginia could return to the fold.
The battleground
Draw an arc through the belly of America, from Pennsylvania through West Virginia and Ohio–OK, skip Indiana–and through Missouri. There you have the true battleground for the Kerry-Bush matchup in November.
Given that Bush has lost all his post-9/11 polling bounce as well as the one he got from Saddam Hussein’s capture, there is little reason to believe that he will fare any better this year in Pennsylvania, Iowa and the Great Lakes states he lost narrowly to Gore.
Kevin Phillips, who devised the racial “Southern strategy” for Richard Nixon but who has become an economic populist, now believes there is a shot for the Democrats in Dixie. There is always the prospect of actually winning Florida, but Phillips also sees possibilities in Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana because of job loss and income stagnation. He properly warns against ignoring the South–which no sound campaign should do. It would be resented widely and could cost the Democrats congressional seats there. There is, however, the matter of focusing human resources and money where they have the greatest chances of winning against Bush’s inexhaustible well of campaign funds. (You won’t find Bush spending a lot of time and money in Massachusetts.)
Kerry’s heroism in Vietnam and his foreign policy experience in the Senate put him on an even footing with Bush on national defense and the fight against terrorism, where Democrats are traditionally vulnerable. As a former prosecutor, he certainly can’t be tarred as soft on crime, as was Michael Dukakis, under whom he served as lieutenant governor. The Midwestern beltline is certainly more moderate than Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts–and he will be bombarded on the issue of gay marriage because of where he comes from–though economic pain may well trump cultural dissonance this year.
But, just as Nixon never announced publicly that he was working the South by stirring racial animosities, Kerry must never again suggest that he is working a non-Southern strategy. He needn’t, however, trim his principles or his strategy to appeal to Howard Dean’s beloved Southern white guy with a Confederate flag decal on his pickup truck. He doesn’t need that guy and he probably can’t win him over anyway. The target voter is neither in Birmingham nor San Francisco, but in Kansas City, Mo.
The running mate question
What will reveal the ultimate strategic battle plan will be Kerry’s selection of a running mate. Conventional wisdom has it he will choose John Edwards to appeal to the South and provide a youthful, charismatic foil to Kerry’s craggy, Mt. Rushmore-ready visage and Bostonian restraint.
Or, he could choose Wesley Clark to bolster the national defense issue as well as the South–maybe even carry Arkansas. Edwards, for all his strengths, likely would have the same luck delivering North Carolina that Gore had in Tennessee.
A Southerner much more likely to carry his home state is Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who was briefly a presidential candidate. Graham’s eccentricity of keeping a minute-by-minute diary of his every move could turn him into a national joke, yet he remains a formidable possibility.
If Kerry wants to look Southwest, there is New Mexico’s Richardson. As the first Hispanic on a national ticket, he would certainly have a salutary effect on this growing voting bloc–a population group Bush is working hard to woo away from the Democrats. It could affect not only Arizona and New Mexico, but perhaps even Colorado and Nevada.
The real harbinger of a Southwest-Midwest strategy would be the selection of Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, who stands the strongest chance of delivering his home state and its 11 electoral votes. He would also have appeal in Ohio and Pennsylvania, with their industrial union bases.
Though it’s often said that people don’t vote for a vice president, it’s equally true that there are instances when the choice is decisive–as when Lyndon Johnson delivered Texas to John F. Kennedy. The current liberal candidate from Massachusetts would like nothing more than to pull off a similar strategic coup.
