Another Democrat appears to be poised to defect in a major election, this time in the Louisiana gubernatorial race:

Mayor Ray Nagin, a Democrat, crossed party lines Monday to endorse Republican Bobby Jindal in the Nov. 15 runoff election for governor. Jindal faces Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco in the election.

Perhaps the Democrats should call in the UN -- 2004 is looking more like a quagmire every day. But this news, combined with the Zell Miller bombshell a few days back, and the sudden retirement announcement of Bob Graham in Florida, and it's becoming clear that the Democrats are losing the South. Despite their recent decision to abandon gun control, the South isn't likely to trust that Dem policy to be permanent, and the screechiness of the anti-war themes at the Presidential debates may play well in Hollywood and San Francisco, but among the NASCAR dads and the Confederate flag wavers that Dean craves (heh), it sounds like eight different flavors of wuss. (I'm exempting Joe Lieberman here.) These are Democrats who support unions and think that Bush gives away the store to the rich, but they're not going to stand for blame-America-first-last-and-always politicians running things.

The Democrats may be on the verge of a meltdown of 1972 proportions, without a Watergate in sight to rescue them. (links via Oxblog)

Update: It turns out that I'm not the only one thinking along these lines. I came across Photodude, a Southern Democrat, who writes thoughtfully on the subject at some length (via Instapundit):

I think Miller has a couple of very valid points, even if they took him to a hasty conclusion. ... “Al Gore became only the third Democrat since the Civil War to lose every state in the Old Confederacy, plus two border states as well. George McGovern and Walter Mondale were the others. But they had an excuse: they were crushed in national landslides [...] Gore’s loss was different. Had he won any state in the Old Confederacy or one more border state, he would be president today. But it didn’t happen. Gore lost his home state of Tennessee, Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas and the Democratic bastion of West Virginia. Even Michael Dukakis -- hardly a son of the South -- didn’t manage to lose there.”

It’s the first thought I have when I hear someone who is still decrying how Bush “stole” Florida to win the election, as the Democrats had the power to make Florida totally irrelevant. Gore lost his home state. Gore lost his boss’ home state. Gore lost every state in the South, when winning just one would have made him the undisputed President.

Gore lost. Period.

Photodude puts in some excellent analysis, as I suppose only one who knows the South can do, and concludes that the Democratic cause in the South isn't hopeless yet, but it's rapidly heading that direction. He issues this warning:

So, you can bemoan any move to the center, and cling to the fact Gore got more individual votes than Bush in 2000, but you’ve just got your head in the sand. Electoral votes elect Presidents, and they will be won by wooing swing voters, not the party faithful.

Many of those swing voters appear to be in a wide swath of states the National Democratic Party seems to be largely ignoring ... any one of which could have won them the White House four years ago.

Read the entire post -- it's excellent.

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Tracked on January 10, 2005 10:12 AM