The New Southern Strategy -- Democrats Tap Conservative Candidates in GOP Bastions

From The Wall Street Journal:

This is how shaky Republican fortunes are in 2008: In one of the most conservative corners of the conservative South, Democrats stand a good chance of winning a congressional seat.

This working-class, mostly rural district has been controlled by Republicans since 1964, when Alabama's white electorate began its long turn away from the Democratic Party. In 2004, President George W. Bush won 67% of the district's vote. Today's leading candidate is Bobby Bright, a self-styled "Southern conservative" and sharecropper's son from remote Alabama farm country. In another era, he would have run as a Republican. But he's a Democrat, and early polls strongly suggest he can win.

Spurred by the souring economy and a newfound willingness to embrace conservative candidates, the Democratic Party is running its most competitive campaign across the South in 40 years, fielding potential winners along a rib of states stretching from Louisiana to Virginia, the heart of the Old Confederacy. Sen. Barack Obama's ability to excite African-American voters in certain Southern races could provide an additional boost, too.

The party's rising prospects point toward a once unthinkable goal: a reversal of the "Great Reversal," the switch in political loyalties in the 1960s that made the South a Republican stronghold for a generation. If the current picture holds, Democrats could use the Southern strength to help craft a workable Senate majority and expand their majority in the House of Representatives. At the very least, it widens the field of competitive seats, forcing Republicans to fight fires in once-reliably solid areas.

That Democrats are competitive at all in the South is one of the central narratives of this year's fight for Congress. As recently as July 2006, the year Democrats took control of Congress, a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll showed Southern voters bucking national sentiment, saying they preferred Republicans over Democrats by 47% to 40%.

But this spring, the party won special elections for House seats in heavily Republican parts of Mississippi and Louisiana. Democrats consistently outnumbered Republicans across the South in this year's presidential primaries. And in the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, conducted last month, Southern voters said they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress over a Republican one by a 44% to 40% margin, a reversal of the long-term historical patterns.

In early 2007, both parties expected only 35 to 40 House seats out of 435 to be truly competitive. Now, half a dozen Republican-held House seats across the South, including rural districts in Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana and South Carolina, are growing more competitive. That makes life tougher for Republicans already facing a 19-seat deficit.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in an essay published in May in Human Events, the conservative online magazine, warned that his party risks reverting to the "permanent minority status it had from 1930 to 1994."

The Republican gains in the South, which started with the Goldwater campaign in 1964, opened the door to the Nixon, Reagan and Bush presidencies by creating an impregnable voting block out of white conservatives. The reasons for the shift are still debated. Some argue Republicans successfully appealed to whites riled over the Civil Rights movement. Others say Republicans successfully appealed to voters in border Southern states who were disenchanted with the nation's crumbling cities and rising crime rate.

Why the South is moving toward Democrats today is an easier question to answer. One reason: With anxiety high about the economy, more voters are looking to Democrats amid a surge of populist sentiment and an embrace of activist government.

Democrats have also made efforts to recruit candidates who reflect the values of local districts. Not that long ago, party leaders picked from a list of liberal stalwarts who matched national party sentiments on issues such as gun rights and abortion. Now the focus is finding candidates "who would win," says one senior strategist.