Posted on 04/16/2003 11:49:51 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Miss. GOP hopes tide will deliver statehouse NEWS ANALYSIS
By Reed Branson branson@gomemphis.com March 23, 2003
JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi Republicans, basking in the glow of victory after last November's national elections, are salivating these days at the prospect of a sweeping takeover of the statehouse.
Mississippi is one of three states that will hold gubernatorial and statewide elections this year (Kentucky and Louisiana are the others). Republican party leaders here hope they can carry momentum from last November's election and capitalize on a divided Democratic Party and voter anxiety over the state's economy.
To be sure, November's election is only now on the horizon, and any number of factors - including the outcome of the conflict in Iraq - may have local repercussions.
"If it backfires, Bush could put Republicans in a bad position,'' notes Steve Rozman, a professor of political science at Tougaloo College here. "If Bush is a great war hero and everything goes well . . . a number of Republicans could ride his coattails.''
So far, the party is displaying extraordinary discipline, uniting unofficially behind Haley Barbour (who faces a relatively unknown primary opponent) for governor and snuffing out some potentially divisive down-ballot Republican primary races, even as Democrats are waging war on one another.
And the party has enjoyed success at winning some Democrats to its side.
"Mississippi politics has been undergoing the beginnings of an historic realignment," Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Jim Herring recently wrote to his members. "Conservative Democrats . . . have been coming over to the GOP. We still have a lot of work to do to reach our goals, but I feel good about where we are today.''
To be sure, that is a highly partisan opinion. But consider:
Four years ago, Republicans were really competitive in only three races for statewide office: governor, lieutenant governor and auditor. They won the election for auditor.
This year, they will be competitive in at least five races. Auditor Phil Bryant is seeking re-election, with only token opposition. Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, elected as a Democrat in 1999, joined the Republican Party in November and is seeking re-election under the GOP banner.
Though he faces minor opposition in the Republican primary, Barbour will almost certainly be the party's nominee and is already waging a competitive campaign against Gov. Ronnie Musgrove. He is widely expected to out-raise and out-spend Musgrove.
And two statewide offices - attorney general and treasurer - are up for grabs after incumbent Democrats Mike Moore and Marshall Bennett, respectively, announced their retirements.
Four years ago, Republicans elected 33 members to the 122-member House and 18 to the 52-member Senate. (Neither body is run on a strictly partisan basis, but the weight of one party or another is important).
In recent months, four senators and five representatives have switched to the Republican Party.
That means Republicans, who won effective control of the Senate with Tuck's switch late last year, are within four seats of numerical superiority. It is hard to overestimate the resonance such a takeover would have, smashing the perception that Democrats own the statehouse.
In the House, Republicans are nowhere near a majority. But they are within three seats of a veto-proof minority that could add considerable strength to a Republican governor's hand.
All this comes as Republicans see a record number of candidates on their primary ballot - a ballot that two decades ago was almost always a ticket to defeat in November.
Finally, House Speaker Tim Ford (D-Baldwyn) is retiring, presenting at least the possibility of an expanded Republican presence and influence in the state House. A new speaker will be elected in January.
While the Mississippi Republican Party's leadership has worked quietly to build unity - dissuading long-time Republicans from challenging Tuck for lieutenant governor and narrowing the field of Republican candidates running for attorney general - Democratic leaders have acted more like free agents.
That is most apparent at the top of the ticket.
Musgrove faces a potentially draining challenge in the Democratic primary from John Arthur Eaves Jr., an attorney who can easily finance his own campaign and whose father ran for governor in the 1970s and '80s.
The challenge stems, it seems, from Musgrove's call for $250,000 caps on jury awards against doctors. The Legislature ultimately approved a $500,000 cap.
Lawyers who typically represent plaintiffs, most of whom had supported Musgrove in 1999, were outraged.
For months, Eaves has been airing commercials accusing Musgrove of robbing injured citizens of their rights.
And much of the rest of the plaintiff's bar - a key component of nearly any Democrat's financial base - has lost enthusiasm for re-electing Musgrove.
"It has become clearer than ever that the lieutenant governor and the Legislature are vitally important to protecting the rights of aggrieved Mississippians,'' said David Baria, president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association. "Therefore, those races are more important to members of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association than virtually any other races. It's just a matter of priorities.''
Many Democrats, though, say disunity and disagreement within the party are not unusual.
"By its very nature, the Democratic Party tends to represent a vast, broad group of people - people who are not organized. They represent the disenfranchised,'' says Sen. Hob Bryan (D-Amory). "Whereas more narrowly focused groups (Republicans) tend to be better organized.''
Perhaps most telling, though, was Musgrove's brief flirtation with surrender. The aggressive, 46-year-old chief executive has been defined by his drive to hold the office. But days before the deadline for candidates to sign up to run for governor, Musgrove was exploring the possibility of becoming president of Delta State University, college board officials confirm.
Musgrove insists he is focused on re-election. He has a pair of major achievements under his belt: rallying a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers to enact some of the most substantial teacher salary increases in history and to approve an incentive package to lure a $1 billion Nissan assembly plant to Canton.
The first cars are slated to roll off the assembly line this spring.
To some Democrats, this Republican bluster sounds familiar. Mississippians have solidly supported the last six Republican nominees for president, yet voters have turned to Democrats to fill an overwhelming majority of state and local offices.
Musgrove, it should be noted, trailed Republicans in pre-election polls in both 1999 and in his 1995 race for lieutenant governor - both of which he ultimately won.
And this moment in Mississippi politics is particularly reminiscent of the atmosphere in 1995, when Mississippi Republicans predicted that the 1994 GOP takeover of Congress would push them to stunning victories in state races here.
"We'll capture the governor and the lieutenant governor races, and I think we'll pick up additional statewide offices,'' then-Republican Party Chairman Billy Powell predicted in August 1995. "And for the first time, we have an awfully good chance to capture the state Senate and possibly a veto-proof house.''
On election day, though, the revolution stalled. Republican Gov. Kirk Fordice was easily re-elected, but Republicans lost seats in the statehouse.
"It was a flat wash,'' an admittedly surprised Fordice said the day after the election.
Contact Jackson, Miss., Bureau reporter Reed Branson at (601) 352-8631.
I thought the "experts" told us Bush didn't have any coattails.
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