GOP seeks to press wedge issues in South

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- In a region where God, guns, and gay rights fire up a socially conservative electorate, Republicans hope the stark contrast between President Bush and his eventual Democratic opponent helps them win congressional races this fall and seal their dominance in the South.

In South Carolina, for instance, the prospect of a Massachusetts liberal from "the gay marriage state" -- or even a North Carolinian who supports civil unions for gays and lesbians -- heading the Democratic ticket in November has Republicans gleefully anticipating a cultural showdown.

"Marriage in general is a very important structural societal institution. When you use it to approve and promote homosexuality, it stirs up a lot of people who are not even necessarily socially conservative," said Representative Jim DeMint, a Republican seeking his party's nomination for South Carolina's open US Senate seat. "I think it gives Republicans a lot of strength in the South. If you've got [a nominee] from Massachusetts who clearly doesn't support marriage and traditional aspects of marriage, I think it's going to play well for Republicans this fall."

The presence of Bush on the ballot will only make it harder for Democrats, who are mathematically close to taking back control of the US Senate but geographically handicapped in the effort, political analysts say. With the retirement of five Southern Democratic senators, Republicans see opportunities to pick up seats in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, a state that has not sent a Republican to the Senate since Reconstruction.

If the Senate races seem formidable for the Democrats, the outlook in the House is even more glum for the embattled party, out of power in the White House and both chambers of Congress. The first congressional primaries of the election year will be held Tuesday in California, Maryland, and Ohio.

Although Democrats were buoyed recently by the pickup of a Republican-held seat in a special election in Kentucky, congressional redistricting in 2000 continues to favor the majority Republicans. Party strategists think fewer than 30 of the House's 435 seats are in play, and Republicans successfully redrew district lines in Texas this year to imperil seven Democratic incumbents.

Absent an anti-Republican wave later this year, Democrats seem destined to remain the minority party in Congress for at least two more years, political analysts say.

"It doesn't look good" for Democrats, said University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato, pronouncing the minority party's prospects "equally pathetic in both houses" of Congress. "It would literally take a major Democratic upset" to change control of either chamber, and "nobody is betting on that," he said.

In the fight for Senate control, the South will be pivotal, analysts say. The region, once a Democratic bastion, has become a GOP stronghold, and voting patterns indicate Republicans are becoming more entrenched there, said Merle Black, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta who is a specialist on Southern politics.

Exit polls in 2002 indicated Republicans had an advantage -- 44 percent to the Democrats' 36 percent in the 11-state South; a Gallup poll taken after the 2003 elections indicated that independent voters favored Republicans over Democrats 49 percent to 42 percent, Black said. Although antiwar candidate Howard Dean is no longer in the race, a Democratic standard-bearer who is strongly critical of the US invasion of Iraq could complicate things for Democratic Senate candidates, since the South largely approves of Bush's policy toward Iraq.

The selection of the Democratic presidential ticket also is expected to affect the US Senate races in the South and, in turn, the kind of Congress the next president will face. Republicans had hoped Dean would capture the nomination, saying that it would put Democratic Senate as well as House candidates in the position of separating themselves from a man unpopular in the region.

If Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts becomes the Democratic nominee, Republican Party strategists say, Democratic congressional candidates may still lag behind. Normally, a House or US Senate candidate receives a piggyback campaign benefit when his or her party's presidential candidate campaigns in the state or buys broadcast ads there, an official at the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee said. But if Kerry decides to spend little time or money in the South, the Democratic Party's Southern candidates will have to get by with a limited pool of resources from their own fund-raising and from national campaign committees, the official noted.

Democrats are banking on continued unemployment in the nation to persuade conservative Southerners to vote against GOP candidates for the Senate. In South Carolina especially, some voters are protesting the movement of jobs abroad, and Democrats have seized on a White House economic report that called the outsourcing of jobs a positive thing for the economy.

One likely Democratic Senate candidate in South Carolina, state Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, is expected to make trade and jobs an issue in the fall, especially if her opponent is DeMint, who cast the deciding vote July 2002 in providing Bush with fast-track authority to negotiate more free-trade agreements.

"You open the door to China, and it's closing down for the American people," said Brian Archie, 42, as he left an employment center in Columbia. Archie said he has not decided how he would vote in the Senate race but was worried about losing his job at an electronics company: "Our president isn't doing anything to keep employment in the United States."

Nu Wexler, executive director of the South Carolina Democratic Party, said, "The challenge for us is getting unemployed textile workers and getting them to vote their economic interests."

Republicans, meanwhile, are counting on Southern distaste for such social issues as gay rights and gun control to solidify their base. Because many Southern Democrats are far more conservative than their Northeastern colleagues, candidates here may have to publicly separate themselves from a presidential candidate like Kerry, who represents a world far too liberal for voters in the South, Republicans say.

Also, "the economy is a solid Republican issue in the South," said Luke Byars, executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party. "You can elect a Democrat who wants to raise your taxes or a Republican. We'll play that any day."

Democrats have virtually conceded Georgia, where the retirement of conservative Democrat Zell Miller creates an opening for the GOP. Senator John Edwards's run for the presidency means North Carolina Democrats will have to succeed where they failed in 2002 with Erskine Bowles, a former Clinton administration official who lost a Senate race to Republican Elizabeth Dole. Florida and Louisiana are expected by both parties to be extremely competitive.

Democrats optimistically paint a scenario under which they could recapture control of the Senate, but the plan would require Democrats to hang on to four of the five Southern states in play, reelect vulnerable Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, who faces a tight race in South Dakota, and win races in two or three states now controlled by Republicans. If Bush loses reelection, Democrats need a net gain of only one seat to retake control of the US Senate.

Democrats see opportunities in Illinois, where Republican incumbent Senator Peter Fitzgerald is retiring, and in Alaska, where freshman Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski is considered vulnerable. "You'd always rather go into the general [election] with your incumbents, but we feel really good about our chances," said Brad Woodhouse, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.