The Hand of the Past in Contemporary Southern Politics 9780300132991

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Morphing of Southern Electoral Politics
Chapter 1. Seeing Red
Chapter 2. Give Them He--
Chapter 3. The Slow Talker
Chapter 4. Polis, Polis
Chapter 5. Krispy Kremed
Conclusion: Partisan Change and Political Continuity in the South
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

The Hand of the Past in Contemporary Southern Politics

The Hand of the Past in Contemporary Southern Politics

James M. Glaser

Yale University Press New Haven & London

Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Amasa Stone Mather of the Class of , Yale College Copyright ©  by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections  and  of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Set in Garamond and Stone Sans types by The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Glaser, James M., – The hand of the past in contemporary southern politics / James M. Glaser. p. cm. Includes bibliograhical references and index. ISBN --- (cloth : alk. paper) . Southern States—Politics and government—– . United States Congress—Elections. . Elections—Southern States. . Political campaigns— Southern States. . Party affiliation—Southern States. . Political parties— Southern States. I. Title. JK.G  .—dc  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.          

To Pam

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. —William Faulkner

Contents

Acknowledgments, xi Introduction: The Morphing of Southern Electoral Politics,  1

Seeing Red, 

2

Give Them He--, 

3

The Slow Talker, 

4

Polis, Polis, 

5

Krispy Kremed,  Conclusion: Partisan Change and Political Continuity in the South,  Notes,  References,  Index, 

ix

Acknowledgments

Like one of the theater’s most famous southern characters, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. As I conducted the research for this book, my strangers were busy, cautious, and wary of outsiders. Yet they took the time to field my requests and they allowed me access to their congressional campaigns. This book would not have been possible without their cooperation, and I offer a heartfelt thank you to George Landrith, Virgil Goode, Ed Merritt, Max Sandlin, Robin Hayes, Mike Taylor, Jim DeMint, Glenn Reese, Delbert Hosemann, and Ronnie Shows. They allowed me to tag along, to pick their brains, and to be a fly on the wall. Over the course of our time together, I asked for their reflections and opinions, but most of all, I asked for their trust, and they were all remarkably obliging. From my experiences with them, I came away with genuine admiration for their dedication to people, their tenacity, and their belief in the system. In addition to the candidates themselves, I am grateful to those people who offered me their time and insights in interviews taking place both before and after the election. In Mississippi: Joseph Ammerman, Jon Anderson, Richard Buckman, Connie Cochran, Amanda Crumley, xi

xii

Acknowledgments

Matt Friedeman, Kim Gillaspy, Brett Harvey, Lynn Hosemann, Harvey Johnson, Jim Mabus, Bill Minor, Jim Perry, Jan Rasch, Chip Reynolds, Johnnie Ruth Shows, Josh Trapp, Jack Turner, Emily Wagster, and Joel Wood. In North Carolina: John Carpenter, Andrew Duke, Randy Faulkner, Norman Gomlak, Barbara Hayes, Dr. Frank Howard, Elvin Jackson, James Johnson, Hugh Lee, Steve Lyttle, Jerry Maslowski, Tony McKinnon, Billy Mulden, Brill O’Brien, Rev. John Peek, Jim Ross, Susan Taylor, and Tommy Tucker. In South Carolina: Judy Bradley, Ralph Bristol, Debbie DeMint, Reese Edwards, Mike Fair, Johnie Fulton, Kerry Gillery, Jim Guth, Daniel Hamilton, Dan Hoover, Bill McCuen, Liz Patterson, Dave Woodard, and Barry Wynn. In Texas: Dean Aguillen, Sean Alda, Aaron Applebaum, Jim Chapman, Brian Eppstein, Jerry Graham, Gloria Lynn, Molly Beth Malcolm, Kevin McPherson, Sheri Lee Norris, Mike Patterson, Willie Ray, Bob Slagle, and Dennis Suiter. In Virginia: William Campbell, Frank Dabney, Lydia Dabney, Judy Epperly, Richard Foster, Alaric Gust, Tom Hance, Jim Herschman, Todd Jackson, Joyce Johnson, Tony Lundy, Laura Bland McFadden, Janet Mease, Linda Moore, Mike Rothfeld, and Jim Severt. Several members of the media were particularly helpful to me. Matt Friedeman and Dr. Frank Howard permitted me special access to their radio phonein shows, Mr. Friedeman from his studio, Dr. Howard via telephone. A number of newspaper reporters—Joseph Ammerman, Norman Gomlak, Richard Foster, Todd Jackson, Laura McFadden, Kevin McPherson, and Emily Wagster—gave me material they had collected from the campaigns, sent me clippings from campaign events I had been unable to eyewitness, and allowed me to tag along as they did their business. This fieldwork was not terribly expensive, but I did need some help and received funding from two important sources. I was fortunate enough to win a Congressional Research Grant from the Dirksen Center of Pekin, Illinois, and the Caterpillar Foundation. I also received assistance from the Tufts University Faculty Research Awards Committee. How grateful I am for these investments in my work. I also have been very lucky to have supportive colleagues at Tufts who have helped make many things possible. In particular, Jeff Berry (who taught a couple of my classes while I was out in the field), Kent Portney, and Vickie Sullivan were helpful to me as I worked on this book. Earl Black and Merle Black read the manuscript in its entirety and gave tremendously constructive advice on both the overall architecture of the book and its various pieces. This work is

Acknowledgments

much better because of their help and influence. Thanks as well to copy editor Robin DuBlanc, for her superb assistance in preparing this manuscript, and to John Kulka, the political science editor at Yale University Press, who has guided this project through the process. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Pam Endo, and my children, Alison and Jared, for their support and understanding in this endeavor. Being away for weeks at a time makes one appreciate home and family all the more.

xiii

The Hand of the Past in Contemporary Southern Politics

Introduction: The Morphing of Southern Electoral Politics

The South is a very different place at the turn of the century than it was just forty years ago. It is different on many dimensions, its changes dramatic and widespread. This is not the first “New South,” however. The term goes back to just after Reconstruction, when it was coined by Atlanta journalist Henry Grady to celebrate a new era, and there have been several “New Souths” since. While it is possible to identify several southern eras, strands of continuity run through all of them. William Faulkner stated the point too baldly, but at every point, the past has profoundly shaped the South, its people, and their social mores, political values, and religious beliefs. Put another way, there has been in the South a fluidity of past and present, a continual mixing together of old and new in each era to perpetuate a distinctive American subculture. This is true with regard to religion (Reed ; Wilson ), race relations and racial attitudes (Kuklinski, Cobb, and Gilens ), violence (Reed ; Cohen et al. ), and even music (Malone ). The prominent sociologist of the South, John Shelton Reed, makes this point when he notes that not everything distinctively southern is old. Many people just make that assumption: 1

2

Introduction

“It’s startling to consider how many of what seem bedrock Southern institutions are actually recent innovations. . . . I dare say few of us now could imagine the South without stock-car racing, although we know, deep down, that it didn’t exist before stock cars did. . . . And however great Grandma’s biscuits were, you can bet her grandmother didn’t bake many of them: she didn’t have the wheat flour and baking powder to do it with” (Reed , ). If the ever-evolving synthesis of old and new has sustained southern culture, it also has sustained the study of the South, for in every era those who have studied southern society have consistently reached back in time to explain the present state of things. What about politics? Here, too, a synthesis exists. As I argue in this book, contemporary southern electoral politics is a blend of the old and the new, of stubborn tradition and dramatic change, of small-town values and suburban demands, of Confederate flags and conservative Republicans, of large black populations and a new black electorate, of the Populist Left and the Christian Right. The past half century did not wipe out the old politics. Rather, the political system “morphed” into something new, something different but still bearing resemblance to what it was. The changes that have characterized this morphing process have been extraordinary. In recent years, they also have been well documented in the literature on southern electoral politics (Scher ; Fenno ; Black and Black ; Steed and Moreland ). To summarize this literature, I group the biggest and most important of these changes into five general categories. First, campaigns are different animals than they used to be. This is true throughout the country, but it is important nonetheless to acknowledge that these general changes in campaign practice have occurred concurrently with all of the changes particular to the South. Television, of course, has dramatically altered how candidates campaign, but it is not just that campaigns are waged heavily—and often negatively—on television. Developments in campaign finance have changed how and how much money is raised and spent. Campaign staffs have become professionalized as never before. And the technological environment in which campaigns take place is fundamentally different. Even in the most traditional places in the South, campaign Web sites, targeted cable advertising, sophisticated direct-mail operations, and computerized telephone Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) messages are standard. Accounts of contemporary electoral politics must start with the fact that campaigning is a wholly different enterprise because of these developments. Also contributing to the political conversion of the South are major changes in the region’s demographics. As its economy has evolved and diversified, as air

Introduction

conditioning has made it a more comfortable place to live, and as its racial climate has improved, the South has experienced substantial population gains. Migration from the North—white and even black—has contributed to the burgeoning population. In some places, Hispanic immigrants are settling in large numbers. All told, the South almost doubled in population size between  and —more than twice the growth of the rest of the country. It is not just that the region is more populous. Migrants, immigrants, and a new generation of southerners are now much more likely to live in metropolitan areas. Urbanization and suburbanization have occurred everywhere, of course, and this has had substantial consequences for American politics. As Oliver () writes, suburbanization is “one of the biggest changes in American society over the past fifty years, [one that] has affected the way Americans relate to their families, friends, and neighbors, understand local government, and experience community” (). In the South, migration, urbanization, and suburbanization have had extra impact, enhancing what was once a small middle class. Now, the South has a much larger body of voters with generally conservative leanings and no memory of the old southern conservative power structure that was based in rural areas and the Democratic Party. Migration and generational replacement have meant that there are far fewer people haunted by the ghosts of their Democratic parents and grandparents. Middle-class status has meant that they have natural interests often better served by a new political party. Suburban life and sprawl has created more individualistic lifestyles. These have been the ingredients for a transformation of southern politics. Third, specific to the South, the polity has changed enormously with the full enfranchisement of blacks. As blacks acquired the ability to vote across the region, there was a strong white political reaction, one that has continued to reverberate to this day, though not with the same intensity. This reaction had a huge impact on the party system, driving large numbers of whites from the Democratic Party and, as I discuss below, raising the Republican Party from the dead. The entry of blacks into the electorate and their almost complete allegiance to the Democratic Party also had a profound effect on southern elections. Indeed, in the post–Jim Crow years, the racial balance of a state or a district has become the most important variable in predicting the course of an election (Glaser ) and its result. As Black and Black () put it, “The mobilization of blacks as committed Democrats and the Republicans’ permanent need to secure sizable white majorities lies at the heart of the two-party battle in southern politics” ().

3

4

Introduction

Blacks had to overcome barriers to participation, to be sure, but also barriers to representation. With some help from the Supreme Court, with its broad interpretation of Section  of the Voting Rights Act, and a Justice Department willing to enforce the act, attempts to keep blacks from electing their own were successfully challenged.1 With each passing decade, blacks increasingly have been elected to various county and municipal offices and to Congress, state legislatures, and city councils (though mostly from majority black districts). While there is still a long way to go before black office holding is reflective of the racial balance in the general population—blacks constitute  percent of all southerners (U.S. Bureau of the Census , ), about  percent of the region’s elected officials—progress has been steady. And having blacks in these offices has made a difference. As Kerry Haynie () has shown, black officeholders have been more responsible for raising black issues on the public’s agenda and more vigorous in their pursuit of legislative success. This, together with the influence blacks have exerted on their representatives, both black and white, has brought some policy change to the South on issues of both material and symbolic importance to blacks (Haynie; Bensel and Sanders ). The fourth major change in southern electoral politics involves the politicization of evangelical Christians. This has happened across the country, but there is a larger concentration of evangelicals in the South, and their political power is more potent in the region. Before the s, many faithful Christians opted out of politics; they were, in fact, discouraged from politics by clergy more concerned with saving souls than saving society (Oldfield ). Even Jerry Falwell, the first important leader of the Christian political movement and founder of the Moral Majority, once eschewed politics for religion. Wrote Falwell in , “We have few ties to this earth. . . . Believing in the Bible as I do, I would find it impossible to stop preaching the pure saving Gospel of Jesus Christ and begin doing anything else, including fighting communism or participating in civil rights reforms. . . . Preachers are not called upon to be politicians but to be soul winners” (quoted in Layman , ). With the social upheavals of the s, however, Falwell and others changed their minds and their efforts. Christians were mobilized under their leadership in a fight against secularism, liberalism, and moral relativism. With large numbers, increasing political sophistication, a threatening enemy, and an easily mobilized group of people, faithful Christian conservatives have become a political force in the region and particularly in its Republican Party. In Layman’s words, “[C]onserva-

Introduction

tive Protestants abandoned their apolitical moorings in the late s and early s. . . . Religious conservatives became actively involved in battles over cultural issues such as abortion, the place of religion in the public schools, pornography, gender equality, and homosexual rights, and they infiltrated the ranks of the Republican party to fight these battles” (). The result has been that Republicans have acquired a core constituency, and this has helped to set the stage for the fifth major electoral development of recent decades, the evolution of the southern party system. The old southern political system was pathologically artificial, a one-party arrangement propped up by segregation and enforced by politicians invested in the old order. It was bound to disintegrate when the South was forced to integrate and when blacks became full participants in the system. And it did disintegrate, though it took some time for this to happen. With blacks entering into the polity and becoming incorporated into the Democratic Party, many whites left the party, either to move from the party of greater racial liberalism (Lamis ; Carmines and Stimson ) or to join the party that better represented their class interests (Petrocik ; Nadeau and Stanley ; Cowden ). Either way, the Republican Party finally had a niche to fill in the region, and it grew from a pathetic minority to a vibrant political force. The process of building something from nothing, or at least from very little, was difficult, especially so as Republicans were trying to “build a pyramid from the top,” and it did not happen overnight (Bullock ; Glaser, ; Black and Black ). Even through the Reagan-Bush years, southern Democrats were able to control southern congressional delegations and state legislatures. By the early to mid-s, however, the Republican Party had reached majority status in the region. And when the Republicans came out of the  elections with dramatic gains, the South became the most reliably Republican region of the country. Moreover, conditions are right for Republicans to succeed—and dominate—for the foreseeable future. As noted above, the South’s burgeoning metropolitan areas, which gave the Republicans a foothold going back to the s, continue to grow and continue to provide very fertile ground for Republicanism. The passage of time has finally drained the region of many conservatives who had maintained an affiliation with the party of their ancestors. And political practices like racial districting have skewed electoral outcomes even further to the GOP at the same time that they have contributed to greater black representation (Swain ; Lublin ; Black ). Little surprise that contemporary analysts of southern politics hail the  breakthrough as the

5

6

Introduction

beginning of a new era in southern politics, “the completion of congressional realignment in the South,” according to Nicol Rae (, ), and “an unprecedented forward spurt of the ongoing settling of the two-party competition in Dixie” to Alexander Lamis (, ). The story of contemporary southern politics is the story of this change in the party system, “the great white switch” to Republicanism as Black and Black (, ) dub it, and the demise of the Democratic Party in the South to clear minority status. Electoral campaigns are now run very differently. The South’s metropolitan areas have bloomed, their outer layers filled with conservative voters with new allegiances. Blacks and evangelicals are full participants in southern electoral politics. The partisan system in the South has dramatically and irrevocably shifted. These changes have led to the creation of a new political order. Yet, as I write above, understanding contemporary southern politics requires more than just an accounting of these changes. One needs to place them in the context of the old political system. Dramatic changes have occurred, but in terms of campaign politics in the region, there is also a great deal of continuity. This continuity is in evidence when one looks at various aspects of the campaign, not perhaps the media by which campaign messages are carried but the messages themselves. And the messengers: their values and beliefs and their relationships with voters, colleagues, opponents, journalists, the national parties, and each other. It would be surprising if there were not some continuity. As I will discuss in the chapters ahead, the political culture of the region still bears some resemblance to its traditional political culture. The racial component of the political culture is dramatically different, of course. Jim Crow segregation has been so completely rejected that pollsters do not even ask about it anymore (Schuman et al. , ), and other racial attitudes have shifted markedly in the region. However, many other elements of the political culture, the shared ideas about the relationship of people to the government, are still the same. This is not just to say that large portions of the southern population are heavily conservative or traditional in their views. It goes beyond this. The expectations voters have of their representatives and the government resemble expectations of the past. Southerners attribute success and failure much as their parents and grandparents did, and these attributions guide decisions about the allocation of political resources. Certainly, southerners have a regional identity—Reed () even likens them to an ethnic group—and this orientation colors attitudes toward various political targets and personalities. While the South is now home to unprecedented numbers of migrants and immigrants, the political culture of the

Introduction

region does not simply pass from generation to generation, it permeates the environment, shaping the attitudes of those who live there, native and newcomer alike. I show elsewhere, for instance, that migrants to the South often appear to adopt the racial-political attitudes of their neighbors (Glaser and Gilens ). The southern political culture is thus self-sustaining, perpetuating itself in myriad ways and affecting how politicians campaign and how they relate to their constituents. Electoral politics also retains some flavor from the past when politicians learn the lessons of their predecessors. Politicians are great imitators. They do what works. They are attentive to what is successful or what seems to have been successful. Even if new to politics, they hire political consultants who are paid to know what has worked before. As I will show throughout this book, despite the tremendous societal changes and the changed party balance, successful politicians rely upon modes of campaigning and many of the messages that have been effectively used in the past. Finally, there is continuity in southern politics because some electoral incentives stay the same. This is because electoral rules and conventions have stayed on the books, and candidates respond to them as rational actors. This is also because of demographic patterns. Generations replace generations, but the new generations retain many of the allegiances and identities of the old. Even putting aside the region’s massive urbanization and suburbanization, there are still large numbers of blacks across the “Black Belt,” Hispanics in Texas and Florida, traditional mountain Republicans and fundamentalist Christians in Appalachia and the Ozarks, and military personnel and retirees throughout the region. These “old” populations continue to create incentives for politicians to behave in certain predictable ways. In this effort, I aim to both supplement the existing literature on contemporary southern electoral politics and offer a corrective to it. The literature on political change in the region is ample. It is largely focused—and rightly focused—on the dramatic shifts that have occurred. The South continues to be such a fascinating subject because of these changes, and its changes have had an impact on the politics of the nation as a whole. What do these changes look like in the context of real political campaigns and real candidates? How are these changes reflected in the ideas, the attitudes, the approaches, and the strategies of those who run for office? Most of the extant literature does an excellent job of documenting the South’s political change and even developing some of the nuances, but these questions are rarely asked or answered. What is often absent in the literature is what this change has meant to the “stuff” of politics—the

7

8

Introduction

characters, the images, the rhetoric, and the scenery. I intend to correct this in this volume. I also hope to use this book to update the scene since the  publication of my first book, Race, Campaign Politics, and the Realignment in the South. In that book, I described campaign politics in the s and s, the twilight period of Democratic dominance at the congressional level (as well as levels on down the ticket). That book was an attempt to portray how Democrats had been able to prolong the realignment for so long a period of time, even through the Reagan-Bush years. With the  elections that era passed, and we have entered a new one, a competitive party era with a significant Republican tilt. In these pages, I describe campaign politics in the post- era. By using a variety of different cases from places that are in various stages of realignment—one nascent, one advanced, the rest in between—I aim to show how the realignment has spread through the South, what kinds of places and forces have accelerated it, and what kinds of places and forces have retarded it. This book also is intended to work as a corrective to the literature. The spectacular change in the South is certainly worth the attention of scholars and students, but as I have discussed, contemporary campaign politics still borrows from the past, from the distant past and the more recent past. The old literature on the South was stuck on this point because the South was so resistant to change. Now that so much change has come, those aspects of the political system that are constant have been overlooked or taken for granted. Clearly, the hand of the past has long reached into the present. V. O. Key’s landmark  volume, Southern Politics in State and Nation, is based on the premise that the region’s politics, in the sunset years of the Jim Crow era, were formed and nourished by a racial balance left over from slavery days. That V. O. Key has served as the touchstone for just about everything that has been written about southern politics since is some indication of how the southern past informs the present. The strands of political continuity come from different eras. They reach in different ways into the present. And this is worth highlighting, not to deny the importance or scope of political change, but to bring back a forgotten point that change overlays a strong southern tradition. A full understanding of southern politics requires this.

THE RESEARCH DESIGN

The cases in this book are derived from participant-observation research. The pictures I draw of contemporary politics come from my experiences in the field

Introduction

with ten candidates and their campaigns during five southern congressional elections in  and . My modus operandi was to travel with competing candidates for up to four days while they campaigned for office, going where they went and meeting the people they met. Covering dueling campaigns this way is a bit like covering a war from both sides, slipping in and out of enemy lines. It is filled with uncertainty, occasional disappointment, and a lot of waiting around, but it is the best way to study the “stuff” of politics. This is not meant to replace more “scholarly” work—I myself have analyzed electoral results and public opinion in front of my computer, looking for relationships between variables and quantifying them—only to put some meat to the bones, to capture the context in which southern elections take place, and to offer a different perspective on what is going on. The numbers tell us that politics in the region are changing. There is no doubt that is the case. But there is so much more to the story, and my hope in going into the field is to capture it. The five races I write about in this book come from Virginia’s Fifth District (“southside Virginia,” a district based around Danville and Charlottesville), Texas’s First District (northeastern Texas), South Carolina’s Fourth District (Greenville/Spartanburg metropolitan area), North Carolina’s Eighth District (running from the suburbs of Charlotte to Fayetteville), and Mississippi’s Fourth District ( Jackson, Vicksburg, and surrounding counties). I also spent one week in a district in Lexington, Kentucky, but was refused access to the Democratic campaign in that race. I spent a couple of interesting days with Republican candidate Ernest Fletcher, but I was unable to include the election in my study. All these elections were open-seat congressional elections from the late s. I have used congressional elections in this study because they simply work best for participant-observation research. Senatorial and gubernatorial elections are difficult to work with for a variety of reasons. They require tracking candidates over much larger geographic areas, which adds to the logistical difficulties that are routine in this kind of work. They are also bigger affairs, with larger staffs and more money to spend, and this often makes it difficult to gain access. Statewide candidates receive much more media attention than congressional candidates, which makes my presence less intriguing. And the campaign staffs are more protective of the candidates. My efforts to gain the cooperation of these larger-scale campaigns, even to simply explore the possibilities, generally have been fruitless. Congressional candidates, on the other hand, run a much smaller operation. A political scientist with little to offer the campaign except a very modest amount of posterity has some appeal to these candidates. The Kentucky case aside, these campaigns were very responsive to my requests.

9

10

Introduction

Open-seat elections were also an obvious choice. Given the huge rate of incumbent success in congressional elections—averaging  percent nationwide in the s (Stanley and Niemi , )—open-seat elections promise more competitive, high-intensity contests (Westlye ). These are the elections where the outcome is most uncertain.2 These are the elections most likely to be funded and covered by the media—on both sides. These are the campaigns that are most likely to make a difference with voters, for they take place in information-rich environments where voters can and do make more reasoned decisions (Popkin ; Kahn and Kenney ). There are two sets of comparisons that structure this book. As I analyze change in electoral politics in the region, I first compare the cases to each other. The five cases cover elections in districts that represent different shades along a realignment spectrum.3 One case, in Texas’s First District, represents continued Democratic successes. Here, the Democratic candidate effectively put together the biracial coalition that had sustained Democrats through the s and s, showing that it can still be done. I follow this case with two others that represent Democratic victories that proved to be ephemeral. In Mississippi , the Democratic candidate also won with a biracial coalition formula—but found himself out of a job after the  redistricting process. His district was sacrificed in the line drawing, and he lost convincingly to a neighboring Republican in . As I will discuss, redistricting has been a force that has worked to the advantage of Republicans. In the Virginia  case, the Democratic victor soon left the Democratic Party to become an independent—and ultimately a Republican. The tale of his party switch is not an uncommon one. Switches like this have been a boon to the Republican Party, a key to its growth. The final two cases illustrate Republican victories, one in North Carolina’s Eighth District, where the exploding suburbs are encroaching on traditional Democratic territory, the other in a completely realigned South Carolina district (South Carolina ), where the Republicans have the problems that “bigtent parties” must contend with. The book is organized along this spectrum, the cases proceed in this order, and the result is a picture of the dynamic realignment in the South. Moreover, these districts vary along the dimensions that have led to the major changes to the southern political system—the amount of urban and suburban development, the percentage of black voters in the district, and the level of religious traditionalism in the area—and this highlights how important these variables have been to the political changes the region has experienced.4

Introduction

The second set of comparisons structures my argument about continuity in southern politics. In each chapter I compare contemporary campaign politics, as described in these cases, to campaign politics from both the distant (pre– civil rights movement) and recent (s) past. I am not a historian and there is no primary historical research here. The past I compare to the present is a past that has been described by important political scientists from the s through the s. My touch points are the works of V. O. Key, Richard Fenno, Earl and Merle Black, historians Lawrence Goodwyn and Michael Kazin, and others. Indeed, in each chapter, I aim to show that the argumentation of these books still holds, using the case at hand or all the cases to make the point. In chapter , I test my own previous arguments about the South in the s against what is going on post-. In making all these comparisons, I have focused on three variables—campaign style, campaign strategy, and campaign psychology. Campaign style refers to the types of candidates who emerge, their modes of communication, and the ways that they relate to voters and supporters. The concept here is not far from Richard Fenno’s “home style,” and indeed borrows from that important work (Fenno ). Here, however, I look at individuals trying to get to Congress, not at those already holding office who have successfully established a representational relationship. And while Fenno, in more recent work, does look at campaign behavior, it is more in the context of an entire career and how established senators have forged and sustained these representational relationships in wave after electoral wave (Fenno ). By looking at competitive open-seat elections where candidates, often for the first time, must actively and vigorously campaign, I am able to get some insight into the types of people who run for Congress (losers as well as winners) and the way that they present themselves to and interact with voters and other political actors. By campaign strategy, I mean the overall plan that candidates bring to their contests as well as the tactics they use to execute their plan. In congressional elections, strategies generally involve the issues candidates highlight to prime the electorate;5 the rhetorical messages they use to connect with voters; the means—generally advertisements—by which they convey their messages; the types of voters and donors they attempt to win over and motivate (as well as those they choose to avoid); the way they relate to other candidates on the ballot, both in their party and in the opposition; and the means by which they work to make themselves heard in a crowded and noisy campaign environment. Campaign strategy, as Tali Mendelberg () effectively argues in the context of race, includes both explicit and implicit communications, and in

11

12

Introduction

this analysis, I attempt to account for both. Here, I also include the dynamic part of the campaign, the give-and-take, which often is not part of a highly calculated grand plan but nevertheless constitutes an important part of what goes on in a tough contest. Third, I hope to provide insight into campaign psychology. By this I mean the ideas that run through the heads of candidates as they go about their business, their intentions (where they are discernible), their aspirations, their insecurities, and their general attitude about what they are doing. Why do they choose to run? How do they think about other political actors—opponents, reporters, supporters, and, of course, voters? What are they really thinking about the things that happen to them on the campaign trail? I obviously cannot climb into the heads of the various politicians I describe in this book. After spending several campaign days with each of them, however, I have gotten some sense not only of what they are doing but also of what they are thinking about what they are doing.

A NOTE ON PRESENTATION

Because the “data” I have collected come from my observations and not from a more systematic “history” of the course of the campaigns, I have written about these campaigns as a series of vignettes. While at events, I tried to be a sponge, to soak up all the details: from what a candidate said and did, to how people responded, to what types of people were at the event. And the lessons to be taken from these events are not derived just from the events themselves but from the travel to and from the events; the anticipation of the events; and their rehashing, most of which takes place in the car with the candidate and (often) his entourage. I present this material in vignettes to best display the style, the strategies, and the psychology of the campaigns. The reader also will note that the portrayals of the elections are all in the present tense. This was a conscious decision. Because much of the strength of participation-observation research derives from its proximity and its immediacy, I attempt to create the impression of being there. And although I have removed myself from the description, I am clearly there; there are places where the candidate or some other political actor is speaking to me, though that is not noted in the text.6 Finally, there is some material in these cases that is not immediately relevant to the general argument I make, and this is purposeful. My goal here is not just to discuss the changes and the continuities in the politics of the South but to of-

Introduction

fer a full and interesting picture of what it is like on the campaign trail. I also hope to capture the humanity of the candidates, to offer a picture of what these people are like and how they think. Since Theodore White wrote his famous presidential election books, there has developed a genre of political travel literature, generally written by journalists, that is premised upon taking the reader into the presidential campaigns. From White’s () landmark description of the  election to Richard Ben Cramer’s () hefty tale of the  election to the Newsweek special postelection editions, every contemporary presidential election has been chronicled from the inside, and we know a lot about them.7 Congressional elections are such different operations, however, and my aim here is to provide some rich description of what it is like to run for congressional office. Congressional elections are not as glamorous and are very much “on the fly,” but they are as important to understand—and as entertaining—as the elections at the top of the ballot. I leave in the detail, as it may provide fodder for other political scientists who see something in these cases that I did not. In this way, I hope this work echoes.

13

Chapter 1 Seeing Red

First District Texas,  The first case I look at is a  election in East Texas, a place where Republicans are winning in presidential and statewide elections, but Democrats have held on at the congressional level and at most lower levels as well. How have these Democrats resisted the southern Republican tide? Here is an example of one successful Democratic candidate using a campaign formula that has long been effective in this rural corner of the state. With each passing year, however, there are fewer of these Democrats left in Texas, as in the South in general. But as this was a Democratic stronghold for reasons other than race, it also is a place where Democrats have survived.

CLASSIC CAR PARADE: WINNSBORO, TEXAS

T-birds and Model T’s, Mustangs and Novas, even Model A’s with FDR and Hoover for President signs roll down the main avenue in Winnsboro, Texas, in the classic car parade. It is a rite of autumn here 14

Seeing Red

in the northeastern corner of Texas, and car enthusiasts from as far away as Dallas gather for the event. The townsfolk along the sides of the road wave to the passing cars. But the parade is as much for the drivers to show off their cars as for those people who have come to watch. Among the several politicians in the parade are the two candidates for Congress from the First District, both riding with supporters and waving to the crowd along the route. As they pass, their postures remind one of their positions two weeks before the election. One is behind in the race, doing all he can to attract attention to his campaign before time runs out. The other is sitting comfortably on the basis of a large war chest and a well-cultivated network. Ed Merritt, the Republican candidate, is the underdog. A tall, somewhat gawky man, “[he] physically doesn’t look like a man from East Texas,” says a journalist covering the race. Bald, with a hook nose, a moustache, and glasses, he almost looks ethnic, even when wearing his jeans and western shirt. It is not that bald is a problem. This district has been represented for the past ten years by a very bald Jim Chapman, whose staff would not allow him to wear hats lest people not recognize him. But Merritt is almost funny looking, the Democrats often joking that he looks like he is wearing Groucho glasses. Indeed, his media campaign has been careful in its use of his image. At one point in the campaign, Merritt was endorsed by the National Rifle Association. When his opponent made an issue of the fact that Merritt did not himself own a gun, Merritt went out and bought one, and then suggested to his media consultant that a gun-toting photograph might work to counter the attack. His consultant rejected the idea outright. It just would not look natural, said the consultant. In actuality, Merritt is very Texas. He grew up in Waco, attended school at Texas Tech and Baylor Law School, and practiced law in the Longview area. Out campaigning, Merritt is a “Happy Warrior.” Perhaps it is that he is a novice. This is his first venture into electoral politics. More likely, it is just that he is a gregarious, open man who picks up energy from other people and enjoys the meeting and greeting requirements of the campaign. His friendliness masks some of his other characteristics; he is dogged and determined, excellent on the stump, sincere about the conservative cause, and ready to attack. He is also a strong Christian, motivated and emboldened by his religious convictions.1 And Merritt is willing to do those things that sometimes require a diminished dignity, which is also a quality of a good candidate. In this parade, he is standing on the sideboard of the classic black Model T, awkwardly hanging on to the side of the car with one hand while leaning out and waving to the crowd with

15

16

Seeing Red

the other. If he were to sit in the car, of course, no one could see him, so he has improvised this uncomfortable but necessary position. Also in the parade is Max Sandlin, the Democrat in this race. Sandlin sits in the passenger seat of a bright red convertible Mustang waving to the crowd while his friend honks the horn. Sandlin looks the part of the East Texan, with a rugged appearance that goes well with his boots and dungarees and his really firm handshake. He is a sportsman and an athlete who made his mark as a high school football player some twenty years before.2 Moreover, he has an East Texas persona, bullish in his demeanor and in his general optimism. It is also apparent in how he attacks campaigning as a physical challenge. He often avoids eating on the road, not wanting to gain weight on junk food. He is too busy to eat anyway, often pushing himself and his staff through mealtimes. His staffers have learned to eat when they can. Sandlin has a very diverse professional background, so diverse, in fact, that it is hard to imagine that all of his jobs get full attention. His campaign résumé seems too full. But in the campaign, each item serves a purpose and says something about the man. His campaign literature, with a picture of his attractive wife and family, lists all his many hats.   • Cut taxes and spending as Harrison County Judge • Worked with troubled youth as Harrison County Court of Law Judge • Former Instructor at East Texas Baptist University.   • Runs a gasoline distribution company and chain of convenience stores • Vice President of an oil and gas exploration company • Attorney, specializing in family law and oil and gas law (Partner Sandlin and Buckner)    • Married, father of four children • Active in Boy Scouts and as coach of youth sports teams • Active member of First Baptist Church of Marshall • Former Sunday School Teacher, Children’s Division

The document does not mention that Sandlin is the former chair of the Harrison County Democratic Party or that he has joined numerous civic groups, and it does not say how he manages all these commitments. Part of this may be some puffing and part may be that he is simply a man of great and stubborn energy. There is an added benefit to all of his professional, political, and civic activities and that is that Sandlin has a large network to tap as he runs for Congress. On this day, in fact, Sandlin is being driven in the classic car parade by the manager of Governmental Relations and Special Projects for a major oil company in Dallas. The churchgoing, sports-loving, average East Texas persona notwithstand-

Seeing Red

ing, Sandlin is anything but an average fellow. He is a wealthy man and in this election has been willing to put up his own money to get to Congress. The candidate has financed much of his campaign, investing almost $, of his own money in the form of loans and contributions (Federal Election Commission ).3 That money has changed the complexion of the race. “One phrase that describes it,” says Merritt’s media consultant, “He [has] the money to buy the election. He [has] the money to buy the minority vote, the labor vote, the Chapman campaign, [campaign manager] Bob Slagle, and five or six well-paid campaign staffers.” It is not just that he has started with more money. His personal loans and contributions have been seed money. Money follows money; it flows to those who are perceived as having a chance to win. And Sandlin has been a credible candidate from the start, which has enabled him to raise significant sums through individuals and PACs. This also has frozen some of the money that might otherwise have gone to his opponent. Merritt’s fund-raiser has been told by many PACs that they did not want to invest in the race because of Sandlin’s wealth. Says Merritt’s media consultant, “We have heard over and over again, ‘We like Ed, but we just don’t think he can win.’ I’ve heard that more than the usual, ‘The check’s in the mail.’” Sandlin’s money also has made it difficult for Merritt to get taken seriously with Roll Call, Charlie Cook, and others whose Washington handicapping is consulted by PACs allocating money. All told, the Democrat’s funding advantage over the course of the campaign is significant. By the end of the contest, his campaign has taken in over $. million, compared to the still-significant $, reaped by Merritt ( FEC reports).4 The funding difference is apparent when looking at the two different operations. Sandlin’s campaign operation is larger and more experienced. Merritt, as his professional media advisor put it, has run “a hamburger helper campaign”; it has been an attempt to do a lot with a little. Not only is Merritt a novice, but most of his much smaller campaign team is as well. Merritt’s campaign manager started as a student intern with no previous political experience. Others on the staff are also new to the game. While there are some important professionals associated with the campaign, notably Merritt’s PAC fund-raiser and his media consultant, there is a big difference in the professionalism of the operations. Merritt’s money, moreover, has come late. Although he is able to spend more now, with two weeks left in the campaign, on some hard-hitting advertisements, this money (mostly from the Republican Party) may be past the window of opportunity to develop a positive message. The Republican’s campaign con-

17

18

Seeing Red

sultant believes this is the case. So, too, does his Democratic counterpart. “Their timing is off,” says the Democratic campaign manager. “You should first go negative and then stop and go positive. It leads people to remember something negative about the candidate, but forget the source. But Merritt hasn’t had the opportunity to turn positive again.” The funding advantage is not the only advantage that Sandlin has over Merritt. He also has a partisan advantage, of sorts. It is true that Republicans have won the district in recent presidential and statewide elections. Although Bill Clinton won the district with  percent of the vote in  (Ross Perot winning  percent in this, his native district), a Democratic presidential candidate really has not done well in the district since Jimmy Carter won  percent of the vote in  (he barely beat Ronald Reagan in the district in ). Nor have Democratic statewide candidates been terribly successful in recent years. Ann Richards “got the thunder kicked out of her” in the First. Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison also have won significant victories in the district in recent years. But at the local and congressional levels, the Democrats have held on. Jim Chapman, despite an orchestrated and well-organized attempt by Republicans to win the seat when it opened up in , won and held it for over ten years. The district has been represented by a Democrat in Congress since Reconstruction, and herein is part of Sandlin’s advantage. At the local level, particularly in the northern part of the district, that party advantage is marked, the local Democratic Party structure being much stronger than the Republican. Only some of the district’s counties actually have twoparty systems at the local level. Observes a Paris (Texas) radio reporter who covers politics, “When the Democrats have a function, everyone shows. All the candidates, even if they are already elected [because they have no Republican opposition] show their backing of the party. The Republicans don’t do that. Of course, there aren’t as many Republicans up and down the ballot.” There is also a lingering Democratic loyalty in the district, with large numbers of yellow-dog Democrats (people who would vote for a yellow dog before voting for a Republican) still in the fold. Merritt’s media consultant is certainly aware of this, noting that Republicans cannot easily sell their party in East Texas. Rather, they have to sell philosophy and ideas to voters. His candidate has absorbed this advice well. Out on the hustings, Merritt describes himself as the conservative candidate for Congress. “We have a conservative mindset here in East Texas more than a Republican or Democratic one,” he says in one speech. “People around here go for the conservative candidate, and I would urge you to look at the primary and see who has been more consistently conser-

Seeing Red

vative in this race.” Merritt does not hide his Republicanism, as the Republican candidate did the last time the congressional seat was open in .5 Clearly, however, he is cautious about the label. Sandlin’s possible partisan advantage may be heightened by the fact that he emerged from a very competitive primary, which some believe has activated Democratic voters across the district. For Merritt to win, he has to either convert people who voted against Sandlin in the primary or win a large share of the nonprimary vote. The former strategy is not likely to be successful, given that Sandlin’s opponent in the primary, Jo Anne Howard, was more liberal—a “Hillary Clinton–like candidate,” according to a Republican official—and her supporters would not be likely to find Merritt particularly attractive.6 The latter strategy—activating the nonprimary vote—is the more plausible, even though Sandlin has been able to characterize himself as a centrist, the type of candidate who might appeal to the nonprimary electorate. The Republican camp, nonetheless, is aiming to turn out and attract as many nonprimary voters as possible, and their advertisements are designed with this target audience in mind. There is also some hope that the lackluster presidential race will dampen turnout. Even though President Clinton made a stop in Longview a couple of weeks earlier, the presidential contest is not creating any excitement in the state (or the country, for that matter). The Phil Gramm–Victor Morales Senate race, once viewed as competitive, has turned into a cakewalk two weeks out. Republicans are hoping that low turnout might work in their favor, as it did across the country in the  elections. Sandlin has a couple of other reasons to be confident about his chances. For one, the district is drawn in such a way as to advantage him in this matchup. Ed Merritt is from Longview, a Republican city in Gregg County. While Merritt has not cultivated a high profile in that community, he certainly has some advantages there. Longview, however, is split between the First and the Fourth Districts; only six Longview precincts are actually in the First. Sandlin, on the other hand, lives in Marshall, in Harrison County, and was raised outside of Texarkana, both more populous areas completely within the district. Not surprisingly, Sandlin’s positives are highest in Harrison County, and here is an advantage. As the candidate puts it, “Issues are more important if voters don’t know you. But I played sports here. I have many old friends. I have personal and family connections that are important and strong. A lot of people will just say, ‘I’m just gonna let Max take care of it.’” Also to Sandlin’s advantage is the support of the outgoing representative, Jim Chapman. Chapman has been popular in the district through his tenure, and his endorsement has been im-

19

20

Seeing Red

portant to Sandlin, not just in courting voters but in building a staff. Many of Sandlin’s campaign aides and volunteers have worked in Chapman’s previous campaigns, including his campaign manager and several of his connections to minority communities and to financial supporters. Two weeks out, Sandlin is quite confident of his victory. His polls tell him that he has a comfortable lead, and he is working merely to maintain it. Merritt, on the other hand, believes that he is closing in and is placing faith in an internal poll that shows him just a couple of points behind, with large numbers of undecideds. He believes that he now has the momentum in the race and that people are now paying attention to the campaign. Events like this parade are lifting his optimism. He recalls his last parade a couple of weeks before. For that Saturday morning event, organized by a supporter, Merritt and his aides decorated his car with signs and streamers. When they got to the gated community in Upshur County where the event was to take place, only a couple of cars were gathered—and all belonged to Republican candidates running for office. That was the parade. His supporter slid into the driver’s seat of Merritt’s car and started honking the horn, “We’re gonna let ’em know we’re here.” As the handful of cars honked their way through the community, a few people peeked out from behind their blinds to see what was going on. After a few women in bathrobes came out of their homes to shake their fists at this invasion of their tranquility, Merritt overcame his reluctance to offend his supporter and put a stop to the honking. Some attempts at getting attention are just not worth it.

LUMBER MILL TOURS: HENDERSON AND NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS

Regulation is Ed Merritt’s theme of the day. It emerges out of a twenty-minute talk to employees at the Henderson International Paper plant, a medium-sized sawmill operation where construction lumber is produced. Time is short, and he has many talking points to hit. He rambles through a string of topics looking for some sort of connection to make with his audience. He starts with some discussion of Bill Clinton’s budget, the issue that got him into the race in the first place. “It’s like a frog in a pot,” he tells the group. “The temperature goes up one degree at a time. It may feel like a Jacuzzi now. But we’re gonna get cooked.” Big government is a problem, he tells them, and he is particularly concerned about high taxes and an overwhelming federal government. His dream is “to stop the spread of the federal government,” and this might require eliminating some popular programs. He identifies National Public Radio, the arts,

Seeing Red

and the Department of Education as examples of items that he believes should be cut from the federal budget, while the priorities should be defense and seniors. As he speaks about his dream, a woman noisily reaches in front of him to pass a full platter of doughnuts around the room. The candidate cautiously raises his support of the NAFTA and GATT trade agreements. This figures to be a winner at a paper company that exports some of its product. Yet there are some dangers in this issue, too. There have been recent large-scale layoffs at a nearby plant, he notes, and only  percent of Republican primary voters in a recent survey are supportive of the agreement. The implication, of course, is that he is principled and courageous on the issue. And it is courageous: Jim Chapman, the retiring congressman, rode protectionism to a narrow victory in his first run for the office over a decade ago. While extolling the merits of free trade, Merritt nonetheless takes care to mention that he is not blind to its problems. We must find a way to tighten NAFTA, to get more effective negotiators, to have free trade and fair trade, he tells the group. A couple of men sitting around the periphery of the room shake their heads in agreement with his caveats, and Merritt moves on. He hits gold when he starts talking about the “hidden taxes called regulation.” Some people sit forward. He continues, “We Republicans often get pounded on the environment by people who are focused on saving a tree or a spotted owl instead of feeding a family. Most corporations are good corporate citizens, and the federal government goes way overboard. I’m concerned about overburdensome regulations and paperwork. OSHA. The EPA. There has to be more balance in their approach.” The manager who introduced Merritt interrupts, “That’s an excellent comment. It’s amazing how many regulations a facility this size has to deal with. When George Bush became the governor, we noticed a difference.” Others second the notion, and with the room clearly with him, the candidate stops while he is ahead. After the talk, Merritt receives a tour of the facility. He, his aide, and a reporter from the Henderson paper covering the visit put on hard hats, protective goggles, and earplugs and follow the foreman through the high-tech mill. On their way to the floor, Merritt taps on a saw as a man who knows nothing about cars kicks a tire, then looks around. It is an impressive operation. A laser scans each log for imperfections and determines how it is to be cut. As the tour progresses, Merritt shakes hands and offers business cards. The machinery is quite loud and everyone on the floor is wearing earplugs, but Merritt is still working the crowd and trying to talk to his hosts and especially the reporter. Indeed, he is thrilled about the reporter, even if the freelancer says right off that he does not

21

22

Seeing Red

like politics or politicians. The tour ends in the main offices where it began, and the candidate is introduced to the office staff. At the door, he meets a receptionist who happens to have recently won a local beauty contest and who happens to share Merritt’s last name. “That’s a good omen,” the candidate says to his aide as they walk out the door. The next stop is Nacogdoches and another lumber mill. On the ride down, Merritt prepares to meet the Nacogdoches plant manager by talking to his International Paper connection on his car phone. The manager has only recently moved to Texas. “Leon’s a good man, Ed. He escaped the forestry business in California. You know it’s declining,” says the friend. “Spotted owl,” replies Ed. “Say hi to him for me,” says the friend. Upon arriving in Nacogdoches, it is not that difficult to find the Cal-Tex Lumber Company. But to find the office of the general manager of the plant requires directions, as there are several buildings on the plant’s campus. Ed Merritt bounds out of the car to get directions to the main office from the parking lot attendant. As the attendant describes the way, Merritt slowly pulls out a card and hands it to him. “Thanks. By the way, I’m running for Congress and I’d appreciate your consideration.” The man is friendly, and Merritt returns to the car in a good mood. “Did you get the directions?” he asks his driver. “Because I got distracted.” After some driving around, the main building is found, and Merritt prepares for yet another tour. When he meets the plant manager, he is effusive and excited. They talk about regulation, California, and conservative politics. He is taken around to meet the office employees and to pass out his literature. As they pass through the door to tour the plant, Merritt asks the manager if his opponent had been by the plant yet and is pleased when the answer is no. These tours—Merritt has several more planned for the week—serve a couple of purposes. Of course, they offer Merritt an opportunity to meet people during work hours. The candidate is often introduced to people by their boss, and Merritt is convinced that in a smaller business, in particular, this is an effective entrée to the potential voter. The tours also allow him to learn different industries and businesses that he will represent if he goes to Washington. On this particular visit, the candidate is impressed that this plant is actually quite environmental. There is no waste in the process, with all by-products going to some use (particle board, gardening chips, energy generation). All in all, it is a successful stop. Merritt now has to pull himself away to make the next, most crucial item on his schedule. The lumber mill tours were arranged after the International Paper Management Council came out with an

Seeing Red

endorsement of the Republican candidate. With forestry playing such an important role in the economy of East Texas, that endorsement is a nice plum, and Merritt’s staff has arranged a press conference outside an International Paper plant to spread the word. Merritt’s aide, who has scouted ahead, reports that a television reporter and cameraman are at the site, but that they are leaving in half an hour, whether or not the press conference is held. Merritt thus has to hustle to get to his press conference before the opportunity vanishes. With only one reporter there, the press conference becomes a television interview, which takes place in the parking lot, with the pungent smell of the paper plant wafting through the pleasant October air. Merritt is quite composed despite the fact that he has come to the scene in such a rush. He interviews well, though it is hard to hear him because of the traffic on the main road. While a long truck piled high with logs attempts to maneuver into the parking lot behind him, Merritt mentions the leadership PAC’s endorsement. He makes his points about overregulation. He also ties it to business and the environment. “We [Republicans] have kids. We want clean air and water. But the pendulum has swung too far toward the environment to hurt business. People have the wrong impression. Private industry does want to do the right thing for the environment.” Then, incorporating a new nugget into his standard talk, “Why, over at Cal-Tex lumber, there is no waste in the manufacturing process. They use everything.” As the cameraman packs up his equipment, Merritt chats with the reporter. He asks her if she has interviewed his opponent (she has not) and tells her of some promising signs in Nacogdoches. She asks where he is going next, and Merritt mentions his next contact in the building they are standing in front of. “Oh, he’s not there today,” says the reporter. Indeed, his aide checks at the guard desk, and they are not listed as guests. The canceled campaign event allows Merritt to go by the Nacogdoches newspaper office and hand deliver the press release announcing the International Paper endorsement to a reporter from the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel who could not make his press conference. Merritt wanders through the newsroom shaking hands and leaving people with his card. The staff is courteous but not friendly, and the reporter he is looking for is actually chilly. He moves on quickly, making one last stop at the office of the publisher. Sticking his head in the door, he says, “Hello, I’m Ed Merritt and I’d appreciate your support.” It is an uncomfortable moment. The publisher says, “I should tell you that we’ve endorsed your opponent.” “Well. That’s fine,” says the Happy Warrior. “All right now. Everything treatin’ you okay?” Later that day, Merritt is told by a

23

24

Seeing Red

Nacogdoches banker that the newspaper’s endorsement is tantamount to a “kiss of death.” It is a morsel that the candidate enjoys and includes with every further mention of the disagreeable incident.

ON TELEVISION TWO WEEKS OUT

I would dare say that communism is not an issue in any other c.d. [congressional district] in the country. —Ed Merritt

It all started in early September at a forum in Mt. Pleasant, up in the northern part of the district. The two candidates were at one of the seemingly infinite number of such debates, and the usual skirmishing was going on. In response to a rather vague question from the audience, Max Sandlin was talking about the difference between theory and practice in helping people. He mused that it is important for government to teach individuals to help themselves and that people generally appreciate this more than direct assistance. His example: “Communism was more successful than the United States in the Third World. We would go in and teach them about theory and how to vote. . . . Communists would teach them how to farm” (Graham a). It was, in retrospect, an unfortunate example. Merritt’s campaign staff was there, tape recorders running, hoping for some morsel to use against the Democrat. This was it. Sandlin’s statement has become the foundation of two Republican advertisements that are running throughout the final weeks of the campaign, advertisements that are dominating the rhetoric and thoughts of the candidates during the campaign stretch. The first of these ads features some fat, bald men handling money and smoking cigars. “The liberal special interest groups want to weaken our national defense,” starts the ad. “They think Max Sandlin will vote their way. Max Sandlin says he’s different. . [As the announcer honks this word, it appears on the screen in bright red.] Max Sandlin is on record as wanting to cut defense spending. He even said, ‘Communism was more successful than the United States in the Third World.’ We need to strengthen our military, not cut spending for it.” The commercial ends with some of Ed Merritt’s virtuous positions. The key to the advertisement is the quotation, which also appears on the screen, attributed to the Longview News-Journal. The second ad, entitled “Just Say Nyet to Sandlin,” opens with a picture of the Kremlin and Red Square in the background and a haunting version of the Volga Waltz flowing through the soundtrack. “Are you a liberal or a conserva-

Seeing Red

tive?” asks an omniscient voice. “In the race for Congress, the liberal is Max Sandlin. He supported Hillary Clinton’s efforts to socialize health care. He’s for [Texas Senate candidate] Victor Morales, who supports same-sex marriages. And he even defends communism over democracy.” The commercial ends with a brief plug for Merritt. Taking Sandlin’s comment out of context is not the only trick played in the spot. The connection from Sandlin to fellow Democrat Morales to same-sex marriages is slender, but the makers of the commercial have boldly enhanced it. As the announcer creates the string from Sandlin to Morales to gay marriages, “Same Sex Marriages” is simply bulleted on the screen. Not surprisingly, the commercials spark some controversy. The source of the quotation used in the advertisement is one of the points being argued, not between Merritt and Sandlin but between Merritt and the Texas Republican Party (which paid for the ads), on one side, and the Longview News-Journal on the other. The public life of the quotation started when the Republicans put out a press release on the comment after the Mt. Pleasant forum. A Longview reporter, who was not at the forum, wrote a story about it, identifying Ed Merritt in the article as the newspaper’s source for the quotation. However, the commercial identifies the News-Journal as the source of the quote, which lends its use some legitimacy and impartiality. The editors of the paper have written to the Texas state party objecting to the commercial, both because the quote is taken out of context and because the paper is cited as the source of the quotation. In a series of letters that are reported on the front page of the newspaper over several days, the state party first balks at changing the ad, then promises that it will replace the source of the quote with “Max Sandlin.”7 The controversy surrounding the ad reaches a new level when Sandlin’s campaign headquarters reports receiving a bomb threat shortly after the communist ad starts running. As Sandlin puts it, “That ad has stirred up these hate groups. Someone called our headquarters and said, ‘I’m gonna blow up the building of the commie bastard.’ We didn’t find anything, but he’s endangering my family and my staff. He’s a real weasel.” The story takes another twist when Merritt and his staff argue that the bomb threat is possibly a ruse, a way for Sandlin to call attention to himself. Again in the Longview paper, Merritt is quoted as saying, “You just can’t put anything past [Sandlin’s campaign manager Bob Slagle]. He is going to do everything in the world to make Max out to be a victim in this deal. It’s unfortunate, but when Bob Slagle is involved in the campaign, you really have to wonder if that bomb threat was truly a bomb threat or whether it was a hoax and an attempt to derive sympathy” (Graham a).

25

26

Seeing Red

The arguments over attribution and the bomb threat are side issues, however. The advertisement itself is controversial enough. To the usual charges of negative advertising are charges of demagoguery, McCarthyism, and red-baiting. Sandlin and his staff are quoted in the newspapers decrying the tactics of the other side and arguing that they represent desperation and cynicism. As Sandlin is quoted as saying in the Longview newspaper, “I think they made the ad initially with the intentional idea of misleading the public and stating only a portion of the statement, [leaving out] where I said the US was the greatest country ever conceived” (Graham c). How much more of a response is appropriate is a question that the Sandlin camp, and the candidate himself, struggle with. He is pulled in two different directions. He recognizes that responding to the negative ads allows his opponent to define the terms of debate and makes him appear defensive. And he sees virtue in letting the ridiculous charges go. “I’m not letting him distract me. He might pound on me from the side, but I’ll deal with it and keep going. I’m not going to let his lies worry me. My issues are the people’s issues, the issues the people want to hear about.” On the other hand, he is supremely angry about the ad. As one of Sandlin’s campaign aides says, “You have to have alligator hide if you’re gonna get involved in politics around here.” Sandlin’s skin is somewhat thinner. Fumes the candidate to a supporter, “It’s the worst. It has the Kremlin in it. People think it’s obnoxious. It reflects badly on him. It’s an affront to the people of East Texas that he thinks he can sell that bill of goods.” And later: “He throws that attack ad without anything positive. That turkey Merritt didn’t even register to vote until November ’. He calls me a career politician for being a county judge. I don’t think I make myself brighter by bringing him down, but I could.” Sandlin’s anger even leads to an open confrontation between the two candidates. Merritt’s campaign aide reports that Sandlin approached Merritt at a festival in the town of Gilmer, demanding that he take the ad off the air. It was right after the bomb threat and, says the Republican campaign manager, Sandlin was “seeing red,” threatening to run , points of TV ads against the Republican. Merritt, according to the aide, was calm and collected. “You run your campaign, I’ll run mine,” said the candidate. “Mr. Sandlin was really upset and yelling that we had caused harm to his family. It definitely got the adrenaline going,” says Merritt’s affable campaign manager. “I just wish we had a video camera. It would have made a great ad!” In the end, the impulse to respond has gotten the better of Sandlin. “When somebody accuses you of being too liberal, you can say it’s not true,” states the candidate. “But when they go to your very core, when they say you’re a com-

Seeing Red

munist, you’re for same-sex marriages, you have to meet that with as much firepower back as you can.” The television advertisement cut to respond to “Just Say Nyet” is subdued in tone, the candidate talking calmly to the camera in jeans and an open collar. “In East Texas, we teach our kids certain values,” soothes the candidate, values that have been violated in the campaign. The candidate then says he is against communism, same-sex marriages, and nationalized health care. The radio response advertisement tries to use humor to make Merritt’s ad look exaggerated and ridiculous. Broadcast around Halloween a few days before the election, the add features one voice telling another that he has heard that space aliens are invading. The second replies, “You must have been listening to Ed Merritt’s advertisements.” Merritt seems to recognize how over-the-top his advertising is. He admits that he and his wife had difficulty making the decision to use the potent ad. One of the most frustrating things about running for office, he laments, is the lack of control over the effort, over what “my media guy will produce for me.”8 In the end, Merritt approved the ad, but he does feel compelled to rationalize its use. First, the fact that the ad was paid for by the state party absolves him of some responsibility and leads him to claim that he had nothing to do with it and that he cannot control its airing. But this is a fiction. Merritt himself stumbles over it. “Our ad, I mean the party’s ad, hurts him,” he says while talking about it. And, of course, Merritt’s media consultant created the ad based on material that his staff gathered in Mt. Pleasant. Merritt also tries to make a careful distinction about what it is that he is charging of Sandlin. It is stupidity and poor judgment, not communist leanings, that he is drawing attention to, says the Republican. Asked if he thinks he is engaging in red-baiting, the candidate denies it: “The focus is not on anything other than why is Max making a statement like that? He didn’t have to say that statement. It wasn’t like I forced him or held a gun to his head. I am not saying that he is a communist. I am saying he made that statement. And that’s it” (Graham a). And again: “It has to do with the good sense of a candidate for Congress making a statement like that. It was an incredibly dumb thing for him to say when he is running for Congress. If I had said something like that, Bob Slagle would have had me fileted by now” (Graham b). Indeed, Merritt made a comment that Sandlin’s side uses against him. Asked at a forum how conservative he is, Merritt replied, “If you could read my mind, it would scare you.” That comment is now part of the Sandlin campaign’s repertoire. The ad campaign, in Merritt’s mind, is simply a necessary gambit to win, given the great money advantage Sandlin holds over him and Sandlin’s ability,

27

28

Seeing Red

up to this point, to blur the distinctions between the two candidates.9 When his primary consultant said, “It’s th [down] and long and the clock’s running out. Where do we go?” and argued that the communist quote guided the way, Merritt did not see much choice. It is, he claims, what is required to attract attention to the race, to starkly draw differences between the two candidates, and to drive Sandlin’s numbers down. And Merritt, after close to a year of sacrifice and effort, has found necessity a compelling reason: “Positive is wonderful, but positive doesn’t drive the numbers. . . . That comment about communism was a gift. It focuses attention on the race between Ed Merritt and Max Sandlin. And the best thing about it is that Max can’t deny he said it.” The advertisements have attracted attention. Several media outlets have editorialized against them. In addition to the exchange between its news editors and the state party, the Longview paper has editorialized against the ad, as has a major Longview-Tyler TV station, which “raked us over the coals,” according to Merritt’s campaign manager. The five-minute television editorial, which airs on both the  and  o’clock broadcasts and which is “teased” throughout the evening in between, denounces sleazy campaigns in general and uses the Merritt ad as its primary example. The station manager personally delivers the editorial, concluding by giving the advertisement an “F.” In the other populous part of the district, up in the Texarkana area, the newspaper does not editorialize about Merritt’s campaign, but runs a story speculating that the commercials may generate some backlash. Merritt’s advertisements are not the only noteworthy ones run in the campaign. Sandlin’s campaign also has run commercials featuring their candidate and “his issues.” The Democrat’s advertisements are all positive in approach yet, like Merritt’s, they work a resentment theme. Sandlin’s first aired commercial, featuring the Iwo Jima Memorial and the Washington Monument in the background, set the right tone: “We sent our sons to fight and die on a thousand battlefields overseas. We defended the world and won the Cold War. Our allies are rich. But we still spend $ billion a year to defend Europe and Japan. While Congress cuts Medicare and education. And we can’t even balance our own budget. It’s time to make Europe and Japan pay their fair share. It’s time to take care of our own. Max Sandlin.” Sandlin’s direct mail repeats this message. “Let’s first take care of the folks at home” appears in bold red type across the front of his campaign brochure. Inside the slick brochure, in smaller red type, Sandlin is quoted as saying, “Instead of cutting important programs

Seeing Red

like Medicare and education, let’s make wealthy countries like Japan and Germany pay for their own defense.” The small type explains: Max Sandlin supports a balanced budget. But Sandlin disagrees with Newt Gingrich’s plan to cut funding for important programs like Medicare, education, farm programs, student loans and school lunches to get it done. Instead, Sandlin believes it’s time to cut foreign aid spending and require wealthy nations like Japan and Germany to pay for their own defense. Sandlin believes that we have to take care of the folks at home first. We should first use American taxpayer dollars to benefit people at home who earned them, not people overseas who didn’t. If we make these cuts, we can save as much as $ billion—and avoid cuts in important programs like Medicare and education. It’s a common-sense solution—for a change.

Sandlin hopes these messages will resonate with large numbers of younger people. There is evidence that it will. In his first election to Congress back in , retiring congressman Jim Chapman rode the unfair-trade issue to Congress. The lesson of that campaign is not far from the minds of those running the Sandlin campaign—in fact, some of the campaign staff, including Sandlin’s campaign manager, are veterans of that  campaign. One problem with this line of campaign argument is that it leaves Sandlin open to the charge that he is weak on defense. What does it mean for other countries to take on their fair share? In Sandlin’s literature and in his commercial, it is not really explicit what this entails. The concept of burden sharing is not easy to convey in a simple way, and it is the emotionalism of the message that matters anyway. The details are thus left out. The ambiguity in Sandlin’s plan means that Merritt is able to fill in some of those details. At a press conference, called outside the Red River Army Depot near Texarkana, the Republican defines Sandlin’s plan as a defense cut. Having just taken an exhilarating ride in a tank around the facility, Merritt, standing by the Red River sign, charges that Sandlin’s plan would involve shipping home large numbers of troops and cutting defense spending. Then, making the local connection, he says, “Of the three major items on the federal budget, defense has been cut the most over the past  years. And since , the amount of defense money coming into Bowie County has dropped by  percent” (McPherson b). Merritt’s charge is well covered in the Texarkana daily. To respond to Merritt’s charge, Sandlin calls a press conference a few days later in the Texarkana airport. His plan has been misinterpreted, he says. “I don’t want to move one soldier, one airplane or one boat from any foreign base.

29

30

Seeing Red

But Germany and Japan,  years after World War II, should be paying their fair share. Those of you who know me and have heard me speak know I stand for a strong defense” (McPherson c). Yet even this response leaves open where the billions in savings are going to come from. The idea is for our allies to pay us for their defense, but this does not really come through in any of the campaign dialogue. And the reportage of the debate is disappointing to Sandlin, especially in Texarkana. “We have had trouble with the press. Somehow it didn’t compute with reporters. They easily jumped to ‘you are going to cut national defense,’” says Sandlin’s campaign manager. The problem, however, is not with the reporting of the plan but with its lack of clarity. Ed Merritt has one other charge to fling against Sandlin’s proposal. It is guilt by association. “Did you know that it’s been proposed by Barney Frank?” he frequently asks people. Barney Frank, the openly gay Massachusetts Democrat, whom most everyone seems to know, has been a leader in the quest for burden sharing of NATO costs (Black ). Interestingly enough, Ralph Hall, the very conservative Democrat who represents the neighboring district, has long advocated such a plan as well, but Frank makes a different point with voters.

FISH FRY AT THE COOPER TIRE COMPANY UNION HALL: TEXARKANA, ARKANSAS

Candidate Sandlin is only about forty minutes late to the big event of the afternoon, an annual fish fry sponsored by a union local at the Cooper Tire plant in Texarkana, Arkansas. Texarkana is an unusual town. It straddles the state line; indeed, the city’s main street runs along it. Given this peculiar situation, the town is subject to a political scene that is even more cacophonous than in other parts of the district. The town sits in two states and two congressional districts, and the major television outlets for Texarkana operate out of nearby Shreveport, Louisiana, yet another state and congressional district. Although the Cooper Tire Company is on the Arkansas side, a large number of employees live in Texas, and the union’s fish fry draws politicians from both states. As governor, Bill Clinton always made an appearance at this event. So, too, did Texas politicians like Lloyd Bentsen and Jim Chapman during their time in office. On this day, politicians from around the state are dropping by to make remarks and greet the crowd. In addition to Sandlin, Gary Mauro, a Democratic land commissioner rumored to be running for governor next cycle; Mary Choate, the Bowie County sheriff running for reelection; some candidates for the state legislatures in both Texas and Arkansas; some judicial can-

Seeing Red

didates; and the Democratic candidate for chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court are at the event. The hall is filled with long rows of tables and folding chairs set between a stage at one end and a buffet at the other. Over the course of the day, , pounds of fish are served in , meals to the , employees at the plant, their families, and the politicians, union officials, and staffers on hand. At the tables, rubber workers just coming off their shifts eat with their families. The workers are white, black, male, female, young, and old. Retirees are invited back, too, adding to the diversity of the crowd. People are talking among themselves, eating large amounts of food, and generally having a good time, but few are listening to what is going on periodically at the stage. Sandlin is introduced to the crowd by a union official shortly after he arrives. The official tells the crowd to be sure to check the candidate for horns because he just might be a “commonist.” He laughs at his joke, as do a handful of people in the audience. Sandlin bounds up the steps and greets the gorging crowd. “I have a positive message,” says the candidate, “a message of opportunity, opportunity for good jobs for fair pay. It’s why I support the minimum wage. My opponent wants to abolish the minimum wage. I’m for the opportunity for senior citizens to be secure. We Democrats believe in keeping our word. My opponent . . .” The buzz in the room does not die down, and Sandlin cuts short his talk with a thanks and a reminder about early voting. “It was just as bad for Mauro,” says a union official to Sandlin as he steps down. “It’s okay,” says Sandlin. “I understand.” The key for him is really to be seen and to touch base with some of the local union leaders here and he heads off to find them. After a day on the road, the fried fish, hush puppies, and potato salad look good to the staff. The candidate, ever health conscious, longs for a vegetable, but the only vegetables being served are olives. He and his staff sit down and have a full meal while events at the stage proceed. Bill White, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, has arrived, and he takes the stage to fire up the crowd. He is an important man who has flown in to the event on his private jet and could have been any number of other places two weeks before the general election. But the rubber workers continue to eat. He gives a fiery speech, concluding, “Bob Dole wants to return America to the way it was forty or fifty years ago. Do we want to return?!” A lone “no” rises from the back of the room. Some of the diners look up briefly, then return their attention to their kids and their food. “The problem now is getting people to listen,” says the president of Local , a bead processor at the Cooper plant. “Our people make great money and

31

32

Seeing Red

have good jobs, but they’re not as concerned as they ought to be. They forget that unions got them their money.” On this day, she has a plan to try to get her rubber workers to pay attention. Her experiment involves passing out three hundred packets of political information. In six of the packets, hidden in the material is a typed message that the recipient has won $. Maybe this will get them to read the material. As some of the members resent being told how to vote, it is comparison literature informing members where competing candidates stand on union issues. She says, “This way they can figure it out their own darned selves.” The problem is not just getting the attention of the membership; it is that social issues seem to interfere with union issues. “The [rank and file] don’t always understand how we make up our minds. We [the leadership council] don’t ask [the candidates] how they feel about abortion. About gun control. We want to know where they stand on issues of concern to us. Most of the time, most of the Republicans don’t even bother to come for our interviews.” It is frustrating for her as she tries to inform the members about their choices. “I just wish that they would look at issues that affect them. If you’re not gay, don’t worry about gay issues. If you’re not going to have an abortion, don’t worry about abortion. On the gun issue, everybody already has guns.” She gets up to announce that only one of the six prizes has been claimed and that there are still seventy-five packets left. She announces that Texas voters can vote early and gives some locations. She fares no better than the politicians in getting the attention of the crowd.

BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN OF NACOGDOCHES “CANDIDATE FORUM” AND DINNER: NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS

“Women mean business,” is the motto of the Business and Professional Women’s Organization, or BPW. Perhaps one measure of the importance of this organization is that both candidates have passed up a Veterans of Foreign Wars forum to make an appearance here at the Nacogdoches Holiday Inn, and they are not even going to be addressing those assembled. Many of these women—attorneys, journalists, insurance agents, small-business owners, and politicians—are community leaders whom the candidates value highly. While not every woman in the room is superpowered—younger women and women new to the community are sprinkled through the crowd—this is, it seems, an important network for politicians to tap into. Sandlin, in fact, has joined the organization.

Seeing Red

At six o’clock, the women file through a buffet of healthful food tastefully presented. There are a few men in line, candidates for offices ranging from sheriff to district judge to county attorney to district attorney to county commissioner to county tax assessor to constable. The congressional candidates are not at the head table—they had their opportunity to address the group some weeks before—but are making their way around the tables in the crowded room as the women eat. After dinner, a pledge of allegiance to the U.S. and Texas flags, and a moment of prayer, the moderator calls the event to order. She is an older woman who teaches at the local university, and she handles the room as she might handle her classroom. She warns the candidates sitting on the podium that if any of them stand up out of turn, she will knock them over the head with her gavel. She offers an editorial speech decrying a rumor that one of the candidates is an atheist. “I’ve worshiped with him and it’s not true and we won’t stand for it.” Then she turns to one of the candidates for constable. “Did you check your gun? It looks like it’s cocked.” He looks and says it is not. She explains her mistake to the women in suits: “Well I’m a pistol-packin’ mama, but I’m a . person, not a . person.” Finally, she calls upon the two congressional candidates to get up and introduce themselves and they obediently do so, after which they settle in for a long evening. The speeches go on for over two hours, despite the fact that each candidate only has two minutes—strictly enforced—to make his case. The moderator is intimidating. When she barks “Time” at one particularly uncomfortable candidate, he stops abruptly in the middle of his most important sentence and meekly sits down. Although the moderator is fun to watch, the evening is dull and repetitive. Ed Merritt takes a long time to leave the event. Indeed, the room has cleared except for a few people gathered around the two candidates. After Max Sandlin walks out of the room, Merritt waits a beat and then heads to his car. “Sorry,” he apologizes to his driver, “I couldn’t leave until Max had left.” That plus the last few voters to touch make it a very late evening, particularly given the long drive home. Much of the ride is spent on the car phone, and as the candidate reviews the day, he is more than satisfied. Receipts to the campaign are flowing in. The evening event was good, “though for some reason about half of those women were Demos.” And the candidate is feeling a surge of momentum behind him. He calls his wife, who has represented him at another BPW forum and sounds very tired over the car phone, and is boosting and congratulatory. He tells her of his latest success. While paying for some gas, he offers his card to

33

34

Seeing Red

the clerk, a young, rather disheveled man of Asian descent. In fact, the clerk had already voted for him at an early-voting precinct. At least, he had voted for Republicans and this looked like one of the names he voted for. “It’s a good omen,” Merritt gushes to his wife of the unexpected moment, and she agrees.

EARLY VOTING IN FRONT OF THE STEPHEN F. AUSTIN UNIVERSITY STUDENT UNION: NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS

In front of the student union building at Stephen F. Austin State University, Ed Merritt and his aide saunter into a small crowd that is divided into two sections. The student union has been designated as an early-voting polling place and each day, near noon, the area becomes busy with students, between classes and hungry. The sidewalk outside the entrance is unusually crowded through the early-voting period as candidates for various offices—for Congress, district judge, state senator, state representative—spend a couple of hours looking for some hands to shake. Workday hours are sometimes difficult to fill during a campaign, and the combination of students with free time and the opportunity to touch them right before they might be casting a vote makes this site particularly attractive to the area’s politicians. Texas’s two-week-plus early-voting period, instituted in  to open up elections and make them more participatory (Taylor ), is a boon for a candidate in the final stretch of a campaign: eager to do something—anything—to work toward his or her purpose. Merritt scans the scene and greets some of the other candidates there. As he arrives, the Democrat and the Republican running for the state legislative seat in the area are exchanging pleasantries. The two candidates are splitting up the territory and setting some ground rules to respect each other’s space. A candidate for district judge and his small entourage is off to one side as well. Candidates are not allowed to hand out literature at the site, but students are and do, campus organizations lining up the volunteers. The Republican running for the state legislature, Wayne Christian, is standing in a line with several College Republicans handing out brochures for the ticket. One particularly enthusiastic woman, wearing a “College Republicans—the best party on campus” T-shirt and large elephant earrings, leads a cheer. Judy McDonald, the Democrat running for the legislature, has occupied the steps leading up to the building. Wearing a bright red suit, she is the most assertive candidate there, and she sticks her hand out to each and every student walking by. A group from the campus’s gay and lesbian society also is passing out Democratic literature. One

Seeing Red

man, with a pink triangle on his T-shirt, a long ponytail, and makeup finds himself next to a rowdy College Republican for a brief moment. “Y’all campaign all you want, you freaks!” whoops the young man. He is the most vocal of the gathered students, but the Republicans in general are pleased by the presence of the gay students and their friends. Altogether, the politicians and their helpers form a gauntlet for the students to pass through. Some bob and weave their way around, though no one can get by the woman in the red suit. Merritt admires her at work. “She’s a nice lady and she’s good. Too bad she’s a Demo.” He is a little reserved in this peculiar situation. The action was well under way by the time he arrived, and the area now seems politically saturated. After visiting with the head of the college group and the other Republican candidate there, he elbows his way to the front line to shake hands, but he is not as enthusiastic as he is in an invited situation. Nor does he appear to be fully comfortable asserting himself on the students, many of whom look like they are heading to the restroom and not to the voting booth. After a while, Merritt pulls back from the line and calls his aide over. He has noticed that Drew Nixon, a Republican state senator who rather notoriously went on vacation to Greece rather than personally campaign for reelection, has more of a presence at the site than he does. Nixon signs, designed by the same consulting firm that Merritt uses, are all over the place, and Merritt is not pleased. He asks his aide to call the local representative of the campaign and get some campaign signs to the area. He does not want to be lost among all the candidates. On the other hand, the ever-optimistic Merritt notes that here in the southern part of the congressional district, Republicans down the ticket appear to be strong.10 Procrastinating, Merritt starts asking some of the others if Max Sandlin has been around yet. No one seems to know, though one piece of gossip is that Sandlin is off filming another commercial. Perhaps it is a response to his RNC ads, muses Merritt. Or perhaps he saw the gays and lesbians and took off. Merritt seems to savor that scenario for a moment before heading back to the front line.

MACADONIA BAPTIST CHURCH AND CHURCH OF CHRIST ON ATLANTA STREET: TEXARKANA, TEXAS

Max Sandlin is running late. His keys are locked in his van in the parking lot of the Macadonia Baptist Church, and he and his entourage (of seven people) are standing around waiting for the locksmith. His visit to the black church was

35

36

Seeing Red

successful. He toured the new facility, sitting in on some Sunday school classes and even trading quotes from scripture with the elderly man conducting one of the classes. He gave an excellent speech in the sanctuary as people arrived for services. He even got a big laugh. At the end of his speech, one of the deacons asked, “Is he the only one?” Sandlin replied, “I’m more than enough, aren’t I?” Now he and his staff are milling about the parking lot on this pleasant Sunday morning, waiting to proceed to another black church a couple of miles away. The locksmith finally comes. After he opens the door to the van, Sandlin introduces himself and shakes his hand. “That man ain’t registered,” sniffs an older black woman, a political activist who has accompanied the candidate to the church and can spot a voter from a mile away. “I can tell by the way he shakes Max’s hand.” By the time the group arrives at the Atlanta Street Church of Christ, the service is well under way. The congregants are singing as Sandlin and his crew try to file inconspicuously into a pew in the back of the crowded chapel. The program, in addition to the usual material, warns against the “holy glaze.” It says, “People act like they are listening; they even look like they are listening . . . but they are not. The ‘holy glaze’ is a sham. Their bodies are there, but their minds are elsewhere.” The candidate whispers that he hopes not to put the congregation into a glaze with his speech. After a moment of silence in the service, the preacher introduces the candidate. It is an indirect but clear endorsement of the candidate: “I know we sometimes have confusion about political things,” he tells his flock. “Heaven sanctions our government. Heaven sanctions our government. And we want the best possible candidates. That’s why I want to introduce to you Mr. Max Sandlin, the candidate for Congress.” Sandlin thanks the preacher and the congregation for graciously hosting him, “particularly as I missed my service back in Marshall. I go to the First Baptist Church there, and my wife and family are there now. Good morning.” He waits for a response. He gets one. He clearly knows what he is doing. His speech and his cadences fit in the black church. “You have the power to do something about this country,” he says. “You have the power. Your vote is just as important as Newt Gingrich’s vote. As Mr. Dole’s vote. As Phil Gramm’s vote. You have the power.” The congregants affirm his statements, “Yes, that’s right,” “Mmm hmmm.” “But power without using it is nothing,” he reminds them before talking about specifics. His speech, not surprisingly, is tailored for the audience. He talks about Medicare and the politics surrounding that issue on Capitol Hill (“I’m not good at math. I’m just a country boy. But I know

Seeing Red

what’s a cut”). He talks about education, saying, “The effect of schoolteachers on our young people is as important as anybody except parents and preachers. When the Republicans say we can’t afford Head Start, breakfast at schools, Pell Grants, college loans—why, that’s just not acceptable. On education, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, they don’t want to spend the money. They don’t want to spend the money on the front end. They just want to spend it on the back end, with incarcerations.” He talks about affirmative action: “I respect affirmative action. It’s just a law that says ‘do right.’ It’s not a promise or a guarantee.” He quotes Martin Luther King Jr. And he urges them—“young and old, rich and poor, fat and skinny”—to go right after church to the early-voting precinct downtown. Directions and rides are available. Sandlin’s performance in the church is masterful, and the response from the crowd is warm. Visits like these supplement Sandlin’s effort in the black community of Texarkana, where there is a large and concentrated minority population. Sandlin has lined up several activists from the African American community to accompany him to events, to help in reaching voters, and to get them out to vote (and to vote early). One of his main liaisons to the Texarkana community is a retired nurse who works in the community all year round. She helps people deal with ailments, spiritual needs, and other problems that come up in their daily lives. A kind and dedicated person, she builds relationships over time, and her political work is only part of her self-defined role. “When I came along, I was poorer than dirt,” she says. “Someone looked at me and said, ‘Give that girl an opportunity.’ And they had the confidence to believe that this little girl who was malnourished and everything could do something. I say to God, ‘Thank you, maybe but maybe somebody will catch a hope because of what I’m doing.’ I’ve already been blessed and helped. I could have been a product of the government forever and ever. The only way to repay is to try to help others.” This woman does more than just pass out literature and take the candidate to her church. She educates people about the process, helps them through registration, and assures them that a connection to the system will not hurt them. She also arranges rides to the polls from busy places in town, and she even sets up babysitting at poll sites. In fact, she occasionally does this job herself, holding children who might get anxious when their mothers are anxious. This, she says, happens frequently at the polls. Sandlin’s attempt to reach black voters is facilitated not just by black political leaders but by people like this. His forays into the black community—to black churches, to the historically black college in his district (accompanied by Martin Luther King III), and to black community events—are not going to be

37

38

Seeing Red

repeated on the other side. The Republicans will not campaign in these pockets of the community and the result, says Sandlin, will be his dominance of the black vote. “I’ll get  percent of the minority vote. The other  percent will have simply made a mistake on their ballots,” he predicts before the election.11

IN A POPULIST TRADITION

Max Sandlin won the election  percent to  percent, not by quite as large a margin as he expected, but large enough. In the end, his money was too much to overcome. The name recognition he won in his battle with Jo Anne Howard, the professional and civic networks he set up, his positioning as a conservative Democrat, the professional staff he put together, and his own skill as an effective politician able to reach out to many different types of people all mattered. From the perspective of this book, what is notable about this election is not that Sandlin won it, but that the campaigns of Sandlin and Merritt really look and sound like campaigns past in East Texas. The chords the two candidates tried to strike are chords that politicians in East Texas have been striking for over a hundred years, populist chords that have long resonated here and in much of the rest of the rural South. Using descriptions from and interpretations of some of the foremost historians of southern populism as a basis for comparison, this continuity in the practice of campaign politics is quite apparent. The Populist Movement of the late nineteenth century represented the interests of small farmers who were being consumed by economic forces beyond their control. In the severe depression of the s, these farmers formed the basis for a protest movement and a political movement that had as its premises public ownership of railroads and large utilities, a graduated income tax, the direct election of senators, and cheaper money. While the Democratic Party absorbed some of their program and some of it died of its own radicalism, it is the appeal of the Populists—not just their policy prescriptions but their general message and their general orientation to the world—that is important here. What made the Populists attractive in the s? In his pathbreaking but controversial work, historian Richard Hofstadter () argues that the attraction of the Populists lay in their ability to take advantage of the discontent and psychological discomfort of living through very hard and uncertain economic times. The Populists, according to Hofstadter, had “an unusually strong tendency to account for relatively impersonal events in highly personal terms” (), and this gave them broad appeal among a poorly educated, generally iso-

Seeing Red

lated population. It was not just a cynical play for votes. The Populist leaders, as Hofstadter portrays them, were genuinely nativist, anti-Semitic, and, of course, “paranoid”—American history since the Civil War was, in their view, “a sustained conspiracy of the international money power” (). But this was key to their ability to tap into the visceral resentments of “regular folks.” Though his interpretation has been criticized for failing to focus enough on the economics of the movement, his argument that there was a psychological appeal of the Populists that went beyond their material promises is generally accepted, even by his critics (Goodwyn , ; Brinkley , ). The Populist Party program was co-opted by the Democratic Party, and Populist support was drained away by racial appeals. C. Vann Woodward’s () classic work on the origins of the Jim Crow movement is convincing in its argument that the biracial Populist coalition was split and defeated by Democratic racial appeals that led to the institution of Jim Crow laws. Though the Populist political movement died at the turn of the century, the worldview that made it popular in places like East Texas continued to carry political potency. As such, the term populism lost its connotation of the programs and policies advocated by the Populist Party of old and came to embrace a political and rhetorical style: “an impulse rather than an ideology,” according to historian Michael Kazin, “and a flexible mode of persuasion using traditional kinds of expressions, tropes, themes, and images to convince large numbers of Americans to join their side and endorse their views on particular issues” (, ). The power of populist rhetoric came from its ability to bind “even as it divides” () and to redefine “the people” and their adversaries. In twentieth-century populism, elites, bureaucrats, and large institutions still vexed the lives of common folks. Economic forces beyond the control of average citizens were still identified and characterized as the enemy of the community. And politicians still tapped into the baser sentiments and resentments of “regular folks.” In this context, the line of continuity in populist East Texas is quite striking. This election in this district is useful to look at not because it is the only place in the South where Populist appeals continue to appear, but because the Populist legacy is so strong here and one can see so clearly where the campaign lessons learned by politicians come from. Sitting at the crossroads of the two major regions where the Populist Movement thrived, it is East Texas, writes historian Lawrence Goodwyn, where the “culture of a new people’s politics took form in nineteenth-century America” (, ). The original Populist Movement had particular success here as large numbers of East Texas farmers, many of them migrants from the rural South,

39

40

Seeing Red

were especially receptive to the Populist message. Indeed, many of the counties now in the First District were among the relatively few in the state that had majorities supporting Populist presidential and gubernatorial candidates at their peak (Turner ). After the Populist Party went out of business, politicians with a populist bent continued to thrive here in the decades that followed. For almost fifty years, the area was represented in Congress by the quintessential populist Wright Patman ( –). Patman made a career fighting big banking and financial interests and the Federal Reserve System, which he called “a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Bankers Association” (Ott , ). He believed that the country’s commercial banks and the Fed conspired to keep interest rates high, much to the detriment of small businesspeople and farmers. He was the main sponsor of legislation creating a system of federal credit unions (the federal employee credit union is now named for him). He also fought against some of the pricing practices of big retailers that had the effect of undermining mom-and-pop businesses in small rural towns. In the words of former congressman Jim Chapman, Patman “tore into and chased anything big” and in doing so, reflected the mistrust of “anything large and institutionalized” that many in his corner of Texas felt. He also fought against other external forces that threatened his constituents. In , for example, Patman introduced the first bill to stem illegal immigration from Mexico (New York Times ), an idea that has found expression many times since. Patman was returned to Congress twenty-three times over his career, some indication that his populist orientation reflected the sentiments of the people of his district. After Patman’s death, politicians continued to use his campaign and representation formulas and capitalize upon the suspicion of large institutions—particularly financial institutions—the personalization of impersonal forces, and the resentment of things foreign. Jim Chapman’s first campaign for Congress, in a high-profile  special election, illustrates this well. Chapman first won election in  after Patman’s successor, Democrat Sam Hall, resigned to become a federal judge. It is worth noting that Hall’s nomination was engineered by Republican senator Phil Gramm, who viewed the First District as an opportunity for a Republican pickup and a way to gain Republican momentum going into the  congressional elections. Chapman ran against a former Texas A&M quarterback, Edd Hargett, a political novice whose exploits in college and in the National Football League gave him name recognition in the football-crazy district. Hargett was Gramm’s handpicked choice to run for the seat.

Seeing Red

The election fell during a recession in East Texas, and significant layoffs at a major employer in the district, the Lone Star Steel Company, set the tone for the campaign. Jim Chapman’s campaign was the test of a foreign-trade argument that Democrats were about to use on a large scale in the  elections. The Democrat ran against free-trade practices that gave an advantage to foreign competitors. In what one of his campaign consultants called a “Tora! Tora! Tora!”12 campaign against “Japanese imperialism,” Chapman argued that the unfair trade policies of the Japanese and others were costing Americans, and East Texans, jobs. The message got more potent when Hargett was quoted in the newspapers as saying, “I don’t know what trade policies have to do with bringing jobs to East Texas” (King ), a line that made Chapman’s television advertisements within forty-eight hours of its appearance. And when Chapman pulled a Hargett campaign hat out of his jacket during a televised debate and joyously pointed out the “Made in Taiwan” label, Hargett’s weakness on the issue was further exploited. It was not that Chapman believed that voters would understand the intricacies of the debate on foreign trade. Nor did he really pitch his argument in broader philosophical terms. It was an “us versus them” argument, tapping into a general sense that East Texans (and Americans too, though that was not stated as much) were losing out because of foreign interests. As the candidate put it, it was a “nationalism issue.” People “sensed it. They had this nagging fear that foreigners were buying up our industry, that no VCRs were being made in America.” As I have termed it elsewhere, it was a campaign of “resentment issues,” issues that redefined “us” and blamed “them” to the advantage of the Democrat trying to sell his program.13 The Populist Party’s rage against things big and foreign, Patman’s long crusade against the banking system, and Chapman’s “Tora! Tora! Tora!” campaign provide the background for elections in this East Texas district, for the campaigns run by both Sandlin and Merritt. There was some intentionality involved, with explicit attempts to try again what had worked before. But some of what was said and done in the campaign was not planned. In these cases, as various issues arose, as philosophies were discussed, as attacks were conceived, they were frequently put—by both candidates—into a populist frame. Both campaigns were certainly reliant upon resentment issues, issues that “bind even as they divide.” In Sandlin’s case, such issues were the foundation of his advertising campaign and his campaign dialogue. His campaign team, looking to replicate Chapman’s success with the foreign-trade issue, settled on foreign aid, a variation on the theme. His campaign manager said as much:

41

42

Seeing Red

“East Texas is not a big fan of foreign aid or exporting jobs overseas. Some of us were veterans of the  campaign, and we knew this was a good issue.” The issue, as Sandlin’s campaign saw it, was not just that the Europeans and Japanese should pay more while we pay less. It was that the money Europe and Japan saved on defense was invested in research and development, which led to product development that took jobs from the United States. The logic of the issue was thus very much like the logic of the trade issue a decade back, and the advertising was designed to most effectively deliver the populist frame, not to offer a sophisticated liberal critique of defense policy. The Iwo Jima backdrop, the patriotic tone, the advertising tagline “Let’s first take care of the folks at home,” all worked to take the defense issue out of liberal-conservative terms and forge it into a simple zero-sum game, an explicit linkage of “their” interests and “our” interests, one made without offending any constituent group in the district. Ed Merritt’s campaign, too, fit into the area’s tradition of populist campaigning and zero-sum manipulations. Merritt’s inflammatory message and use of communist symbols, in particular, were designed in resentment mode. On the hustings, Merritt was a pure conservative schooled in the Republican lessons of . His attack advertisement, however, was not ideological, but emotionalistic, made all the more powerful by the out-group linked to his opponent. In the advertisement, Merritt also encouraged voters to draw mental lines around a new “us” and a new “them.” The communist business was an opportunity that Merritt just fell into (though his campaign clearly manipulated the system to get it legitimately “into play”). The use of same-sex marriages—a moral, even an ideological, issue to some—also worked this way to some extent. And as the sociologist Chandler Davidson () argues, opposition to gays has become an important component of many conservative campaigns in Texas, a way to “[hold] together their subcoalitions” and “to appeal to a wide spectrum of groups (even blacks and Mexican Americans)” ( – ). The point, of course, is to redraw the lines that define the electorate. The degree of stretching required to link Sandlin to gay rights (through Victor Morales, the Democratic Senate candidate) offers some sense of how far some campaigns will go to take advantage of us-them lines that are already quite salient in public opinion. That both campaigns framed their major advertisements in populist terms is not a surprise. The Left, the Right, and the center all operate with populist models here as in much of the South. Michael Kazin, the historian, argues that in fact the Right has become even more reliant on populist rhetoric and strategy than has the Left, where it was originally founded. This transformation oc-

Seeing Red

curred when populism took both roads at the historical fork. The Right applied populist techniques and rhetoric to a new set of issues, while the Left diversified its messages and strategies but did not abandon populist appeals. To hear Max Sandlin talk about traditional ideological issues, it is clear that he presents liberal ideas in a populist light, even selling government activism with patriotism, a long-standing vehicle for us-them framing. As the candidate put it, “Far Right conservatives” do not fully understand the temperament of places like East Texas: “People are conservative here. It’s a religious part of the country. They have traditional values. And they don’t like to waste money. But they believe in this country. They believe we have the greatest government ever conceived and we’re not gonna turn our backs on those of us who absolutely need help. It’s where those Far Right conservatives are so overreaching.” Though Merritt was a pure ideological conservative, he also used the us-them frame to sell his ideas. The issue for Merritt was not that he needed to alter his conservative message to make it attractive to a broad swath of East Texas voters. Conservative ideas do sell here. Rather, it was the means to attract attention, especially in such a crowded political environment. Here again, one sees how the Populist past hangs over the political scene in Texas, for the state Constitution, written in  after Reconstruction, created the crowding. The Texas Constitution, which aimed to establish a governmental system characterized by more popular control over elected officials, created a large and fragmented executive branch and required elections and short terms for most state officials, including judges.14 Referenda on tax levies and bond issues and popular approval of amendments to the state Constitution contribute to a routinely long ballot (Anderson, Murray, and Farley ). In this context, candidates are not just battling each other; they are vying for some notice from the voting public. The struggle for attention is apparent in every campaign, to be sure, but it is exacerbated in Texas, where ballots are so long, and it is especially true in this district, where the major media markets are distant and even out of state. Sandlin had the money to overcome the problem. Merritt, obsessed with the difficulty of getting noticed, relied heavily on resentment issues to cut through the electoral noise. Another staple of populist rhetoric is suspicion of things big and alarm about forces that operate beyond the control of the individual. It is little surprise that populist rhetoric along these lines resonates in a place like East Texas, where life seems less organized around large institutions. Religion, for example, is practiced almost completely within a highly decentralized Protestant tradition. Here, in a very religious part of the country,  percent of religious adherents

43

44

Seeing Red

belong to a Protestant church.15 Far from the Eastern Establishment (another target that binds as it divides), people in places like this have long had a mistrust of the federal government, Wall Street, and big corporations, something politicians in the area have long understood. Former congressman Jim Chapman contends that this aspect of the political culture even offers a representative a great deal of freedom. “People in my district are suspicious of anything big and institutionalized,” he says. “You can even be a progressive Democrat in my conservative district if you understand this. You can even be pro-choice so long as you talk about keeping Big Brother government out of our bedrooms.” Indeed, the way in which the candidates in this race talk about the federal government—both Merritt and Sandlin—suggests that the government’s unpopularity comes as much from populist resistance to big government as from conservative resistance. And it again shows that both liberal and conservative policy can be pitched from this viewpoint: Max Sandlin, asked at a debate about partial-birth abortion: “Women have enough sense to make the decision on their own. The Federal Government should not be part of that decision” (Sinyard ). Ed Merritt to a reporter on his opponent: “Sandlin wants to maintain big government [and believes that] the people we send to Washington are the problem, not the system. We don’t need a big brother in Washington, D.C. telling us what to do” (McPherson a). Max Sandlin, on his politics (spoken at a black church): “Government is the way to provide opportunity for people. It shouldn’t be about providing opportunity for big interests. I want this country to do what’s right for students, senior citizens, and families. Government is about making people better educated and healthier and more hopeful here at home.” Ed Merritt on taxes, regulation, and his “dream to stop the spread of the federal government”: “My children, your children and grandchildren won’t have it better [than we do]. Why? Because of taxes and because of the federal government coming in to micromanage our lives. They want to have control over you. That’s why I decided to run in this election.” Though representing only a few of the huge number of utterances the candidates made on the campaign trail, these messages illustrate, if not demonstrate, the way candidates discuss issues—liberal and conservative issues—to take advantage of sentiments that populists, over the years, have both cultivated and followed. Resentments and concerns about large institutions and about impersonal forces beyond the control of individuals are embedded into the political

Seeing Red

culture of places like this and are perpetuated by these campaigns. Candidates, socialized in this political culture, are shaped by these ideas and genuinely carry them around and repeat them. But they also are attuned to what works politically. The lessons they learn come from their predecessors, and this is an important mechanism by which the past, even the distant past, informs the present and the future. That Democrats are surviving here longer than in most of the rest of Texas, other than the major cities and the Hispanic south, is some further evidence of the hand of the past. Given that the Democratic legacy in East Texas (and Louisiana as well) is populist as much as racial, the Democratic hold on people has been sustained on a different basis. The racial reasons for leaving the party are the same here as elsewhere. The populist reasons to stay, reinforced over the years, have made this a white-majority place in which Democrats have been able to hold off the Republican tide, even a decade after the big changes of the s.

POSTSCRIPT

Establishing moderate credentials was a first priority on Max Sandlin’s arrival to Congress. What better way to do this than to join some moderate organizations? He immediately became an active member of the Blue Dogs, a conservative Democratic group of mostly southern representatives seeking to establish a Democratic identity apart from the national party. He also joined the Democratic Leadership Council, a Washington organization dedicated to seeking out a “third way,” a moderate way, in American politics. He would not be branded a liberal by the company he kept. In his several terms in Congress, Sandlin’s voting record has been, in fact, moderate, reflecting a mix of ideological positions. He has taken conservative positions on defense, school prayer, flag desecration, gun control, and some environmental and tax issues.16 On issues of race, he has supported affirmative action, tightening penalties for hate crimes, and a moratorium on the death penalty. In other domains, he has balanced liberal and conservative positions. On abortion, for instance, he has voted against bills to recognize a fetus as a legal entity, to ban cloning for medical research, and to restrict overseas family planning aid, but he also has voted in favor of banning partial-birth abortions and barring the transport of minors across state lines to get an abortion. Ratings from various organizations reflect Sandlin’s generally moderate impulses. His average American Conservative Union rating in his first six years of service

45

46

Seeing Red

was ; his average Americans for Democratic Action rating was : middling scores in a very polarized institution.17 In his rhetoric and his public activity, Sandlin has frequently taken a populist stance, much as his predecessors did. Some of his best-publicized moments in Congress have come from his attacks on big business. His very best may have been his participation in a hearing on corporate scandals, where WorldCom executive Bernard Ebbers “took the Fifth” in front of the panel just after making a statement asserting his innocence. Sandlin objected to the selective nature of the testimony and openly explored the possibility of finding Ebbers in contempt of Congress (Stern ). Nothing came of this but a lot of press for the outraged representative. In a letter to President Bush, Sandlin also proposed federal aid to laid-off Enron workers when that company collapsed in scandal, writing, “I know that the government does not traditionally respond in this way to problems in the private sector. However, these are untraditional times” (Houston Chronicle ). Sandlin’s populist rhetoric even earned him an invitation to present his ideas on how to effectively talk about the corporate scandals at a  Democratic Party issues retreat. As they prepared for the upcoming elections, Sandlin urged his colleagues to go beyond talking about pension reform, the direct issue at stake. Instead, it was important to make the point that Democrats share the perspectives, the worldviews, of “regular folks.” Quoting his speech: “The question is simple: What do you do to protect those who work hard and play by the rules? Democrats protect working families and pensioners. As you can see with Enron-gate, Republicans are standing up and championing the worst of corporate America. We have to say that if you work hard and follow the rules, you’re not going to get Enroned by a group that has infiltrated every level of American government and made out like the bandits that they are” (Cassidy ). Since Sandlin’s first election, Republicans have become even more dominant in Texas. By , Republicans held all twenty-nine statewide offices in Texas. They were routinely routing Democrats in presidential and gubernatorial elections. Their advantage was so large that simply holding off Republican gains in an election became cause for a press release by the Democratic state party. The likelihood of a Texas Democrat moving up the political ladder is now clearly remote. The statewide chances of a white moderate are also somewhat diminished given the present state of the state Democratic Party. Sandlin’s predecessor, Jim Chapman, failed to win the Democratic nomination for the  Senate race, losing to a somewhat obscure Hispanic candidate. The party’s statewide standard-bearers in  were also minorities. With political ad-

Seeing Red

vancement blocked as it is, Sandlin has set himself on a sensible path, seeking to satisfy his ambitions in the House. Six years into his career in Congress, he has made a name for himself—and not just as the “Zestiest Legislator” for his macho consumption of eight chili peppers and a Tabasco chaser in a jalapenoeating contest.18 Sandlin sought leadership and influence from the very start, serving as the president of his Democratic freshman class in – and as a whip-at-large in the Democratic caucus. After the  elections, however, he moved into new territory. With minority leader Richard Gephardt resigning his position to run for president, a leadership race between Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Texan Martin Frost took shape. Unlike many of his Texas colleagues who supported the more moderate Frost, Sandlin backed Pelosi, and he benefited from taking the political risk of supporting a strong liberal and “hitching his star” to the ultimate winner. Pelosi, not hesitant about rewarding her supporters, brought Sandlin on to the lower rungs of the party leadership as a deputy whip. Some speculated that the newly divorced Sandlin received these assignments because he had been dating Pelosi’s daughter, a high-ranking staffer for a Massachusetts representative.19 More likely, Pelosi rewarded Sandlin for his early support and for adding some ideological breadth and vigor to her leadership campaign. With Pelosi’s ascension to minority leader, Sandlin also moved from an excellent “constituency committee” to an “influence and prestige committee” (Smith and Deering ). When Sandlin failed to get on the Commerce Committee upon arriving to Congress, he took seats on the Banking and Financial Services Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the latter a wonderful place to represent the interests of domestic oil producers, to deliver transportation projects to the district, and to secure his popularity in his district. After the  leadership election, Pelosi assigned him to the Ways and Means Committee, a “plum assignment,” according to Steven Smith and Christopher Deering, that because of its important policy domain and its small size is most frequently mentioned by new members as being “unattainable” (). The same thing that has led the ambitious representative to seek power in the House—Republican control of the state—now jeopardizes his career there. Sandlin’s situation in the House is tenuous, if only because his ability to stay in the institution has been threatened by the unusual mid-decade Republican redistricting of his home state. Like Texas’s other white, non-Hispanic Democrats, Sandlin faces a dramatically different—and much more difficult—district in

47

48

Seeing Red

his upcoming election. The Republican map, in place as of early , has divided his old district in two, and Sandlin now encounters the prospect of running in a district that contains only  percent of its previous population.20 Gone is the entire northern half of his old district, a rural area with the strongest essence of populism. In its place, Republican line drawers have added the heavily Republican medium-sized cities of Longview and Tyler. Indeed,  percent of the new First will be in Gregg and Smith counties, home to these two cities.21 Sandlin now will have to win votes from a more affluent, better-educated middle-class electorate, one that has supported Republicans up and down the ticket at significantly higher levels than the electorate he has given up. Sandlin is a bullish character, not one to be underestimated, but his challenge in  will be significant. He could have been reelected indefinitely from his old district, and his success still yields important lessons, but with Republicans now holding the ability to control the electoral rules of the game, to carve up the electoral map at will, the Texas realignment will move to a new, even more lopsided level. This bodes poorly for Democrats, even Max Sandlin.

Chapter 2 Give Them He--

Fourth District Mississippi,  Mississippi’s Fourth District is a classic s southern congressional district, a heavily black— percent—district in the Deep South.1 In places like this, Democrats have a chance to win elections by putting together a large unified black vote and a large enough white liberal and moderate vote to win elections, as they did through the s and s. In this hotly contested  race to replace Democrat-turnedRepublican Mike Parker, a Democrat won. It is a case that illustrates how biracial coalitions can still be forged given the right Democratic candidate and the right (heavily black enough) district. But there are fewer of these Democrats now, thanks to redistricting processes that have eliminated many of these heavily minority districts. Indeed, the Democrat in this case soon lost his seat to a neighboring Republican and an unfavorable redistricting plan.

49

50

Give Them He--

AFTER THE MILSAPS COLLEGE DEBATE AT CHILI’S RESTAURANT: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

The televised debate at Milsaps College is over and it has not gone well for Ronnie Shows, highway commissioner and Democratic candidate for Congress in the Fourth District of Mississippi. The candidate and a handful of his staff head off to Chili’s restaurant for a postmortem meal. Perhaps they can convince themselves that it was not as bad as it seemed. As they are led toward their booth, the Shows contingent passes a group of Delbert Hosemann supporters who clearly have come directly from Milsaps as well. Shows can see that they have spotted him. He feels their eyes on his group, and he notices that they are laughing and joking. As he scoots into the booth, the candidate remarks to one of his aides, “That’s Hosemann’s group. Look at ’em lookin’ us over. They’re lookin’ down on me. They’re sayin’, ‘There’s that white trash over there.’ They don’t think I’m as good as that rich guy.” The fact that Hosemann has so outperformed him in the debate gives the comment a certain resonance. As the meal ends and Shows goes back to his car, he finds yet one more taunt—a Hosemann bumper sticker under his windshield wiper.2 It has been a long race for each of the candidates, Shows and Hosemann. They have outlasted primary opponents, and for the past few months have worked to shore up their partisan bases after potentially divisive primaries. At this point, their contest seems about even, partly because they have yet to fully engage each other. They have not really defined themselves well, and the differences between them have been muted—at least that is the perception of those who follow politics around Jackson. Only on Social Security has a difference between the candidates really emerged. Shows, with ceremony on the steps of the Mississippi state capitol, signed a pledge to devote the nation’s entire budget surplus to save Social Security. Hosemann has argued for privatization (Ammerman a). There have been a few other small skirmishes between the campaigns. But on the whole, the two candidates have not yet distinguished themselves from each other. To this point, the press has reported that they seem identical. The televised debate at Milsaps College was the first real opportunity—with lots of people watching—for the candidates to define themselves. As Shows now recognizes in the aftermath of the event, he performed poorly. He was ill prepared, and his rambling style did not work in this format or in front of the well-educated audience. He fumbled some of the questions from the audience,

Give Them He--

particularly one requiring some knowledge of economics. And Hosemann, true to expectations, did an admirable job. He had prepared thoroughly, doggedly, and with focus, and it showed. Hosemann was the winner, on style points as well as on the issues. The political establishment around Jackson knew from the primaries that Hosemann was smoother and more articulate than Shows, but this debate has really brought it home, and reporters and political types from around the district are beginning to rethink the race in the wake of it. It has them assessing a real difference between the candidates. Says a Jackson journalist, “They are both very nice human beings. Neither of them is slimy. But there is a difference in style. Delbert is much more polished. He had his index cards with him. He formulated answers. He talked in complete sentences.” A second Jackson reporter agrees, “In the debate, Ronnie just stumbled around. He had no notes, no documentation. Answered off the cuff. He’d start a thought and then wander off on two or three other thoughts. I think his mind races ahead of what he’s trying to say. And he has that thick country accent—although I think that may actually help him. Before the debate, I thought the race was Shows’s to lose. Now, I think it’s Hosemann’s to lose.” Even the candidate recognizes that the debate was a disaster. He knows that the comparison with Hosemann, well prepared with his notes and his homework in a briefcase by his feet, was stark: “I did terrible. I just didn’t do well. He had the audience picked, and I just couldn’t get my answers together.” While the debate is a low point for the candidate, Shows’s campaign does not necessarily turn on such events. His core supporters—blacks from Jackson and whites from the rural part of the district south and west of Jackson—are not necessarily watching the televised debates. Nor does the debate highlight Shows’s considerable political strengths, strengths that have been cultivated over the twenty-plus years he has served as a public official. His driver, a political consultant whose services include day-to-day, minute-to-minute scheduling, says, “I’ve worked for sharper, slicker candidates. More polished. But he’s one of the best people. Look, Ronnie doesn’t know international economics. Ronnie knows about building roads and about people and that’s a lot more important. The other stuff you can learn.” A longtime liberal columnist in the area, appalled by the debate, also recognizes the Democrat’s talents. “Shows isn’t flashy. He’s a country boy with no polish to him at all. But he fits the district. He’s not quite the Jackson image of a white-collar, starchy person. He won’t register high on an intellectual scale. But he has political smarts that are

51

52

Give Them He--

not obvious when you first look at him.” It is not just Shows’s strength but Hosemann’s weakness on this dimension that works in Shows’s favor. “He [Shows] is death to interview. I can’t get him to say a complete sentence,” says a reporter. “On the other hand, he knows people. He connects with some guy in the line when he’s standing at a factory entrance, and the other people in line see that. Delbert’s idea of connecting with local people is khakis and an opencollar shirt. He doesn’t have the ability to make small talk.” Ronnie Shows, friendly and open, can talk small all day. Shows also has name recognition and political connections from over twenty years of serving the area as an elections clerk in Jefferson Davis County, as a state senator, and as the highway commissioner for the southern third of the state, an area that includes the entirety of the congressional district. Years of taking care of problems, spending public money, doing good deeds and favors, and running for office have built him a solid reputation in the district—and a real political base from which to run.3 It was this base, and his easy persona, that led to the general enthusiasm for his candidacy among state (and even national) Democrats. In this man, the Democrats sensed an opportunity to take back a district lost when the district’s previous Democratic representative, Mike Parker, switched parties. There is a little less enthusiasm for Shows after this debate, but Shows’s terrible performance seems not to have cost him in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger account of the debate. Not surprisingly, given that it seems outside the game rules reporters use, there is no evaluation of Shows’s performance in the newspaper. Incredibly, the report is helpful to Shows. The lead to the article states that Hosemann undermined his own attack on Shows’s record. Though he had criticized Shows for voting for a tax increase to fund statewide kindergartens, “[Hosemann] acknowledged that had he been in the Legislature then, he would have done the same thing” (Ammerman b). And although the article noted that Hosemann had identified the price of milk, eggs, and bread within a few cents, it did not mention that Shows had ducked the question by saying that his wife did all the shopping. “Candidates’ Differences Clear during Debate,” read the headline, but the biggest difference that became clear during the debate is not clear in this report of it. If Shows does not appear to be too damaged by the Milsaps debate or its coverage, his performance in another televised debate two days later does introduce a new problem for the campaign. Asked his opinion on the Brady Bill, Shows’s response is garbled, and Hosemann’s press secretary has issued a press release of it, complete with verbal wanderings and miscues:

Give Them He--

Well, you know, the children that’s been involved, the juveniles that have been involved, with these, with these shootings have not seemed to be crazy kids, or kids that even come from real poor class neighborhoods that come from middle class folks or maybe even a little bit better. Uh, the Brady Bill, I think, has some good points. The three, I mean, used to be, when I was a circuit Clerk, we had to make, people had to wait three days to get a marriage license. I, I don’t see a problem with people waiting three days to get a handgun or something. I do believe in Second Amendment rights. I believe we are entitled to our rights as, for, to bear arms. But I, I don’t see the problem with a three day waiting period. (Hosemann press release )

This is condensed and clarified in a piece of Hosemann literature as: “In a televised debate on October th, Mr. Shows said he was in favor of expanding gun control on law-abiding citizens by restricting your ability to buy a gun.”

OVER THE AIRWAVES

Hosemann Radio Advertisement

         : This is Trent Lott, senator from Mississippi. Liberals in Congress want to raise your taxes. You can count on that. They want to confiscate your guns. And they won’t rest until they drive God out of public life. . . . Delbert Hosemann has good Mississippi common sense. He shares our Mississippi values and will work with the Mississippi team in Washington. On November , vote for Delbert Hosemann.

JITNEY JUNGLE GROCERY STORE: BYRAM, MISSISSIPPI

Delbert Hosemann is antsy. He cuts short a stop at a Wal-Mart in South Jackson—not enough traffic and not the right kind of traffic. “I’m not strong with African Americans,” says the candidate as he prepares to leave. The next stop is a soccer field in Clinton, an affluent suburb west of Jackson and home to the wildly successful telecommunications firm WorldCom. It is a place with model public schools (and no private schools) and excellent public facilities such as this field. “These people are my category,” he says. But while they are his category and they are captive, seated in lawn chairs on the sidelines, they are too fixed on the game to connect with him and he looks to go: “This is a waste of time.” On the way to a grocery store in Byram, in another part of town, he me-

53

54

Give Them He--

thodically works his way through a binder (thoroughly organized with colorcoded tabs), calling precinct workers throughout the district. He aims to call every one of them to thank them and to gather intelligence about what is happening in their area. In between calls, there is no chatter. He is entirely focused on what he is doing. This is a lot of work and it requires physical and mental stamina. Hosemann is up for it. He is in excellent shape, a serious runner who has conquered the challenges of the New York and Boston marathons in recent years. His day started at : this morning. He plans to be at it well into the night. By the time he arrives at the Jitney Jungle grocery store, he is eager to get started and he jumps out, not waiting for his driver to park. “I guarantee that he won’t want to stay here,” says the young man. It is hot in the sun, and even Hosemann has to go inside every once in a while. He has done this before, and occasionally store managers have asked him to leave. Here, the storefront is absorbing the sun and it is bright and uncomfortable. The management tolerates him. The candidate perseveres. The physical challenge of campaigning is not more difficult than he expected. He went into this project with eyes open, with determination and method, as he would a road race, a case at his law firm, or a cause, such as the blood bank or the Mississippi Medical Mall he helped establish. But this is an entirely different enterprise. The emotional and mental challenge of running for Congress is more than he anticipated, and that challenge has come from the uncertainty associated with a close election. Hosemann is a successful tax attorney who deals with the predictable, who is used to being in control of things, and who believes that there is a relationship between hard work, true grit, and success. Now, with just a few days left to campaign, the candidate is trying to manage his anxiety. When not greeting people coming in and out of the store, he paces back and forth, shuffling push cards in his hand. “I just can’t get a feel for it,” he says a number of times. “It ranges from sheer terror to great enthusiasm out here.” The questions on Hosemann’s mind are many: Will blacks turn out to vote? Part of the problem is that so much uncertainty surrounds Ronnie Shows’s support. And this is not something Hosemann can do much about. The turnout question is plaguing him. “A nice rainy day on Tuesday would sure be nice,” he says. “If black turnout is  percent, he wins. If it’s  percent, we win.” Whom will the Clarion-Ledger endorse? The Jackson paper will publish the en-

Give Them He--

dorsement tomorrow, but it is on everyone’s mind today. No one knows for sure, not even the reporters covering the race. Where do things stand in the public opinion polls? A Zogby Poll out the week before has Shows ahead. But, says Hosemann’s press secretary, he has heard from a friend in Senator Lott’s office that the poll was not done correctly, that all of Hinds County was included in the sample when, in fact, some parts of Hinds, majority-black parts, are in the neighboring Second District. What is coming from the other side? Some kind of attack ad or crazy tactic can certainly be anticipated. But what will it be? Though a first-time candidate, Hosemann already has experience with this, as his primary had several surprises. The day of the primary one of his main rivals, Phil Davis, charged the strongly pro-life Hosemann with being on the board of an abortion clinic. While Hosemann had advised the health clinic in the late s on tax, benefit, and retirement issues, that was years before the clinic began offering abortion services. Nonetheless, the clinic, apparently without his knowledge, continued to list Hosemann as a director for several more years. The Davis team got hold of  documents from the clinic and fed them to a conservative talk-show host and other members of the conservative media (Gizzi ). The charge, picked up by the mainstream press, was the kind of last-moment, out-of-the-blue charge that spooks any candidate.4 It was particularly bracing to Delbert Hosemann, who identifies his motivation to run for Congress as coming from the satisfaction he received in taking a lead role in the establishment of several health-related facilities, including an area blood bank and the Jackson Medical Mall. In the latter case, Hosemann, working pro bono, figured out how to finance the conversion of a run-down, bankrupt shopping mall in central Jackson into a large primary health-care facility that now serves the poor, previously underserved, and largely African American community in the city. It was a very complicated undertaking and an activist’s accomplishment, one that encouraged Hosemann to seek new ways to continue public service. Hosemann is now bracing for something else, but it is not clear what it is going to be. In the meantime, though anxious and distracted, Hosemann focuses on the job at hand, passing out push cards on this hot afternoon. “Are you a Christian?” asks one woman. “I am. I go to a Catholic church, and I’ve been going to all the churches around. There’s so much religious energy here.” As she puts his push card into her grocery bag, he says, “Thank you, and I’d appreciate your prayers.”

55

56

Give Them He--

“Delbert’s the hardest-working person I know,” says his brother-in-law, a successful Southern California businessman who believes in him enough to spend several weeks in Mississippi licking and stuffing envelopes for the campaign. But hard work and good intentions are not enough in a congressional race. OVER THE AIRWAVES

Shows Radio Advertisement

         : Battle of the Bulge veteran and former POW Clifford Shows.              : There’s nothing that makes a father prouder than a son helping people. My son Ronnie was a teacher, coach, state senator, and transportation commissioner. Now, in his race for Congress, he’s working hard for your vote. The problem is his opponent is spending tons of money to mislead you. I tell you Ronnie Shows believes in the Second Amendment and opposes gun control. He’ll fight to save our Social Security.            [with orchestral version of “America the Beautiful” in background]: Thanks, Dad. I’m proud of my record. If you send me to Congress, I’ll work to save Social Security, oppose gun control, and fight for working families. Hosemann Radio Advertisement

         : Is that door open or closed? Ronnie Shows wants you to believe that he’s tough on crime. His record as a state senator tells a different story. Ronnie Shows voted to make some of Mississippi’s most violent criminals eligible for life sentences. He even voted for weekend passes for inmates. Ronnie Shows. Soft on crime with a record to prove it. Hosemann Television Advertisement

         : Do murderers, rapists, and drug dealers deserve to be set free? As state senator, Ronnie Shows voted for early release of some of Mississippi’s worst criminals. He even supported giving weekend passes to inmates. Early Release. [Onscreen:] Ronnie Shows: Too Liberal. [Voice-over:] Mr. Shows. What were you thinking?5

PEP RALLY AND PRESS CONFERENCE WITH SENATOR TRENT LOTT: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

Delbert Hosemann’s campaign, like the campaigns of many Republicans in the South, has hosted a large number of national Republican figures to headline

Give Them He--

rallies, fund-raisers, and parties. Already, Missouri senator John Ashcroft, Congressmen John Linder and Steve Largent, Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Republican icon Bob Dole have come to the district to stump for Hosemann. This event, a Republican pep rally outside the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, is the last organized event of the campaign, and it features venerable home-state Senator Trent Lott, as well as a small assortment of other local and state-level Republicans. Even in late October, the temperature is well into the eighties, and it is hotter still in this bright spot, which, at midday, has been soaking up sun all morning. A well-dressed crowd mills around, some of the women cooling themselves with “I’m a Trent Lott fan” fans. There are a couple of shady spots near some large pillars, but with the sun so high overhead, they are small and accommodate only a few. A young woman sings “Glory Hallelujah” and “God Bless the USA” on the podium, which is slowly coming into shade next to the building. She keeps missing notes, but the few who are listening seem to admire her enthusiasm. It is striking how orderly and organized this event is. It is not just a reflection of the candidate, who is certainly organized and absolutely orderly. Republican rallies here seem much more so than Democratic rallies. “Dear God,” invokes a preacher, right on time, “See over all those who stand for what is right. And bring victory for Christians.” The master of ceremonies, a former area television journalist with a deep voice and a professional manner, runs the program efficiently. He introduces several warm-up speakers, starting with Mrs. Pat Fordice, the first lady of Mississippi. “I know I’m preaching to the choir,” she starts out—she is really preaching to the television cameras on the perimeter—“I know you’re interested in good conservative government. I know you’re interested in seeing that no more help gets to the president’s government.” Her spirited delivery animates the congregation. Representing the young people of Mississippi is a volunteer from the Hosemann campaign. In her twenties, she gives a personal talk about her hopes for the future and follows it with a Delbert Hosemann testimonial: “I know that this man will take care of our children because he takes care of his own children.” Hosemann’s wife, Lynn, dabs her eyes, and the young woman hugs them both. The campaign is so full of hard knocks that moments like these are welcome. An older woman comes up to the podium. She is there to represent the senior citizen, and she also gives a testimonial, urging other seniors to support Delbert. Much of what she says is garbled, as she is clearly nervous, but she is

57

58

Give Them He--

there to just deliver one message: “Delbert Hosemann is the only candidate with a plan to save Social Security.” She does not go into detail about the plan—Hosemann wants to privatize the program—but she is certain in her conviction. “I appreciate him as a Christian. He and his wife are Christians,” she says before walking off. Before the main speeches, the master of ceremonies introduces Tricia Lott and Lynn Hosemann, “two important ladies who are important to all Mississippians because they are important to their husbands.” When Trent Lott comes up to the stand, he turns to his wife. “She’d make a good first lady, don’t you think?” Many in the audience agree. Lott gives an experienced, exuberant speech to the crowd. He was, after all, a cheerleader at Ole Miss. “Which team are you on?” he asks. “Delbert Hosemann, Trent Lott, Chip Pickering [the white Republican congressman representing a neighboring district], and [Mississippi senator] Thad Cochran? Or Ronnie Shows, Teddy Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Bennie Thompson [the black Democrat representing a neighboring district]?” The crowd appreciates the comparison. These folks are politically active and know the players. Lott then refers to the issues—tax reform, bringing decisions about education home, gun control—and does it with flair, all the while tying it to his candidate in this contest: “I don’t like it when a twenty-six-year-old Harvard-educated bureaucrat in Washington makes decisions about education in Hinds County. Freedom, faith, family. That sounds American to me. The liberals want more of your taxes, they want to control your lives, to take your guns, to tell you how to educate your children. Delbert Hosemann will keep his nose clean. He will take Mississippi from the bottom rung to where we belong.” In Delbert Hosemann’s speech, he reviews what he stands for, tying his more specific plans to Lott’s articulation of the issues. It is very well coordinated. Hosemann wants to send education money back to the states and localities in block grants and notes that “ million hours are spent just applying for educational grants.” He charges that his opponent supports the Brady Bill and points out that the National Rifle Association has endorsed his campaign (“He [Shows] says that three days is not too long to wait for a permit. We cannot have gun control. I will defend your right to own a gun”). He defends himself on Social Security by saying that “Democratic scare tactics aren’t working. We can fix Social Security and do it now.” And he speaks to what is becoming a major emphasis of his campaign—drugs and crime: “Drugs are robbing us of our children. We need more funding for the courts. We need to break the drug cycle, not just warehouse people. My opponent, in the last six years, time and time

Give Them He--

again, has voted to reduce sentences, to let repeat offenders back on the streets. When you pass laws, you tend to forget that there are victims to crimes. We need to keep criminals in jail. We don’t need them back on the street selling drugs.” Given his professional experience, taxes are his signature issue, and he hits this note as well: “Ronnie Shows has taxed everything you buy. He even voted to raise the car tax. When you pay that car tax, you pay the Shows tax.” The crowd cheers that observation. Hosemann, the athlete, the candidate, finishes with a description of the stretch run. “There are three days left. As many of you know, I’m a runner. Now, I’m not tired. I’m ready for the sprint.” After the rally is over, there is a sprint into the air-conditioned building for the press conference with Senator Lott and Hosemann. Lott is promising to promote Hosemann for the Ways and Means Committee, a good place for someone with his expertise—though, of course, an unlikely place for a freshman representative—and this is, ostensibly, the reason for the press conference. A couple of television cameras are set up, and three reporters wait with arms crossed. After his brief announcement, Lott fields questions about the Ways and Means Committee, about the differences between the two candidates, about career politicians, and about his own ambitions for higher office. Right in the middle of one of the senator’s answers, one of the cameramen starts loudly breaking down his equipment. If it is not said in the first fifteen minutes, it must not be news. Lott does not even seem to notice. The questioning inevitably moves to the negative advertisements that the Hosemann campaign has begun to air. For two weeks, Hosemann has been attacking Shows—as he did at the rally—for being soft on crime. Now that Hosemann has made radio and television commercials about Shows’s voting record, the Democrat has responded. The handful of gathered reporters is especially interested in Hosemann’s response to the response. The early release votes, Shows explained to a newspaper reporter, were made as the state was confronting both a budget crisis and the possibility of a $-per-prisoner, per-day fine because of a federal lawsuit (Wagster c). He then issued a threat, “For him to sit there and think that Ronnie is going to keep taking and taking it . . . he’s going to find out a lot of his negative campaign is going to come back and pop him in the face” (Wagster c).6 Hosemann steps to the microphone to explain his position. His press secretary already has put out a press release rationalizing the attack. In it, Hosemann quotes Harry Truman, “When people told President Harry Truman ‘Give them He--, Harry,’ he would say, ‘I don’t give them he--. I just tell the truth on them and it feels like he--.’ That’s what’s going on here” (Wagster a).7 Here, the

59

60

Give Them He--

candidate is ready with an answer. “His crime record is terrible,” says the candidate earnestly. “He’s repeatedly and consistently voted in favor of letting criminals out of prison.” Senator Lott eases Hosemann aside. “If you’re talking about votes that are made, it’s not negative. It’s not negative. I’ve been in Congress for twenty-five years. That’s twenty-five years of votes. That’s fair game.” This defensive posture is not where Lott wants to be, and he skillfully segues the discussion to make yet another point about Mississippi’s team and how Shows will not be part of it. “I can mark an S where he’ll be standing by the backbenches.” As the press conference ends, an agitated young woman rushes across the room, saying loudly, “I swear to God.” She is a Shows press aide, a “little firebox,” according to Shows’s campaign manager, who has managed to get into the room to tape-record the event. As the press conference began, a Republican party official, recognizing her, asked her to leave. She refused, but with Senator Lott talking, the party official chose to quietly jostle her rather than make a scene. She jostled back to demonstrate her resolve. Now, leaving, she stops to talk to a puzzled Hosemann, wishing him well on Tuesday and complaining about the “thugs” working for him. This little episode is the first sign that the campaign might move to an even more confrontational level.

OVER THE AIRWAVES

Shows Television Advertisement

[Photograph of Delbert Hosemann that twists, distorts, and wiggles off the screen.]          : Delbert Hosemann is at it again. Distorting Ronnie Shows’s record. Is it because he doesn’t want you to know his Jackson law firm won the release of convicted murderer Gary Lynn Griffin on a technicality?8 That’s right—a technicality. That put a murderer back in our neighborhoods.

CHANNEL 16: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

After spending an hour at a Halloween “alternative party,” sponsored by the First Baptist Church, Delbert Hosemann is going to stop off at his law office to pick up a file—the Gary Lynn Griffin file. He wants to do his homework for a face-to-face “debate” with Ronnie Shows that appears to be taking shape in a couple of hours. As he starts out, the cellular phone rings, and Hosemann barks suddenly to his driver, “Pull over!” His driver veers to the side of the road, running over a sharp curb. A loud thud is followed by a long hissing sound.

Give Them He--

The word from his campaign aide is that Shows has pulled out of the debate. Hosemann is ebullient, even as he and his driver go out to change the brandnew tire. It seems that he will have the Channel  newscast to himself for the second night in a row. Last night, Hosemann appeared solo, the lead story on the local news being the controversy over the Gary Lynn Griffin political ad. After a reporter discovered that Gary Lynn Griffin was still in prison (the technicality only got him off death row), Hosemann read a statement, in response to the anchor’s question, attacking Shows for his advertisement: “Now at the eleventh hour he’s run a totally false ad—one which he knew was false when he made it.” He also refused Shows’s call for him to pull his own negative ads. “Those campaign ads are accurate. They’re totally accurate. They’re based on his public record of being a liberal on crime, voting time and time again to release prisoners early from jail.” He seemed properly indignant on the air and in the newspaper the next day, though in the article, the Shows team is able to shoot an arrow back; a Shows aide is quoted as saying, “Delbert Hosemann works for a law firm that makes life easier for murderers” (Wagster d). Though indignant in print, Hosemann seems to view the Griffin ad in professional, strategic terms, rather than personal terms. Though he has described Shows in unflattering words all day on the telephone to supporters, in a candid moment he does say that he knows that “Ronnie Shows isn’t a bad guy.” Because this controversy makes for the type of campaign news that local newscasts thrive on (thus the repeat invitation), it now appears he will get yet another chance to lambast Shows on free television. The station has invited him (and Shows) back. His message tonight: “He’s still lying!” His aide chimes in, “Delbert Hosemann, Gene Edwards [a news anchor], and the Channel  news team!” Then Hosemann steps back. “That’s smart of him [to back out]. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t do it either. He’s on such shaky ground.” At least he does not have to go to his law office for the Griffin file and can just return to headquarters to prepare for his appearance. When he gets back to headquarters, however, Shows has changed his mind again and now will face Hosemann on the broadcast. That is okay with Hosemann. As he and his campaign manager think about it, clearly Shows cannot allow him to appear uncontested two nights in a row. So Hosemann gets ready to take him on and the staff members, exhilarated, gather round as they prepare a strategy for the face-off and try to anticipate what their opponent can say after the facts in his attack ad have fallen apart. Someone has fetched the Griffin file, and Hosemann starts to look it over. “I’ve never even seen this damned case,” he says. But he does see some opportunity in it. “Let’s talk about the real

61

62

Give Them He--

victims here,” says the candidate, “the poor kids of this fellow who was murdered. He’s dredging all this back up.” Hosemann cannot suppress his excitement as he and his staff try to anticipate what Shows will say. “The fur is going to fly. I’m going one-on-one with him live and I’m lookin’ forward to it.” The mood is high. Hosemann’s press secretary says, “I was pessimistic yesterday, but I’m really optimistic now.” Hosemann himself likens this to a marathon, with this event being the equivalent of Heartbreak Hill. “But this time, I’m gonna run up that hill no problem,” he says. His press secretary and campaign manager yell advice to him as he scurries about the office, adrenaline flowing, preparing to leave. “Don’t read it again, Delbert.” “Be sure to wear a blue shirt and a red tie.” The mood is not so easy or confident over at Shows’s headquarters a couple of miles away. They have agonized over whether to accept the invitation of the station to appear jointly with Hosemann, at first saying no. But they have decided that they cannot let Hosemann have yet another night alone on the news. They know that Shows is vulnerable in the Gary Lynn Griffin situation, and they will have to figure out how to effectively deal with it. There is not much regret over the Griffin advertisement. Shows and his advisors resent Hosemann’s negative ads, not just for the substantial manipulation of Shows’s voting record but for the rhetoric employed: “like Trent Lott saying on the radio that the Democrats are taking God out of our country.” Shows is also angry because he did not fully expect a negative campaign from the Republican, who after the vicious primary campaign approached Shows and proposed running a campaign on the issues. “I could see what he and his wife had been through in the primary,” says Shows. “Now, I haven’t been in a campaign yet where [my wife] Johnnie Ruth hasn’t cried. But he was the one who was promising a positive campaign.” Finally, it is clear—in the campaign’s numbers and in the candidate’s experiences with people on the road—that Hosemann’s ads are damaging him. The candidate tells of the mother of an old student berating him for his record. Johnnie Ruth has even talked with a woman who planned to vote for Ronnie in the hope of getting her boyfriend out of prison sooner. As they talk about it, Shows rationalizes the Griffin ad by saying that its purpose is not to make people think Hosemann is soft on crime so much as to raise questions about the veracity of his advertising. It is, nonetheless, “a bad piece of research,” says Shows’s consultant, one that can put “our asses in a jam.” The claims in the ad have been discovered to be wrong, the connection with Hose-

Give Them He--

mann is thin (the work was done by some of Hosemann’s associates from the firm’s Tupelo office before they joined his firm), and they have the immediate problem of coming up with something for the debate. The strategy they devise is essentially for Shows to express his indignation, to keep up front that his record, too, has been wrongly used, and to do all this as forcefully as possible. The aim is to get viewers to see this as a “food fight,” with both sides equally guilty. The easygoing Shows has to appear angry, to show some “fire in the belly,” a quality that he and his staff believe Mississippians like in their representatives. More important, Shows’s consultant says that he must draw attention away from “that piece of shit thing [the commercial]” and put Hosemann on the defensive. As the candidates arrive at the station, Shows refuses to shake Hosemann’s hand. He wants to disarm the Republican, who “is so used to good ole me.” Hosemann does seem surprised. Shows also has brought his “firebox” press assistant with him, the one who has been infiltrating Hosemann’s events. The Shows campaign knows that the Hosemann campaign is already angry at her— she caused that scene at yesterday’s press conference—and hope that her presence might rattle them. As they sit down on the set, Shows glowers over at Hosemann and notices that he does not have his omnipresent briefcase down by his feet. It gives him a shot of confidence. The anchor, a Saturday-night anchor, not a first teamer, is a young woman in her twenties. She starts things off by saying, “The Fourth District race is heating up. The reason: advertisements. Both candidates are arguing that their opponents are soft on criminals and that they are tough on crime. . . . Both have new campaign ads. Has it gotten out of hand?” Shows jumps in before Hosemann can open his mouth and starts on the attack. The exchange is chaotic. “I’ve always run on my record. . . . From day one. From that first day at the lake in Franklin County, you came up to me and said, ‘Ronnie, let’s make this a positive campaign,’ from day one, you’ve taken a little piece of my record and not explained those pieces and have not told the whole truth.” As Hosemann starts to respond with, “Ronnie’s public record is public record,” Shows starts interrupting. “You have not said what those votes were for, Delbert. They were for education and four-lane highways.” Hosemann tries to start again. “He started with this ad on Friday saying that I had something to do with putting a murderer back on the streets . . .” Shows again cuts in with a constant patter: “He was convicted guilty of murder,” “Your guy got him off on a technicality,” “Who has started from day one with negative ads?”

63

64

Give Them He--

As things escalate, the moderator finally breaks in and manages to get another question out. She asks whether each candidate would be willing to pull his ads, and Shows again jumps in first, noting that he had already made the offer and that it had been refused. As Hosemann starts to answer, Shows mutters, “He should be on death row and you got him off. Your firm got him off.” “He’s soft on crime.” “He should be on death row.” “He’s a murderer.” And so it goes. Shows gets off his answers, then steps all over Hosemann’s lines. Hosemann gets in very few points that come across clear and uninterrupted, and the episode deteriorates into a nasty spat. When it is over, the anchor looks at the camera and tries to compose herself for the lead-in to the next segment. That task is further complicated by the fact that the weatherman is not quite ready and she has to stretch the time. As they are leaving the studio, the candidates do not talk to each other. But one of Hosemann’s staff and Shows’s “firebox” press aide—both spirited people—get into a sharp exchange, an exchange that ends with Hosemann’s aide cursing the young woman. For a moment, it looks like the situation will get out of hand, as a couple of other aides start to shout at each other, but it is quickly broken up, and both parties leave the building seething. The debate is clearly a victory for Shows. He was rude and ill mannered on the set, but he has accomplished something important—at least it seems important now. He has taken the focus off his ad and has put Hosemann on the defensive. He also has shown some spirit. As he returns to headquarters, it is clear that his performance has gone over well with his staff. Twenty-five people are hanging off a long balcony that spans the building chanting, “Ronnie, Ronnie.”

PASTOR’S STUDY, CADE CHAPEL MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

The pastor comes in to greet Ronnie Shows and Jackson mayor Harvey Johnson as they wait in his study before the service begins. Ronnie Shows, having done some homework, quickly establishes that he is friendly with some of the minister’s relations back in Jeff Davis County. The man is genuinely pleased. They also talk about some issues the candidate knows that the pastor cares about. Look at how the Democrats got all those teachers added to the budget bill, says the candidate. “Yes,” responds the pastor as he leaves to go preach, “we sure care about that.” Over a speaker in the study, one can hear that the service has begun with a

Give Them He--

prayer for the sick and a hymn sung by the children’s chorus. Shows and the mayor chat politely about various topics, including the rough campaign being waged over television against him and the Clarion-Ledger’s endorsement of Hosemann this morning. As the mayor commiserates, Shows tells him how his record has been distorted, how the soft-on-crime votes he is being attacked for were bipartisan, even unanimous. By the time the discussion moves to building infrastructure, it is not just polite talk. They are both quite engaged. This is the first stop on a tour of five black churches that the two men will be making. Shows and Johnson, the first black mayor of the city, do not know each other very well, but this has the potential to be a mutually beneficial relationship. Mayor Johnson and Shows are brought into the chapel and wait for the minister to introduce Johnson, who, in turn, introduces—and vouches for— Shows.        : Jesse Jackson calls this voting day Dignity Day. It’s a day to go to the polls and restore our dignity. Some of us have forgotten what we went through to get this right. They forget the poll tax we couldn’t pay. They forget that we had to answer how many bubbles in a bar of soap before we could vote. There’s too much blood on the pavement for us to let November  go by without going to vote. Because while we’ve been sitting around, the Republicans took things over. On Tuesday, we have to send a message to the Republicans. We’re tired of Newt Gingrich. We’re tired of Henry Hyde, that white-haired gentleman investigating the president. We’re tired of talking about scandals instead of schools. Investigations instead of investments in our economy. . . . Now, on Tuesday, we’re gonna send Bennie [Thompson] back in the Second District. He’s a strong man who represents us in Congress. But we’ve got to get a good man in the Fourth District. I believe we have that man in Ronnie Shows. Please let’s go out and vote on Tuesday. They think we’re just gonna stay at home. Let’s fool ’em. Let’s vote. Let’s put this man in Congress. Help me receive Ronnie Shows . . .            : It’s an honor to have the mayor introduce me. Reverend Buckley. Thank you. Reverend Buckley has some kinfolk in Jeff Davis County where I come from, and we were just chatting about that. I wonder if I could get all you back here to stand up. [He points to the children’s choir.] That’s what this election is about. They’ve got to get where we are now. I assure you that my opponent doesn’t feel the same as I do about this choir. My opponent wants to get rid of the Department of Education and just when we need some investment in our children. I want to let the government help with churches to have after-school programs. If you stay with your kids, you’re too lazy to work. If you don’t, you’re neglecting your kids. I’m for raising the minimum wage. My opponent doesn’t want that. I’m for protecting Social Security. My opponent doesn’t. . . . Let me tell you a story. I was with some of my staff after a debate and we went to Chili’s for a bite to eat afterwards. While we

65

66

Give Them He--

were walking in, I could see them looking at me. Some of you know how that is. I said to someone, that’s Hosemann’s group. Lookin’ me over. Lookin’ down on me. I assure you, they thought I wasn’t as good as that rich guy. I could feel it. And when I got back to my car, you know what? There was Hosemann’s sticker on my car. You can feel it when people think they’re above you, you know what I’m saying? . . . Pray for us. Pray for our leader President Clinton. I believe in you. Ask Reverend Buckley’s kinfolk in Jeff Davis County, and they’ll tell you you can count on Ronnie Shows.

Shows actually gives a different speech at each church on the tour. Unlike many other candidates, he has no set introduction and the rhetorical flourishes, which are plain and direct, change from speech to speech. At each spot, he tries a different way of connecting to the people in the audience, though some of his boilerplate does remain the same. In every church, he talks about the issues he cares about—many relating to poverty—and lists off his priorities effectively, if not in great depth. Here, at Cade Chapel: I care about raising the minimum wage. I want to make education a priority. As a state senator, I made sure that there was a kindergarten in every one of the elementary schools in Mississippi. I’ll support the public school system—I’m a former teacher myself—public schools make Mississippi strong. I’m not for vouchers that will put back education. I want to help single parents with day care programs. I want to keep our good jobs here. I don’t like that NAFTA, which sent all our jobs down to Mexico. [He cites the number of jobs leaving various towns in the district.] I want to save Social Security. Clearly that’s a priority. I want to help home-health agencies.

At the Amazing Institutional Church of God in Christ: I’m not saying that Ronnie Shows is perfect. But if you have any friends in Jeff Davis, they’ll tell you that as a county clerk in , I made sure that African Americans could register to vote. There were some people who were excluded from grand juries. The previous clerk arranged for them never to get called. That changed when I became the clerk. As a state senator, I voted to make sure that there was a kindergarten in every one of the elementary schools in Mississippi. . . . I promise you two things. First, I’ll always be honest. Second, I’ll always treat everyone the same.

At Cherry Grove Baptist Church: As your congressman, I’ll make two commitments to you. One, I’m staying a Democrat. I’m not a switcher. A flipper. The old congressman got your vote. Then he switched on us! I’ve been elected as a Democrat since  and I’m stayin’ a Democrat [a cheer from the crowd, led by the minister]. . . . Second, I’m not voting for Newt [a second cheer]. That’s a fact.

Give Them He--

At the New Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church: The question I get asked most often is “Am I gonna switch?” When I was highway commissioner, a big Republican approached me and offered me $, from a hundred men to run as a Republican. That’s a lot of money for a fella from Bassville. But I turned it down. The Democratic Party is my party. And I’m not gonna vote for Newt Gingrich. You know why? Because he reminds me of [Mississippi governor] Fordice! [Some in the crowd screech, others shout “Amen.”]

At Hope Springs Missionary Baptist Church, after a sermon on repentance, prayer, and Bill Clinton: I’ll take care of all the people. People are people. We all have to eat and put on our pants one leg at a time. We have to treat everyone the same. I want to ask you personally, please elect me. . . . You’ve got to go vote. They think we’re not going to turn out.

Hope Springs is the mayor’s home church, and it is the last stop of the morning. As Shows and the mayor head back to their car, a church matron brings out a big plate of Sunday supper for Shows and his driver. As he dines in the car, Shows is pleased with the morning’s work. It was not without glitches. Unwilling to interrupt a sermon, the entourage had to travel back and forth several times between a couple of the churches to catch each service at just the right time. But they have made it to all of the churches on the schedule. They have reached a lot of people the Sunday before Election Day and—being taken around with someone like the much-admired mayor—they have reached them while bathed in the most favorable light. As one pastor introduced him, “It is a signal honor to present the best mayor in the U.S. [standing ovation]. I’m thankful beyond expression that Mayor Johnson is presiding over our city. My mayor. Your mayor. Harvey Johnson.” Another said to his congregation, as Shows finished, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for telling us who you support.” In these churches, Shows knows, it is as simple as that. OVER THE AIRWAVES

Hosemann Television Advertisement

: Liberal Ronnie Shows is lying about Delbert Hosemann. A Channel  report on Friday said Shows’s last-minute negative ad is a lie.  [words appear in red on the screen]: Gary Lynn Griffin is in prison serving a life sentence. : Delbert Hosemann is a tax attorney and has never represented any murderers. : Ronnie Shows voted to let violent criminals out of prison early [the words on the

67

68

Give Them He--

screen do not include “early”] and Shows voted to give weekend passes to inmates. [Pictures appear of Ronnie Shows and President Clinton morphing into each other.] : Ronnie Shows: Liberal on crime. Lying about the facts. Democratic Party Advertisement on Black Radio

         : Hello. This is Congressman John Lewis. Thirty-four years ago, three young men, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman, gave their lives here in Mississippi fighting to guarantee our right to vote. I knew these young men. Because of their sacrifice, we passed the Voting Rights Act. Today, we are on the verge of losing that right. Too many people are staying home and staying out of the voting booth. That’s a shame and a disgrace. Today, Republicans in Washington want to take us back. They want to deny our children the education they deserve. They want to deny hardworking families a decent minimum wage. And deny us the health care we deserve. This November, we have an opportunity to be heard. To put our families first. To stand up and be counted. So November , get out and vote. It has never been so important.

RADIO BOOTH, THE MATT FRIEDEMAN SHOW: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

Matt Friedeman rolls in five minutes before he is supposed to go on the air. It is the day before the election and he has a stack of papers, a Bible, and a dictionary to help him through his hour of talk radio. He is a seminary professor, a columnist with the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, and a self-described “full-orb conservative”—that is, someone who is “economically, culturally, morally, and theologically conservative.” He is variously described by others as “a red-meat conservative” and “a magnolia-scented Rush Limbaugh,” though he is from Kansas. “Not everybody likes me,” he says. “I even get called a bigot sometimes. But I looked up bigot in the dictionary and it says, ‘one with strong opinions.’ Well, mark me down. When it comes to abortion and sucking the brains out of fetuses, I’m a bigot.” He has already played a part in the campaign, being the conduit by which Hosemann’s primary opponent put out the disinformation about his connection to an abortion clinic. Friedeman went on the air with the premature news of Hosemann’s clinic association and now feels bad about it. Hosemann was furious with him. But now that he is on Hosemann’s side, that is repaired. “He fired from the hip,” remarks the candidate. “He’s a quasi-reporter and he had a

Give Them He--

hot story. I know how that is.” Today, on “Matt Friedeman Endorsement Day,” Hosemann will call in to the show. He will not appear at the station because it would compel Friedeman to invite Shows there as well. Once on the air, Friedeman invites any candidates who wish to call in to do so. “Let’s get ready to rumble” serves as the lead-in, followed by a sonorous voice that says “Talk that rocks!” and a disclaimer that the views of the host or listeners are not the views of the station. On Endorsement Day, the Fourth District race is “the big-ticket item,” but there are some judicial races on the ballot as well as two amendments to the state constitution, one on victims’ rights, the other a measure designed to keep out-of-staters from collecting signatures required to place other amendments to the state Constitution on the ballot. Friedeman has opinions on everything and delivers those opinions at about the same shout, but his opinion on this measure, which would keep some populist measures like term limitations off the next ballot, is especially strong. Friedeman then invites his listeners to voice their opinions. John from Madison County calls to say that he does not plan to vote tomorrow: “I don’t trust any of ’em.” Friedeman says that is fine, but “don’t complain to me later,” and hangs up. Mark from Jackson endorses the Libertarian candidate, “who is not owned by anybody.” Friedeman also likes the Libertarian because he is a real conservative—but, alas, that is a wasted vote. Brace from Jackson is voting for Vince Thornton, the Taxpayer’s Party candidate. He is “tired of the Republicans and tired at not voting for the alternatives.” Friedeman encourages him on. At the commercial break, there are several calls lined up, and the host is pleased. But he cringes as a Don Imus commercial, featuring a conversation about a baby’s penis, pipes over the speaker. “I opted to do secular radio rather than Christian radio because I wanted to influence the secular world,” says the candidate, “but sometimes it’s a little uncomfortable.” Delbert Hosemann’s press secretary is getting worried. After the first three calls, it appears that Friedeman’s listeners might all be angry third-party voters. He calls from his car phone to headquarters and suggests that staffers call their friends to drum up some endorsements for Delbert. He steers them away from making the calls themselves. The studio probably has caller ID. The next caller, Larry from Jackson, has an agreeable conversation with Friedeman. Larry urges other listeners to vote for Delbert Hosemann. “If you don’t, you’re saying, yes, Bill Clinton, we want you to attack interns. Yes, Bill Clinton, please take Chinese funny money. Yes, Bill Clinton, we want you to steal FBI

69

70

Give Them He--

files.” Besides, Hosemann, unlike Shows, is articulate and has articulate answers. “That’s right,” says the host. “And he’s a little more conservative and probably a lot more conservative.” After a couple of first-time callers voice their support for Hosemann—“He’s an honest businessman, and we need him in Washington”; “I’ve known him since I was a little baby. My Dad knows him and he’s a good man, particularly given who his opponent is”—Friedeman skips down the list and says, “Oh, my goodness. Look. It’s Delbert Hosemann on the phone. Friends. If Ronnie Shows wants to call in, he can. Delbert, it’s good to talk to you again.” The conversation turns to Shows’s negative advertisement, the Channel  “debate,” and Shows’s record. Friedeman notes that the latest poll has him down, and Hosemann responds that he does not know how the polls are looking. He is urging conservatives to go vote “or we’ll have as the majority party the party of abortions, big government, and lower military spending,” when Friedeman bellows, “Delbert, we got to go. We’re the show that believes in the Ten Commandments, the Boy Scout law, and southern chivalry. We’ll be right back!” He slides off his headphones. “I hate doing that, especially when it’s someone important on the line. It’s the weirdest thing to say to Trent Lott, one of the most powerful men in the world, ‘gotta go.’ Of course, he understands.” The engineer calls over the speaker, “Matt. I think the Hosemann people are getting everyone to call in.”

VICTORY PARTIES: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI

Outside the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, the parking lot is full, and the drive into the complex is lined with media trucks. Inside, a happy Republican crowd is milling around, mostly ignoring the very-large-screen television set up in the front of the room. It is early yet, and the results coming in show the Hosemann-Shows congressional race to be close. A few people paying attention to the news cheer the promising numbers, overlooking the fact that they are based on just  percent of the vote. If the happy partygoers, friends, and supporters of the Republican candidate are blissfully ignorant of how things are shaping up, Lynn Hosemann, Delbert’s wife, is not. She is getting reports from a young volunteer who brings news from campaign headquarters, news that is not good. Seeming to gain strength from the friends gathered round her, Lynn Hosemann breaks the news to them, comforting them with hugs and words of support. Her strength is impressive. It is hard to lose, but at least the uncertainty is over.

Give Them He--

Over on a platform above the crowd, a Hosemann spokesperson is being interviewed by the same reporter who “moderated” the televised “debate” between the candidates a few nights before. He knows that this contest is lost and is pessimistic as he answers the reporter’s questions. This is likely how the crowd around him will first get the news that the early returns are not revealing. After the interview, he heads to the free bar. He walks right up, as it is not overcrowded. Perhaps that will change after the concession speech. Ronnie Shows has not yet shown up at Jackson’s Cabot Lodge, the hotel where he plans to celebrate tonight with his supporters and staff. Many are milling around the lobby of the hotel, some gathered in a circle around a television set watching election returns. It is a bad night for Republicans across the country, the first midterm election since  where the president’s party has actually gained seats in the House, and these people are taking special pleasure in watching Mississippi’s own Trent Lott trying to explain the results on national television. One man repeatedly shouts “bullshit” at Lott, and his comrades are delighted. The jeering at Lott turns into a Shows chant—“Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie”—that can be heard throughout the hotel lobby. Inside a ballroom, media techs set up their equipment, and a racially mixed crowd waits for the candidate’s speech. The room is tilted to the cash bar. Most of those present have some connection to the campaign, though there are a few Democrats from around town who are just looking for a place to celebrate the good night with fellow travelers. “As we say here in Mississippi, ‘ka-ching!’” exclaims one woman, as she pulls on an imaginary slot machine. Shows arrives to “Get Ready ’Cause Here I Come,” the theme song of the historically black Jackson State University, and offers a brief speech, thanking his family, his supporters, and the politicians who have endorsed him. The first on his list is Bennie Thompson, the African American representative from the neighboring Second District. That prominent thank you is certain to be communicated to the congressman. The meat of Shows’s speech is mercifully short—that is all they will carry on the  o’clock news—but in one minute he reviews all the things he stands for. “We had the right message,” he tells the crowd, “On Social Security. On education—the basics and more discipline in schools. On the health care bill of rights. On raising the minimum wage. I’ll make two promises to you. One: I’m gonna work very hard. Two: I’ll always be honest.” He then reads off the county-by-county vote, and each one is savored separately. Once the speech is over and the cameras are taken down, the party ends

71

72

Give Them He--

quickly. The guests head home, and the staff heads upstairs to the real party, the insiders’ party, in the candidate’s suite in the hotel. It is a spirited scene, as the staff and Shows’s closest friends are celebrating the moment. One key staffer, reserved and serious throughout the campaign, is heavily intoxicated, giving prolonged hugs to everyone he encounters and promising his abiding affection. Others start reminiscing in the corner about the campaign. This is one they will long remember, especially the climactic debate at the television station. A couple of reporters nearby chat about the likelihood that Shows’s district will be obliterated after the next census, when the state inevitably loses a congressional seat. He is, after all, the junior member of the delegation. Ronnie Shows himself is subdued. He looks and sounds like he is ready to go to bed, though that will not happen any time soon. “I get more excited by an SMU [Southern Mississippi University] football game,” he tells a couple by the door. Nearby, his wife, Johnnie Ruth, sits quietly. She is thinking about the campaign and the toll it has taken on her husband and her family. “I don’t know how someone can stay in office for twenty-four years and be that bad,” she says, referring to the accusations made in the Republican’s negative ads. And she knows that, while exhilarating, the time ahead will not be easy. “The Lord will remove the obstacles,” she says, with forced optimism.

CONSIDERING RACE IN THE SOUTHERN ELECTION

Ronnie Shows won this election. Despite being outspent by more than two-toone, Shows beat Delbert Hosemann by eight points. It was actually one of a number of high-profile southern Democratic victories in the  election year. Democrats won statewide open-seat elections in Georgia (for governor) and Arkansas (for Senate) and defeated incumbent Republican governors in Alabama and South Carolina and a Republican senator in North Carolina. Republicans took the Florida gubernatorial race and a competitive open-seat congressional election in North Carolina (see chapter ), but this was an election that gave regional Democrats some hope, more than at any time since . Indeed, Shows’s victory led the Washington Post to declare that “white male southern Democrats have not gone the way of the dodo bird” (). The Shows-Hosemann contest provides an opportunity to revisit arguments made in my first book, Race, Campaign Politics, and the Realignment in the South (), an analysis of partisan politics and race in the s and early s. Between this case and the others described in this book, it is clear that

Give Them He--

there is important continuity from those days to the present day—continuity in the types of campaigns waged in the South, both on the Democratic side and the Republican, and continuity in how candidates approach the electorate, in how they talk about issues, their candidacies, and each other, and in how they approach blacks and whites, especially in a heavily black place like southwestern Mississippi. First, I argued then, and I argue now, that although Republicans have many powerful advantages in the region, Democrats remain competitive in a few select parts of the South because race still offers them the same strategic advantages that they used effectively through the Reagan-Bush years. In my previous work, I discussed how Democrats were able to hold off a Republican takeover of the region as long as they had. Not only had southern Democratic candidates below the national level survived the Reagan-Bush years, they actually had done much better than that. Upon Bill Clinton’s inauguration, Democrats still held  percent of the South’s congressional seats (they held  percent of them in ) and  percent of state legislative seats. It was not just the force of incumbency that advantaged them. Over the Reagan-Bush years, Democrats won  percent of open-seat House elections and  percent of those elections held in districts won by Ronald Reagan in  (Glaser ,  –). With the Republican victories in , many believed that the long filtering down of the partisan realignment would finally happen, and that Republicans would take over all levels of the political system in the South. Now, several years later, how much has this happened? In the s, Republicans made substantial gains. Republican presidential votes finally translated into congressional votes; by , Republicans held  percent of the South’s congressional seats (House and Senate combined). Republican congressional gains have come as the party’s candidates won  percent of open-seat congressional (House) elections between  and  and knocked off seven congressional incumbents (while Democrats returned the favor only four times). Republicans also made impressive gains at the state level. The overwhelming Democratic advantage in southern state legislatures diminished by , though Democrats still hold  percent of state legislative seats as of  (and majorities in twelve of the twenty-two state legislative chambers). Clearly, Republicans are the majority party among southern whites—substantially so in significant chunks of the region. Nonetheless, Democrats have managed to retain a presence at the state and local levels and are still competitive in many congressional elections. If southern Democrats do continue to show life, it is because their strategies

73

74

Give Them He--

still wield potential. The reason congressional Democrats were able to survive the Reagan-Bush years in a conservative region, I argued several years ago, is that they were able to hold together black-white coalitions. The key was to maximize the black vote and the black share of the vote, while winning enough whites to gain district majorities. This was especially possible in places where blacks constituted larger proportions of the vote. In many southern congressional districts, drained of blacks to create majority-minority districts, this strategy is now much less viable. But even in districts where blacks are less plentiful, the strategies continue to be pursued, and in a place where blacks constitute over  percent of a district’s population, these strategies can work. Ronnie Shows’s election shows how the black-white coalition can still be forged. One of the most important keys to maintaining the biracial coalition is the ability to address blacks and whites separately. In the language of media consultants, the technique is called “narrowcasting,” targeting blacks with specific media messages that whites will not hear. Black radio and black cable television are the main vehicles for reaching black voters separately from whites. General campaigning can be segregated as well. Southern Democrats have long taken their message into black communities through the black church and accompanied by black leaders. In doing so, they are not heard by whites and are liberated in what they can say and how they can say it. They can, in the words of a Democratic campaign consultant, communicate with blacks “surgically.” In this election, Shows certainly followed that plan, and blacks were activated in ways whites were not. In part, this was because of Shows’s effective campaign in the black community, a campaign supported by important local black politicians. Shows required and received the help of people like Representative Thompson, Mayor Johnson, Hinds County supervisor George Smith, and state senator Alice Harden, among others, who gave him additional credibility with and entrée into the black community. With Mayor Johnson bringing him into black churches, making arrangements so that they could come and go without offending preachers, vouching for him in front of the congregations the Sunday before Election Day, and setting up his very targeted remarks, Shows had a great advantage. Even more important than the help he received from black politicians was the assistance of black organizations in turning out black voters. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Coalition of Black Trade Unionists sponsored Operation Big Vote in the black community, with a special target on the Fourth District race. The logo of the All Souls to the Polls campaign showed two black hands cupped open toward

Give Them He--

the sky: “Lift Every Voice and Vote November , .” The message was one of equality and resentment, with the head of the operation appearing on a local news broadcast saying, “It’s a day of equalization. Your votes count as much as Bill Gates’s.” Shows’s focused message to black voters had some additional resonance because of something peculiar to the district. Three years before the election, the district’s representative, Mike Parker, left the Democratic Party to become a Republican. In doing so, Parker, who had long relied upon black votes, created an impression that he, in the words of a black state legislator, had “abandoned” blacks (Cummings ). Shows often brought up Parker’s defection in front of black audiences as it was so simply communicated and as it inevitably led to responsive shouts of displeasure. Though Parker had been reelected as a Republican, Shows saw that the issue clearly had resonance with blacks as he toured the district. National events also offered Shows some opportunities. The election was held with President Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal hovering in the air, and the president’s difficulties clearly struck a chord with blacks. Throughout the South, in the days and weeks before the election, Democratic strategists attempted to make Clinton and the Starr investigation highly salient to blacks. President Clinton’s widely broadcast appearance in a Maryland black church the Sunday before the election was followed by a television interview with Tavis Smiley on the Black Entertainment Television (BET) network. When Smiley asked Clinton about writer Toni Morrison’s comment that he was the first African American president, Clinton laughed and said, “I just loved that.” His response was not heard by many whites, but it was a moment that crystallized the president’s connection with blacks. The president’s problems were projected to blacks in compelling ways in black churches, from black leaders, and in the black media. Clinton was the inspiration for many sermons in southern black churches, sermons dealing with sin and repentance, power and revenge, and “the writing on the wall.” Preachers castigated him for his behavior, but they also inevitably signaled their support for him, all in a powerful context. Black radio was used to reaffirm the point. On Election Day morning, a constant flow of political figures appeared on black radio stations. Tavis Smiley himself, Rep. Maxine Waters, and Vice President Al Gore were all interviewed on a national black radio program to generate support and encourage blacks, in a very targeted way, to vote. This exchange between the disc jockey and the vice president illustrates this well:

75

76

Give Them He--

 .  . : There is a lot of pressure on African American voters.     : The Republicans have put a lot of pressure on African American families.  .  . : It’s us against them, it sounds like.     : Sometimes it comes down to that.  .  . : The Republican Party has been taken over by the Far Right agenda. If we show up, what can you promise African Americans tomorrow?     : Progress. Participation. Not just a seat at the table. This is your table. We have the lowest African American poverty rate in the history of America. We’ve vetoed measures to roll back affirmative action. Earned income tax credits were passed to help African American small businesspeople. There’s been steady progress. The Republicans are trying to roll back that progress. We have appointed more African American cabinet members and judges than any other administration. By far. On those investigations in Washington, they are a smokescreen to try to sidetrack our agenda. They make personal attacks to try to stop the kind of progress we’ve been making. We need to teach, not impeach. We need civil rights, not partisan fights. We need to heal our nation, not investigation.  .  . : You sound like Jesse Jackson.        .  . : You got yourself a rap there.     : A reporter told me I’m not Puff Daddy [laughs]. But, seriously, I can’t stress enough what it means to have a majority and kick Newt Gingrich out of the Speaker’s chair.

Others in the black media were even more provocative. In a dramatic example in the last preelection issue of the major black newspaper in Jackson, an editorial cartoon ran, arguing that the president’s problems were linked indirectly but strongly to blacks. In both panels of the cartoon, an angry white redneck in overalls (labeled “White America”) is wagging a finger at a rather befuddled President Clinton. In the top panel, he is saying “ .” In the bottom panel, he is thinking “ ” ( Jackson Advocate ). Though an extreme example, it does illustrate how President Clinton’s problems were presented in the black media and how race can be used by Democrats and their allies in a context where Republicans are unable to respond. Ronnie Shows, like other southern Democrats running in , spoke of the president to white audiences only in response to questions. In front of blacks, however, he was quick to bring the president up, and quite frequently spoke of the Republicans’ tenacity in going after Clinton, a tenacity that was distracting Congress and the media from other issues of importance to the community, to this community. This effort to motivate blacks clearly worked. It will give some idea of how motivated black voters were in this election to note that while turnout in the

Give Them He--

overwhelmingly Republican precincts was modestly higher than in other offyear elections, it was much higher in historically Democratic precincts, to the point that election officials were taken by surprise. In some black precincts in Adams County (Natchez) and Jones County (Laurel), election clerks even ran out of ballots. Mistakes were up, too. Significant numbers of affidavit ballots (votes cast in the wrong precincts) were cast in black precincts, a sign that infrequent voters were showing up to the polls (perhaps to an old polling place). The overall results suggest an activated Democratic base. Ronnie Shows was only , votes shy of the average Democratic presidential vote for the district in the past three presidential elections. Delbert Hosemann was , short.9 At the same time that Democrats have to appeal to black voters and maximize their turnout, they must keep enough whites “home” to put them over  percent. Through the Reagan-Bush years, they had the ability to do this. As the Democratic successes in these pages show, it is still possible for Democrats to do this (though given the very large percentage of black voters in the district—  percent—Shows had to win only a fraction of the white vote). In appealing to white voters, one of the clear Democratic-Republican differences in strategy has to do with the orientation of the campaign toward national or local issues. As I wrote about the pre- South, Republicans have tended to favor national issues, issues where they have a clear advantage, while Democrats have emphasized local issues. These orientations make good sense given the strengths of the two parties and the predilections of their candidates. That pattern continues. With regard to Democrats, the local orientation is very clear in all the cases described in this book and is especially apparent in Ronnie Shows’s campaign. Shows found that the local angle had its advantages—partly compelled by necessity and the gross unpopularity of national Democrats (and Bill Clinton in particular) and partly because this is how Democrats have long done it. Shows in fact had climbed the local political ladder to this candidacy. He had served as an elections clerk in his home county and in the Mississippi Senate. When he was elected to be the highway commissioner for the southern tier of the state, it put him in a position for voters to know him in a local context and to associate him with the distribution of public goods. The additional advantage of running from this position was that the fulfillment of his commissioner’s duties made for effective campaigning. At one point in October, when the remnants of a hurricane hit the area, Shows skipped some campaign functions to tour the damage in some of the district’s southern counties. When Hosemann carried on with his campaign schedule, the comparison was made in the newspapers, a comparison that certainly favored the Democrat. While

77

78

Give Them He--

Hosemann had made some important civic contributions in Jackson, these clearly were not the same kinds of recognition-generating, image-building activities that Shows continually engaged in as he did his job. Ronnie Shows’s campaign did not rely entirely on local issues. He did talk about national issues in his campaign appearances and he took stands—albeit sometimes garbled stands—on the issues of the day. But his clear orientation was toward service to the district and issues of local concern. His political strength was his ability to project an understanding of how people in the area think and what they care about. His experience reinforced his message. Like several of the other Democratic candidates described herein, Ronnie Shows was superb at making the local connection. Shows pursued a local strategy because it was politically sensible, but there is more to it than this. It is also partly the case that candidates like Shows are more likely to have a favorable view of government. In the South, this may not translate into exceptionally liberal policy positions, but it does have an effect on the orientation of a campaign. If government is an instrument to help people, it makes sense that service would be more prominent in the campaign. This is not to say that Republicans cannot be just as effective or vigorous in serving constituents, only that in campaigns, it is less likely to be part of their message. Simply put, there is just not as much room for it in Republican campaigns. Alan Ehrenhalt () makes this point with reference to candidate recruitment. Who is more likely to go into lower levels of government, a liberal who believes in it or a conservative who does not? This argument puts a twist on Ehrenhalt’s point. More liberal candidates are more likely to talk about how they will serve the district because such a message better relates to their philosophy. Shows’s more local orientation stands in contrast to Delbert Hosemann. Like the other Republicans in these cases (except perhaps North Carolina’s Robin Hayes), Hosemann was the more “national” candidate. Unquestionably a southerner, he and many of the national political figures who stumped for and with him were fond of talking about Mississippi values. But the issues he emphasized in the campaign—taxes, Social Security reform, and drugs—are not issues that enabled him to make especially local connections. One might suggest that the crime issue, made salient by the Republican advertisements attacking a Shows vote in the state Senate, was a local issue. The fact that this campaign, like many other congressional campaigns, was reported on the “Metro” page, where crime and punishment is also reported, lends some credence to this argument. Given that the issue was raised in the context of a neg-

Give Them He--

ative advertisement, however, it did little to enhance Hosemann’s local image, especially next to Shows, whose whole persona was wrapped up in local service. Hosemann’s reliance on national political themes in his campaign made sense. After all, the lessons about taking Republicans to victory were the lessons learned from Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush the elder. Given how the party built from the top down rather than the bottom up in the South, Republican candidates were sensible to repeat what worked. While Democrats looked to their predecessors, who through seniority and temperament had become expert at using their positions in Congress to bring federal money home to the district, Republicans sought to capitalize on their advantage at the national level. It is not surprising that the Republican breakthrough in the South came in a big rush, when congressional candidates were able to nationalize the election, to turn it into a referendum on Bill Clinton and Democratic control of the federal government. In this election, much as Hosemann tried, that was not to be, though certainly there was talk of it. The contrast between Shows and Hosemann was not just issue based. These candidates had strikingly different campaign styles, styles that reinforced the national-local difference. Hosemann was an excellent candidate: competitive, tenacious, hard-driven, organized, well-versed on the issues. His edge helped in candidate debates and with the Jackson newspaper, which endorsed him on the basis of “his ability to research and articulate positions on the issues” and his willingness “to work harder, stay up longer, and have powers of persuasion to get his . . . points across in the House.” Shows’s appeal, in the words of a Republican official, was “good ole country boy home cookin’.” Shows’s campaign manager knew that “Ronnie won’t do so well up here among more sophisticated voters who care about diction and punctuation and that stuff.” He argued that he did not have to. Stylistic differences and differences in background allowed Shows to make class distinctions. Gene Taylor, congressman from the neighboring Fifth District, frequently vouched for Shows on this count. “He’s the kind of person who can remember who sent him [to Washington]. It’s Mississippians . . . and not Wall Street” (Wagster e). Or more colorfully, “Ronnie is aligning himself with the folks who wear blue jeans, not the blue bloods” (Wagster b). True to the campaign’s themes, Shows and his staff rarely spoke about Hosemann without noting that he was a “rich tax lawyer.” Acknowledging his disadvantage as an intellect, Shows would say, “I don’t have a fancy education from NYU.” Then, connecting background with policy, he would immediately add: “He [Hosemann] believes in a flat tax, which is good for anybody making $, or more a year, but it doesn’t help the average

79

80

Give Them He--

Mississippi family. I want a fair tax for anybody out there working from eight to five” (Minor ). Shows’s appeal worked particularly well with rural whites. Like Virgil Goode and Max Sandlin, the other successful Democratic candidates described in this book, the rural Democrat was able to generate friends and neighbors patterns. In his hometown of Bassfield, Shows got over  percent of the vote. But it was more than just friends and neighbors at work. Shows did well in all the smaller rural counties outside of Jackson. Acknowledged the executive director of the Mississippi Republican Party, “In rural areas, Ronnie Shows had an automatic ‘We’re not going to do anything for [Jackson]’ vote. It’s us little guys against those big guys. Delbert being a North Jackson rich tax attorney was an issue. Shows had to be happy that Delbert won the Republican primary simply because of the fact of who Delbert was.” Shows himself said as much: “I wanted to run against Delbert because he’s a Jackson lawyer.” All the “home cookin’” a campaign can muster cannot sustain a Democratic campaign if the other pieces are not in place. Most important, Democratic candidates trying to retain enough white voters to win must deal with the inevitable “liberal charge.” Republicans almost always make the charge. This is as it was before . This was key in . It is what can be expected now. Republicans often make the charge by identifying issues where Democrats can be ideologically vulnerable. Even where the material is thin, Republican candidates often impute guilt by association. Republicans raise money and try to associate Democrats with national Democratic figures in their advertising and their rhetoric. Some of the favorite bogeymen are Barney Frank, Hillary Clinton, and Ted Kennedy, to name three—though President Clinton has been, of course, the best. The reason that southern Democrats have staved off the liberal charge effectively, as I discussed several years ago, is that most southern Democrats have authentic conservative credentials. The Democrats in these cases do as well, taking conservative positions on issues, particularly social issues like abortion, guns, and school prayer. While they generally expressed admiration for President Clinton in private, publicly they were all appropriately critical of him, and distance was maintained from the unpopular president and the obvious liberal Democratic figures that their opponents try to shackle to them. Given how long southern Democrats have detached themselves from national party figures, it is not such a hard sell. The Blue Dog affiliation is more than just a group of representatives who meet in Washington to plot politically. It is a “downhome” label that communicates separation from the two parties and thus has

Give Them He--

been a public relations boon to new southern Democrats needing to reassure conservative constituencies. Where southern Democrats have been effective in maintaining a distinction between themselves and the national party, Republicans have had more difficulty making substantive policy-oriented arguments about their opponent’s ideology. They often try out a complicated interpretation of a simple Democratic position or a slip of the tongue, but these often lack credibility and are easily contested. In this case, Republicans had much more success in portraying Shows as a hick than a liberal, at least in the eyes of the reporters who interpreted the campaign for voters in the district. Those reporters assigned to the campaign found themselves writing consistently about the difficulty in distinguishing the issue positions of the candidates. There certainly were some policy differences, especially on Social Security and tax reform, and the Republican clearly had the support of “full-orb conservatives,” but Shows was good at blurring ideological differences. Where a charge had the chance to stick, he fought back aggressively, even to the point of making the inappropriate Gary Lynn Griffin countercharge. Altogether, even in the post- South, Democrats are still competitive. The Republican advantages are well documented—a conservative white electorate, a more popular national team of candidates, fewer heavily minority black districts, and a clear and final defeat of the idea that the Democratic Party is the party of the region. Democrats in this new era still have some possibilities to exploit, some advantages in electoral politics: a better local angle, candidates who generally know how to position themselves ideologically, and a sizable and loyal black constituency that can be mobilized through separate communication channels. The second major argument I make in Race, Campaign Politics, and the Realignment in the South goes beyond how race is used in any particular political campaign or how, counter to expectations, Democrats have used it to some advantage. The point is that race continues to organize politics in the South. By this, I mean that the racial balance within an electoral district has a powerful influence on campaign strategy. In the book, I document how political strategy (both Democratic and Republican) varies with changes in racial balance. As blacks become a larger proportion of the population, the Republican imperative to win white votes is greater, and Republican strategies and messages reflect this—Republicans having more incentive to make a racial appeal to whites.10 In these heavily black districts, Democrats have to form their biracial coalition more cautiously but have opportunities presented to them if Republicans attempt to motivate whites with racial issues. When blacks become a majority,

81

82

Give Them He--

moreover, the strategic imperatives change, with Democrats acting like Republicans in majority-white districts that have large numbers of blacks. In majority-black districts, Democrats have an incentive to use race to motivate black voters, while Republicans must carefully try to put together a biracial coalition. By looking at six congressional elections in districts with various racial balances, these patterns became clear. How might this Mississippi election fit into this scheme? With  percent of its residents black, this is the most heavily black district of the five studied in this book, and it is worth seeing if the strategies and psychologies evident in heavily black districts are still evident. In some ways, this Mississippi election does not fit into the scheme nearly so well. Here, the Republican does not try to use a racial issue to mobilize white voters. Though some might argue that the crime issue—a Shows vote on sentencing—refers to race and activates negative racial attitudes that whites hold, the message is not presented as such. The commercial cut by the Hosemann campaign does not use black faces to make its point, and Ronnie Shows is not using the advertisement to generate backlash among black voters, as he could in post–Willie Horton American politics. It appears to have been a very self-conscious decision by Hosemann. “We couldn’t use race,” said Lynn Hosemann. “It’s just not Delbert.” Nonetheless, the racial balance so clearly has affected the psychology of the candidates and the campaigns. It has required Shows and Hosemann to think and behave in certain ways. Delbert Hosemann is the tax attorney who was instrumental in creating the Jackson Medical Mall and did so pro bono. He got the insurance companies to sell the repossessed mall at well under market value, arranged for the mall to be designated as a nonprofit foundation, and convinced banks to lend seed money to the project without collateral. By turning the deteriorating retail mall into a facility offering a wide variety of services to the poor and underserved—notably black—residents of the city, he had a natural connection with black voters. Yet Hosemann was compelled to think that blacks “aren’t my people.” He did not avoid them, but he did not go out of his way to reach them.11 As the candidate put it after the election: “If you run as a Republican, you have to connect better with African Americans. I tried to connect with them through being Catholic—that failed—and through my work on the Jackson Medical Mall and in the community. I went to some churches. But I had so much ground to cover and my advisors said, ‘Fish where you can catch a fish,’ so I didn’t have the organization in that community that he [Shows] had. I’ve got to hand it to him. He was able to get them out of their houses to vote for him during the day.” Hosemann, often able to detach him-

Give Them He--

self from the race and look at it strategically, early on abandoned the idea that he would win many African American votes. Given Republican reliance on explicit and more recently implicit—messages about race (Reeves ; Mendelberg ), and given the strong ongoing group orientation of blacks as they approach politics (Tate ), blacks are very difficult for Republicans to court, particularly in a heavily black place like this. Recognizing that a large black turnout was bad news for him, Hosemann openly hoped for a rainy election day, which did not materialize. Ronnie Shows’s approach to the election also was shaped by the fact that the district was so heavily black. It affected the allocation of his time and resources. It affected his issues and his message to black constituents, if not white ones. Most of all, it created the lens through which he interpreted the campaign as it unfolded. The Chili’s story that Shows turns into an incident in front of black audiences is illustrative. It was not just a moment that the candidate experienced that enabled him to create a connection with black constituents. It affected how he thought about the election and whom he felt he belonged with. Racial change in the South has been dramatic. As has been well documented, white racial attitudes have become much less hostile, and levels of prejudice have decreased, with southern racial attitudes even coming to look like those in the rest of the country. Amid real attitudinal change, however, some things have not changed in the region. With large black populations in much of the South, the incentives that underlie politics in the region are the same as ever, and politicians of both parties continue to respond to them and have their strategic thinking shaped by them. That said, the creation of majority minority districts and the resultant “bleaching” of surrounding districts have taken away from southern white Democrats some of their best districts and been a major contributor to Republican growth.

POSTSCRIPT

Four years is not that much time to make an impact in Congress. Ronnie Shows, as expected, was a short-termer, as redistricting did interrupt his congressional career. In his four years, Shows behaved as a Blue Dog Democrat, generally conservative, particularly on social issues, but with a sprinkling of more liberal economic positions. His interest group ratings put him to the right of center but defined him as a centrist in a heavily polarized institution. His average Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) score in his four years was . Conversely, his average American Conservative Union (ACU) score was .

83

84

Give Them He--

Looking at party support scores, Shows voted with the Democratic Party  percent of the time in  and . He supported President Bush on  percent of his legislative agenda in , putting him very much in line with the scores of southern Democrats through the years composing the twilight of the party’s regional power (Black and Black , ). Shows did not take the lead on any major legislation. That would be too much to expect of any newcomer to Congress. But he did have some leadership moments. He was a primary actor in defending some endangered veterans’ health-care benefits. He also organized some symbolic conservative statements that received notice from the media and from conservative interest groups. In one instance, Shows introduced a resolution that called for placing the motto “In God We Trust” on every federal government building, thus “engrav[ing] it into our national conscience” (Associated Press ). In another, Shows, along with five other Democratic and Republican colleagues, introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriages. As the lead sponsor of the amendment, Shows was featured prominently in news stories of the legislation, arguing that confining marriage to heterosexual couples was necessary to protect its sanctity (Holland ). Shows’s fit with his district appears to have been solid. His district was obliterated, however, in the redistricting process that followed the  Census. With Mississippi losing a congressional seat to reapportionment, two of the state’s representatives had to be drawn into the same district. Shows and Republican Chip Pickering were the likely candidates, in part because they were the most junior members of the congressional delegation, in part because of the proximity of their districts. Not surprisingly, the two parties had different ideas about redistricting. Democrats sought to create a state map with a competitive Jackson district, a “fair-fight” district, for the two candidates to run in. Such a district required some creative lines, drawing more blacks into the new district and excluding some of Jackson’s Republican suburbs. Republicans hoped to maximize their party’s changes with a map originally drafted by former state senator Henry Kirksey—ironically enough, an African American political pioneer in Mississippi responsible for the creation of many majority black districts in the state. In this case, Kirksey drew his map to consolidate the poor black areas of the Delta into one district. This had the effect of draining the Jackson district of large numbers of blacks and making it more Republican-friendly. The Jackson district also contained far more Pickering than Shows constituents (Wagster ). Despite the fact that Democrats controlled both houses of the state legislature, the process got stuck when Democratic lieutenant governor

Give Them He--

Amy Tuck, presiding over the state Senate, refused to go along with the Democratic map that was set to pass the House (Branson ). Instead, she put forth her own plan, one much closer to the Kirksey plan than the Democratic plan, and this was what passed the Senate. The episode angered many of her fellow Democrats and even led to speculation that she was preparing to leave the party (Wagster ). Tuck denied that speculation but refused to yield, and the legislature adjourned without reconciling the two plans. With the process at a standstill, some Democratic legislators sued in state court to have their map put into effect, while Republicans sued in federal court to impose one of their plans. A state judge did hear the case and ended up approving the Democrats’ plan to create a Jackson-based district that was . percent black and that pulled equally from Shows’s and Pickering’s previous districts. As with all southern redistricting plans, this one had to go to the Justice Department for preclearance, certification that the plan would not discriminate against minorities. There, however, it ran into trouble. The Republican Justice Department delayed approval until near the end of the sixty-day review period, whereupon it raised some additional questions and restarted the sixty-day clock. With that review extending beyond the filing deadline, a threemember panel of federal judges from Mississippi intervened, blocked the plan because of the lack of preclearance, and prepared to impose their own map for the  elections.12 After several hearings, the three judges, all Republican appointees (and all colleagues of Pickering’s father, another Mississippi federal judge), accepted the more compact Republican map.13 Noting that it was a Republican Justice Department that had delayed preclearance, Democrats appealed this plan to the Supreme Court, only to have Justice Antonin Scalia, the justice for the region, reject their request within hours.14 The party vowed to appeal to the full court before the next election cycle, but the plan was set for this cycle and Ronnie Shows was to face an unfavorable district as well as Chip Pickering. This complicated episode illustrates well a lesson from the past: power begets power. Certainly this is the case with redistricting. While Republicans in Mississippi did not control the process, they had enough clout to stymie it once Democrats divided. The loss of seats to redistricting has been a general problem for southern Democrats. Since the  elections, because of the creation of far more majority minority districts (Lublin ), and since the  elections, because of a greater Republican presence (even majorities) in many southern state legislatures, Democrats are no longer running in such hospitable heavily black districts. Republicans also now hold many of the important judicial and

85

86

Give Them He--

bureaucratic positions that enabled this particular scenario to play out. During the Reagan-Bush years, they did not hold the positions—as state legislators, election officials, and federal or state judges—to enable them to facilitate these kinds of outcomes. It was a problem with “building a pyramid from the top,” according to one frustrated Republican official in  (Glaser ). But now the base of the pyramid is filling in, and this has made a difference in places like Mississippi and Texas, where impatient Republicans did not even wait for a new census to craft new lines in an assertion of majority power. Many anticipated that the Shows-Pickering race would be tight, even with the favorable Republican lines, but Shows never really got traction in the race. Nor could he make up for Pickering’s large financial advantage. He tried to capitalize on the bankruptcy of WorldCom, the giant telecommunications firm based in the Jackson suburb of Clinton that collapsed after a major accounting fraud was revealed. Shows took a populist tack, railing against the big corporation for its treatment of shareholders and employees. The fact that Pickering had received more campaign donations from WorldCom than any other member of Congress (including contributions from two executives who were implicated in the fraud) would seem to have given the issue some salience in the district.15 But few of the company’s employees worked at the Mississippi headquarters, and redistricting left most of these people out of the district. Pickering effectively dodged this problem and positioned himself as a conservative in a conservative party. With over $ million to spend, he was able to dominate the media campaign. Chip Pickering won the contest overwhelmingly. The loss was a great disappointment to the Democrat, particularly as he lost to Pickering in the handful of counties that had been in his old district. It also represented another step in the progression of Republicanism in the state of Mississippi, as reverberations from the election have continued. • Lieutenant Governor Amy Tuck announced in December  that she was becoming a Republican. Surrounded by Republican officials and members of Congress, she told the crowd, “I am the same Amy Tuck today that I was yesterday” (Elliott ). • Ronnie Shows announced in spring  that he had decided not to run against Tuck. Instead, he chose to take a position with the Global Peace Initiative, a humanitarian organization working to alleviate hunger and poverty in the Third World. • In summer , Rep. Chip Pickering, though mightily tempted, turned

Give Them He--

down a very lucrative position as president of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association to stay in Congress. • The Supreme Court heard the full appeal of Mississippi Democrats, and in April  unanimously upheld the federal court’s redistricting of Mississippi’s congressional districts in the case Branch v. Smith. It was the most highly political case to reach the Court since Bush v. Gore.

87

Chapter 3 The Slow Talker

Fifth District Virginia,  In the s and s, southside Virginia was the stronghold of Harry Byrd and George Wallace. In recent decades, it has belonged to Ronald Reagan and Oliver North. In the case to follow, the obvious question is how can a Democrat win in a place like this—a rural, traditionalistic, Old South area that has been trending Republican for decades? The answer comes in the person of Virgil Goode, whose distinct person-to-person home style, conservative philosophy, and parochial tendencies have broad appeal here. The Democratic Party has long relied on politicians like Goode to stay in power, but with Republicans controlling redistricting and with fewer conservatives to keep company, the relationship between the party and its remaining conservatives is now hard to maintain. In , Goode, following many other conservatives, left the party, and few were surprised.

88

The Slow Talker

GOD’S LITTLE ACRE BAZAAR: ROCKY MOUNT, VIRGINIA; GRETNA OLD TIME JUBILEE: GRETNA, VIRGINIA

Virgil Goode is well positioned to reach large numbers of shoppers at the God’s Little Acre Bazaar held on this Saturday morning in October in his hometown of Rocky Mount, Virginia. He is standing in front of the Boone’s Chapel Church of the Brethren booth, where some nice-looking fried apple pies are for sale. The candidate is giving away pencils, nail files, and bumper stickers to those milling around the parking lot where the bazaar is being held. He puts Virgil Goode stickers on jackets as people walk by and even on some Jesus Saves helium balloons being handed out at another church booth. “I’m Virgil Goode. I’d sure appreciate your vote,” he greets people in what the Washington Post calls the “[state] legislature’s sharpest southern twang” (Baker ). Virgil is dressed in a plain blue blazer, a striped tie—no fancy pattern for him—and tan pants. He also wears a red and white “Virgil Goode U.S. Congress” baseball hat. Although he has just turned fifty, his dress, his boyish looks, and the cap make him appear a bit like a boy on his way to Sunday school. After fifteen minutes, he realizes that he is running low on pencils and starts to go heavy on the nail files. He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a handful of nail files just as he is hailed by a small group of people. “Virgil!” shouts an older man. “Virgil!” shouts a much younger woman, the man’s daughter. “How ya’ doin’?” says the candidate. “Here, please take this.” He hands the man a Virgil Goode nail file. The man looks at it. “Virgil. You know I lost my nails,” he says. Virgil does not miss a beat. “You can give that to your daughter then. Here, take a pencil.” Some others stroll up to the candidate. Virgil hands a bumper sticker to an older gentleman. “As much as you drive around in that ol’ truck of yours, that should be worth a $ advertisement,” he tells the man. They both laugh, and the candidate’s ability to hit the personal note leaves the man satisfied with the brief encounter. “Virgil is a firm believer of leaving something in the hand,” says one of his two campaign managers. He learned well from his late father, Virgil Goode Sr., who courted voters by handing out kitchen utensils. A television commercial that has just started airing is one of the main topics of conversation this morning. It is an excuse people have to approach him. “I saw you on TV this morning, Virgil.” “You sure look good on TV there.” “You’re a star now, Virgil, ’cause you’re on TV.” Here on the road, the brief conversations about the commercial provide an interesting connection between retail and wholesale politics.

89

90

The Slow Talker

Much of the rest of the conversation is hometown patter. “Hello, there,” he says to a woman walking by. “Tell me how’s your mama doin’? Is she still sick?” Virgil appears to have connections to everybody. He stops by the Chamber of Commerce booth, the Jaycees booth, the Ruritans booth. He even stops by the local Republican Party booth and wishes the fellow manning it a happy birthday. As they converse, a gust of wind blows the Republican’s sign to the ground, taking some party literature with it. Virgil helps to pick up brochures, even those that have fallen under the man’s truck. He stops by a couple of other booths, handing out pencils and buying donut holes from a church group holding a fund-raiser. He does not eat the food—“he won’t eat a gram of fat,” says his campaign manager—but he hands it off. The most substantive conversation he holds is with a woman who asks him about why her insurance premiums went up by $ this year. Virgil explains why that happened and what her recourse is. Other than one person urging him to vote for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, there are no conversations about policy of any kind. Virgil does not leave until his stores are about exhausted, and he has shaken every hand within reach. As he is on his way back to the car, a man comes over and shakes the candidate’s hand. Virgil gives him a sticker. “It’s been a long time since I wore a Democratic button,” says the man. Though he gladly puts it on, Virgil asks him for his vote. He almost always asks for the vote. “I never just say, ‘I’m running for Congress,” he says in his very deliberate way. “I ask people for their vote because people want to be asked.” And he has asked a lot of people. “That man doesn’t overlook anybody,” marvels his campaign manager. “Any time you find anybody in Virgil’s senatorial district rubbing two sticks together, Virgil’s going to be there,” says the chair of the Democratic Party in Henry County (Foster a). His next stop, the Gretna Old Time Jubilee, is in a town in Pittsylvania County, a county not in his senate district. As he parks for the event, he takes a swig of mouthwash from a Pepsi bottle under his dash. In the car, he also keeps a bottle of rubbing alcohol to wash his hands on the road. Handshakes are the source of a lot of germs. On his way along the town’s main street, he buys a couple of candy bars from the various booths along the road to the festival, which is held in the Pittsylvania County Community Services parking lot. He buys a cake from another booth and gives out a couple of pencils. He will save the cake to take to the birthday party of a supporter late that evening. Even if the party is over, he will drop it off if their lights are on. Though he does not eat the sweets,

The Slow Talker

he anticipates stopping by a huge vat of boiling Brunswick stew for lunch. Proceeds from the sale of the stew are going to charity. Buying a little here and a little there has long been his mode of operation. One story about Goode is told by a family friend who accompanied him on a trip to buy tires for his car. Mimicking his accent: “He bought one ‘tar’ at each of four different service stations and got them aligned at a fifth shop, each in a different part of [his state Senate] district” (Baker ). The woman taking Virgil around the Jubilee is well known in Gretna for saving the town’s post office after the old postmistress retired. When the Postal Service saw this as an opportunity to close down the branch, which would have meant that people in this rural area would have had to drive to Danville to pick up their mail, she intervened and, with the help of Goode, she successfully kept the post office open. Here, she takes Virgil by the hand and leads him over to a microphone belonging to a radio show covering the event live. Virgil does not talk about what he stands for, but tells listeners to come on down to the wonderful festival. There is so much to do here on this beautiful day, he tells the audience. He concludes by saying that he would appreciate their vote. He hands the microphone to his friend, who says, “That’s Virgil. Most of you remember his father. You know he’s for the farmers and all the people of the Fifth District. Make sure to vote for him for Congress.” With that, the radio spot is over, and Virgil is called up onto a large stage. The children’s beauty pageant has ended, and the tractor parade has yet to begin. The mistress of ceremonies hoots at him, “Virgil, I hope you’ll bring that gorgeous body of yours up here.” As Virgil approaches, she introduces him as “one of our very own from up the road here.” This is not his district, but these people know him. Indeed, lots of people from across the state of Virginia know Virgil Goode as a colorful character. He is “one of the great American folk stories,” according to Donald Beyer, the state’s lieutenant governor (Nakashima ), and he has created a little mythology around himself. He is, for instance, notoriously and proudly cheap. One symbol of this is an old beat-up desk that his uncle bought for $. The desk—“ugly as sin,” according to his campaign manager—goes well with the tree-trunk chair that furnishes his legislative office. His Rocky Mount legislative office has milk crates for visitors to sit on. While they are not terribly comfortable, they symbolize how careful he is with “the people’s money.” And he highlights his cheapness in his direct mail in this congressional race. “‘The Ordinary Citizen Pays for Government,’ is the motto that hangs in his office,” says the blurb in the pamphlet. “That philosophy is why Virgil

91

92

The Slow Talker

Goode has returned more than $30,000 to the taxpayers from his office fund. It’s why he refused to use a fancy new desk bought with taxpayers’ dollars from an outof-state company. His uncle’s old teacher’s desk, made in Virginia during the Depression, works just fine. It’s why, when Virgil found a shortcut from Rocky Mount to Richmond, he reduced by legislation the amount of travel reimbursement that he was entitled to receive. If elected to Congress, Virgil would take that same philosophy to Washington. He would work to reduce Congressional perks and pensions. He would seek to root out inefficiency and waste so that we can keep more of our hard-earned dollars. With Virgil Goode that’s more than a promise, it’s a way of life.” Goode appears to be guileless. He is old-fashioned. He is not technologically oriented or interested (though he recently acquired an e-mail account because it enables him to reach so many people so easily, so personally, and so cheaply). He does not watch television. His hobby is reading old political speeches. He is what he seems to be. “It’s innate,” maintains his campaign manager. “He doesn’t have to figure out how to do it. He just has to be himself.” “He’s lived like the people in his district. He’s earned his living like they have. He doesn’t need a poll to know them,” says a Democratic operative in Washington. Yet he is not a bumpkin. He has a reputation for being exceptionally bright and politically shrewd, and he clearly has some sense that his persona works in places like Gretna. Gretna, and places like it, are in fact part of his persona. It is this crossroads town that the candidate visited on the same day that Newt Gingrich came to stump for Goode’s Republican opponent. While Gingrich highlighted a highbrow fund-raiser, Goode attended a Gretna American Legion barbecue and gave a speech drafted on some cardboard he ripped from his box of pencils. “We thought it provided a nice contrast. That type of event has characterized Virgil’s career,” said one of his campaign managers. Not surprisingly, the media juxtaposed the two events and the two campaigns the next day.

THE DANVILLE ASSOCIATION OF LIFE UNDERWRITERS LUNCH WITH THE CANDIDATES: DANVILLE, VIRGINIA

George Landrith had breakfast with the Charlottesville organization of life insurance agents in the morning. Now he is having lunch with insurance agents in Danville, members of DALU, the Danville Association of Life Underwriters. The Republican candidate for Congress in the Fifth District has prepared

The Slow Talker

for the meetings with these groups. He is sharing this podium with Virgil Goode’s campaign manager, Jim Severt, who is standing in for his boss. Both men come across well—smooth, urbane, and smart—and both, in a civil exchange, lay out their positions and define their philosophies in an appealing way. About one-third of all the agents in town, plus a few agents from neighboring communities, belong to DALU. They are a successful lot, the average DALU member earning $, a year more than the average Danville agent. DALU is part of NALU, the National Association of Life Underwriters, which has a political agenda in Washington. As a video from the national organization explains during lunch, there is concern about pending legislation in Washington that would allow bankers in towns of fewer than , people to write life insurance policies. It is a prospect the insurance industry shudders at. George Landrith, in particular, has made a special effort to connect with the members of this professional association and has catered his standard pitch to the audience. He does not talk about specific issues of concern to the organization, like the banking legislation discussed in the video. He does, however, make several references to their business. He tells about a serious automobile accident he had the year before. As he lay in the wreckage, unsure how injured he was, three thoughts came to mind. “First, I wish I’d kissed my kids before I left the house. Second, I hope I don’t collapse here. Third, I sure am glad I bought more life insurance.” When talking about his commitment to Social Security and Medicare reform, he tells the insurance people, “If you had taken care of annuities like Congress had taken care of that fund, you’d be behind bars in striped suits.” He talks about tax issues—inheritance taxes, capital gains tax cuts, more general tax reform—that would seem to be of relevance to this successful group of people. Altogether, the appearance appears to have gone quite well for the Republican. He has made a very good case for his candidacy in a polished and interesting presentation. As he and Severt finish, he seems quite pleased as questions are solicited from the audience by the slick, well-dressed president of the organization. The room is quiet for an uncomfortable moment before one man ventures to raise his hand. He addresses himself to the Republican candidate: “I like what y’all have said, but I’m trying to understand how you two are different.” George Landrith sighs. This is not at all like it was in , when he ran against Democratic incumbent L. F. Payne in an exhilarating, slashing, conservative campaign. Landrith scared Payne in that election, coming within six percentage points of the in-

93

94

The Slow Talker

cumbent. Some Republicans speculate that Payne retired from Congress to pursue the lieutenant governorship because of the close call. However satisfying it was to come close, it was disappointing for Landrith to lose. Says one reporter who covered the  campaign, “It was as if he were on a tactical team in the army. Everybody else got to go on the mission, and he was left behind.” But that race set him up well for this one. With the incumbent out of the race—driven out by the prospect of losing, in Landrith’s view—the Republican believed he had an excellent shot at the seat. Virgil Goode is a very different kind of candidate than L. F. Payne, however, and this time, Landrith has struggled to draw effective distinctions between his opponent and himself. With Republicanism surging in the South, the one distinction that Landrith can make most clearly in this race is the partisan one. In , Landrith was able to make partisanship matter in an election that had been effectively nationalized by the Republican Party (Jacobson ). Like many other Republican challengers in that election, he was able to tie a very unpopular President Clinton to the Democratic congressional incumbent and did so with the Republican themes defined in the Contract with America. As the candidate describes it: “Two years ago, Bill Clinton was a monster, a threat to our security. His policies were bad news, and that got people motivated. And there was a nexus between L. F. and Bill Clinton. First, he was in Washington. Second, he voted with Bill Clinton  percent of the time according to CQ [Congressional Quarterly]. That’s more than any Massachusetts Democrat. I just clubbed L. F. over the head with his record.” This was an electoral environment that suited Landrith’s style well. As a Roanoke reporter observes, “Landrith is a national Republican. He has a more national vision. He is a candidate you could pick up and put in any other congressional district and he’d be the same.” Landrith’s problem is that the national message does not have the same resonance this time around. Perhaps it is because there is nothing equivalent to the Contract with America being marketed nationally. Perhaps it is because Bill Clinton has lost his horns. Perhaps it is because Virgil Goode has blunted that message so well. Perhaps it is all three. One great advantage that Republican challengers had in  was that they could run both as Republicans and as Washington outsiders by pitching the Contract with America to constituents. That is not the case this time. Being a national Republican now requires some legerdemain. It requires one to associate with the national Republicans and to characterize oneself as a Washington outsider, no easy trick. Landrith has tried. He argues that he is known and supported by Gingrich and other leaders and a network of other members of Con-

The Slow Talker

gress. Virgil Goode clearly is not. He notes that he will be able to support his party’s leadership and agenda and be part of what his party represents. Virgil Goode will not. He says that other Virginia Republicans will work to support his committee aspirations (a seat on Ways and Means), and he claims that he will be more effective as a member of the majority than Goode would be as a member of the minority. Yet he still wants to portray himself as outside the system. He says as much. “I still think I’m an outsider. I mean, it’s not like Newt Gingrich is my best friend. He came to a fund-raiser because I’m running a good race and we can win this seat. And he wants to help good Republicans win seats. It’s the same thing with Dick Armey, it’s the same thing with [House majority whip] Tom DeLay. It’s not as if somehow now they’re coming to my house for parties. . . . I’m an outsider who can get things done” (Foster b). It is not clear that this party message resonates with the public, but it appears to be the best opportunity that Landrith has to distinguish himself from his opponent in a way that works in his favor. President Clinton worked in  to moderate his image, and his efforts seem to have had results. And as the presidential electorate is considerably larger than the off-year electorate, Landrith recognizes that the Clinton effect is somewhat muted. “The president is less of a factor this year as he’s done a lot to ameliorate the perception he created of sixties-style radical leftism. Congress actually did a lot about it—made people less worried about the kook with the checkbook. Now, he’s been defanged. He’s no different than he was in ’, but he’s been defanged and we’ve seen a big drop in those $– donations.” The relationship between the president and Virgil Goode also is harder to argue. “The problem with Virgil Goode is that he’s in Richmond, not Washington, and the nexus with Bill Clinton isn’t as quick or clear or clean. In reality, he won’t be that much different. But it’s hard to make the case.” The campaign has tried. They recently arranged for a tall man wearing a Clinton mask and a “Virgil Goode is my buddy” sign to heckle Landrith at some of his campaign events. The candidate laughs as he describes it as a great visual prop. It is not just that national forces are less significant this time. To Landrith’s chagrin, Goode clearly is a more difficult Democrat to run against than L. F. Payne. Goode is a local Democrat, and there is even some question as to how committed he is to the party after the events of the previous year. Virgil Goode was the central figure in a political brouhaha following the  Virginia state legislative elections. Those elections had promised to be historic; chances were good that for the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans would control the Virginia state legislature, or at least the state Senate. As the  election ap-

95

96

The Slow Talker

proached, they campaigned vigorously to get over the top, but their hopes were not realized. Democrats won a small majority in the House of Delegates, and the forty contests for the state Senate split right down the middle: Democrats winning twenty, Republicans winning twenty. Even more disappointing to the Republicans, the state’s lieutenant governor, Democrat Don Beyer, had the constitutional authority to vote in the Senate in case of ties. Democrats were jubilant after the results of the elections were known, but their jubilation was short-lived. Before the Senate organized the leadership and committee structures, Democrats had planned to hold the major positions of power in the institution and to keep all the committee chairs for themselves. But Virgil Goode did not go along. To the horror of his Democratic colleagues, Goode announced that he would not approve of any arrangement in which the two parties did not share power equally. As reported in the Washington Post, “[Goode] single-handedly forced his party to yield its iron grip on the Virginia legislature for the first time in a century, pushing through a power-sharing arrangement that elevated Republicans to senior leadership positions” (Baker ). It is true that all of this was “inside Richmond politics,” not much likely to register with many Fifth District voters; internal campaign polling indicated that this was the case. Goode’s role in brokering the compromise has been useful to him in this contest, however, as it has helped the campaign fashion him both as a candidate whom Republicans can like and as a candidate who is above partisan squabbling, “a strong, independent voice for Virginia’s values,” as his campaign’s paid advertising characterizes him.1 While the party lines are blurred, Virgil Goode also has situated himself well to the right of center on an ideological spectrum, and George Landrith has had difficulty making a distinction between his own ideological position and his opponent’s to the electorate. L. F. Payne was hardly a liberal—his average ADA score over the course of his congressional career was only —but certain parts of his record could be used to characterize him as such. His vote for Clinton’s tax and budget plans in  enabled Landrith to brand him “a liberal who only voted as conservative as he had to” and to connect him to the unpopular president. On the other hand, according to Landrith’s campaign manager, “Goode is seen as conservative as we are. L. F. at least was considered a moderate Democrat. On taxes, he certainly wasn’t a conservative Democrat. But Virgil is a true conservative Democrat. There aren’t that many left in the U.S., but he’s one of them.” In this campaign, Goode has taken many of the same positions and has

The Slow Talker

many of the same political friends and allies as George Landrith. He is pro-life on abortion, a welfare reformer, and a believer in balanced budgets and amendments enforcing them. In , he cast a decisive vote in the state Senate that killed the Equal Rights Amendment in Virginia (a loss that virtually sealed the fate of the amendment nationally). He has personal connections to the gun lobby and the Christian Coalition. A Washington Post editorialist () called him “one of the state’s semiautomatic spokesmen for the NRA lobbyists,” and the political director of the national Christian Coalition counts him as a close personal friend. While the Christian Coalition guide soon to come out will endorse Landrith, the fact that the Republican is Mormon has dampened some of the fundamentalist enthusiasm for him, and Goode has support from many ministers. All in all, the two candidates are really not that ideologically different and, to those paying attention, this is hard not to notice. Said the one person to show up to a “Meet the Candidates” roundtable organized by the Roanoke newspaper, “To me, it was interesting how similar the two candidates are. Here one of them is a Republican and one’s a Democrat and they’re very similar in their views. It seems to me, they kind of made an effort not to stick out from the other” (Foster and Jackson ). Goode himself has contributed most to that impression. “Me and George,” remarks the Democrat to a reporter in the field, “We really do agree on a number of issues, there’s no question about that.” There has been only one point in the campaign, in fact, where Goode has even suggested that there might be an ideological difference between himself and Landrith. During his acceptance speech at the Charlottesville convention where he was nominated as the Democratic candidate, Goode promised not to “goose-step in the army of Newt Gingrich” (Jackson and Foster b). Not surprisingly, Landrith has grabbed onto this statement, exaggerating it and turning it to make his point. Bitterly, the Republican describes Goode as saying, “If you want a goose-stepping, brownshirted Nazi, vote for my opponent.” He pauses for effect. “I guess all those liberal Democrats up there got the best of him.” Goode’s words in front of the most liberal crowd in the district notwithstanding, the Democrat has offered his opponent very little with which to define him as a liberal. It is not just that Virgil Goode is so conservative that makes him such a difficult candidate to run against. He is skillfully elusive. L. F. Payne had a record that was compiled over eight years in Congress. This gave Landrith ammunition in . Recalls the candidate fondly, “We beat him over the head with some of those votes.” Goode, though a state legislator for a couple of decades, has not previously taken positions on many issues before Congress, and during

97

98

The Slow Talker

this campaign, he has avoided taking or elaborating stands on difficult issues. Asked about NAFTA at a press conference, the candidate said, “In the past, I would have opposed NAFTA” (McFadden b), but he hedged his present position. On affirmative action, Goode probably came out against it. Landrith’s campaign manager describes preparing a trap for Goode at a forum sponsored by a local NAACP chapter. Expecting affirmative action to come up, the campaign videotaped the debate. When it did come up, “he played it so close to the vest that we weren’t able to use any of our footage. When someone asked him if he was in favor of affirmative action, he said, ‘I believe that you should judge everyone as an individual.’” Someone from the campaign followed up, but they could not get Goode to take a clear public position on the issue. Recalls one reporter who has covered this campaign as well as several others in the district: “When I asked him about the Contract with America at an editorial board meeting, he said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what’s in it.’ When I asked if he agreed with President Clinton’s position on educational standards, he just said, ‘No.’ On tobacco regulation, he said, ‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’ When I asked him how he would have voted on NAFTA if he’d been in Congress, he said, ‘I don’t know.’ His not answering questions infuriates me. I’ve never had such a hard time dealing with a candidate.” Aside from making her job more difficult, the Democrat has violated her sense of what a campaign is supposed to be about. “Virgil Goode has told voters absolutely nothing about what he would do,” she complains. Remarks another reporter who has covered Goode in the state Senate for several years, “He often doesn’t give more than one-word answers. He’s very careful about what he says because talking about things makes enemies.” If he has frustrated reporters, it is nothing compared to the difficulties he has posed to George Landrith. The bipartisan, conservative, elusive Virgil Goode has presented Landrith with a real problem, and he has struggled in defining his differences with the Democrat. The question he now faces at the insurance luncheon is one that he has been facing all along. Drawing an ideological distinction is not a really promising strategy, Goode being perceived as being so far to the right. As a Republican state senator said in the press, “George Landrith can’t get to the right of Virgil Goode. He’ll fall off the planet before he does” (Jackson and Foster a). The ability to make the ideological distinction also has been made more difficult by a lack of money. It has been a kinder, gentler Landrith campaign, by all accounts, but as the campaign’s media consultant says, “A broke campaign gives the appearance of being kinder and gentler.” Landrith himself essentially agrees

The Slow Talker

with this assessment and notes that without money to highlight differences between the candidates in the media, it is a very tough case. It has been an especially difficult problem because, in his view, reporters have bought into this story line. The newspapers, he claims, are saying that there is no ideological difference between the candidates, making a free media strategy—or, from his perspective, an “earned media” strategy—all the more difficult. Through all this, George Landrith perseveres. It has been a frustrating couple of months. To him, the difference is so plain, even at the most superficial level. In contrast to Goode’s unsophisticated style and down-home manner, Landrith is polished, serious, well spoken, and well tailored. He is a religious man, conservative in his style and his politics. And he is the only Republican in the race. Certainly that should mean something to the business community here in Danville and to sophisticated people like these insurance agents gathered at the Stratford Inn. It has been a hard sell, though, and as Landrith faces the last few weeks of the campaign, he is still looking for a breakthrough, for a way to make this plain difference more plain.

IN THE BEE: DANVILLE, VIRGINIA

The Republican camp thought it had struck gold when it discovered that Virgil Goode had cast a vote for a tobacco tax hike the year before. Landrith enjoyed making the charge, with lots of flourish, at an American Legion forum. Unfortunately, it was too good to be true. It was based on some faulty campaign research. The tax bill that Goode supported in the state legislature had been purged of the tobacco hike as it moved from the House to the Senate. Now that the error has become apparent, the Landrith campaign faces a dilemma—how and when it should admit its mistake. A [Danville] Bee reporter is prodding the campaign to do it, threatening to write two days’ worth of stories if Landrith does not admit the mistake this news cycle. After some discussion, Landrith’s team now decides to concede. Tomorrow’s headline, “Landrith Admits Error; Goode Calls for Apology,” is not going to be the highlight of the campaign. There are , tobacco farmers in the district (Barone, Ujifusa, and Cohen ). Though not an overwhelming number of people, they are highly motivated to participate in politics. Moreover, the economy and the self-image of the area around Danville are very much dependent on the tobacco industry. In , Landrith courted this important group, charging L. F. Payne with selling them out by supporting a -cent raise in the Clinton health-care plan’s tobacco

99

100

The Slow Talker

tax. In fact, Payne, from his seat on the Ways and Means Committee, fought against an original proposal to raise tobacco taxes by $. a pack and negotiated the smaller hike, which he was compelled to support as part of the compromise. It was a great service to the tobacco industry. No matter; Landrith pointed to that vote as evidence of his failure. And general consensus has built since that Landrith damaged Payne with that charge. Virgil Goode, however, has turned out to be much less vulnerable on this issue than L. F. Payne was in . Goode is known by some as the state Senate’s “most passionate defender of the tobacco industry in Richmond” (Baker ). He, in fact, claims credit for keeping Virginia’s tobacco tax at . percent of the package price, lowest in the nation. He has support from a tobacco industry eager for Democratic as well as Republican friends. And, though a health fiend and a nonsmoker, he is unembarrassed and unapologetic about his tobacco record. When asked at a newspaper forum if tobacco is a drug, he responded, “Now, tomatoes contain nicotine. I like tomatoes” (Foster and Jackson ). Another of his stock responses is that his mother is a smoker. “It’s one of the last vices she has left,” he says, “and I could never take that away from her.” Landrith, a Mormon, appears much less personally comfortable promoting tobacco, given his faith’s prohibition against it. He expresses pride in never having taken a single puff and seems to be splitting hairs when he tells a reporter that he does not know if tobacco is addictive, but he does think that it is habit forming (Foster and Jackson ). All this has made it difficult for Landrith to capitalize on an issue that should work well for a  Republican—which is not to say that he has not tried. Landrith’s strategy on this issue has been to focus not on Virgil Goode, but on President Clinton’s general tobacco policies: specifically his proposal to restrict tobacco sponsorship of sporting events. The stock car circuit plays throughout the South, and racing is very popular in the Fifth. Indeed, an important stop on the NASCAR tour is the Martinsville Speedway, located in the heart of the district. With tobacco companies spending more than $ million a year promoting racing (Siano ), and with R. J. Reynolds sponsoring the NASCAR Winston Cup tour to advertise its lead brand, NASCAR, in particular, would be devastated by new Food and Drug Administration rules. The genesis of Landrith’s NASCAR campaign strategy came in August, when industry officials issued a statement that the FDA’s proposal posed a substantial threat to the sport. The next day, word got out in more colorful fashion. Celebrating his victory at the Goody’s  race in Bristol, Tennessee, driver Rusty Wallace made an obscene gesture to the nationally televised audience and

The Slow Talker

announced, “All those Democrats trying to mess with tobacco, you can tell them where to go. Vote Republican. Go Dole!” (NASCAR press release ). It seemed to Landrith’s team that this turn of events presented them with a perfect opportunity. Before the Haynes  race in Martinsville, Landrith toured the track in a pickup truck with a large banner that read, “Save Tobacco, Save NASCAR, Vote George Landrith.” It was eye-catching, says his campaign manager, especially compared to the banner on Virgil Goode’s car, which was virtually unreadable. At the Taco Bell , the Landrith campaign passed out leaflets—“Protect NASCAR! . . . Clinton’s war on tobacco may end racing as we know it”—as Landrith himself drove around the speedway in a Chevrolet pickup covered with “Protect Tobacco/Vote Landrith” signs. The most elaborate campaign event organized around this issue was put together by one of Landrith’s supporters in the town of South Boston. The George Landrith Twin  race, held at a small raceway in town, was a very creative way to reach the district’s NASCAR constituency. The race was well advertised in the newspapers and on radio and, though attendance was a bit disappointing because of some flooding in the area, it was a high point of the campaign. The NASCAR strategy has been more than just an attempt to exploit Clinton’s tobacco policy. Putting Landrith at the racetrack in pickup trucks also has served to make him accessible to voters. Landrith does not have Goode’s accent, “thick as molasses on a frosty Patrick County morning” (McFadden a), or his folksy manner, so the racetrack has helped him portray himself as an “average Joe.” It has been one of the few advantages he has had in this race. The story in tomorrow’s paper, however, may well undo any benefit that the tobacco issue has given him. At least there will only be one story about it.

OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY FISH FRY FUND-RAISER: OAK LEVEL, VIRGINIA

The fish fry is supposed to be in an open lot next to the Virgil Goode Sr. Highway, a stretch of Highway  between Martinsville and Roanoke named for the Democratic candidate’s late father. The tent is set up and the tables are out. But a storm has blown down from the mountains to the west and has forced the event inside. The new site can only be described as spare. About seventy people are jammed into the small, windowless, empty cement room in a tin-roofed building adjoining the lot. With the cooking going on in one corner, everyone in the crowded room is going to smell like fish and fat by the end of the evening. Goode is a little late to this function—fashionably late, though he is not

101

102

The Slow Talker

fashionable. A cold front behind the storm has dropped the temperature outside, and he walks in sporting a short lightweight parka. The tail of his blazer sticks out the back. He pulls a folding chair out and stands on it, welcoming people to the event and encouraging them to eat the delicious farm-raised fish that a supporter has provided to the campaign. In his familiar twang, he makes his way through the room shaking hands and exchanging warm hellos with his many friends. Most of the people he greets are longtime supporters. He has been representing this area for over two decades, first winning election to the state Senate in . He ran while awaiting the results of his bar exam and, at twenty-six, became the youngest legislator in the chamber. His tenure since has been marked by wild popularity. Indeed, in the  cycle, he got more votes than any other member of the General Assembly, this despite the fact that he did not have an opponent (Baker ). A family friend from way back has organized this function. This older fellow says he has known Virgil for years and has known lots of Virgil’s relatives over the years. Several of Virgil’s kin have owned general stores in the area, he says, and these have been gathering places, places where lots of business has been conducted. This man farms, but he is descended from a line of bootleggers, and Virgil’s father was their lawyer—“a damned good one”—who got them out of a lot of trouble. Somewhat cynical, he is not usually involved in politics. “Politicians are all crooked,” he says. “All but one of them, and that’s that fella there.” Many of the others in the room are also over sixty, and a good number of them are farmers. Some are, in fact, tobacco farmers, a rather touchy group given the Clinton administration’s tobacco policies. “The tobacco farmers are so mad at Clinton that they’re all Republicans now,” remarks one man. “But there’s a couple of us out there working on the others telling them how good Virgil is.” The man’s wife chips in, “I’ve voted for Republicans before. Ronald Reagan. I just loved him.” These folks and several others in the room are wearing buttons saying “Slow Talkers for Virgil Goode.” The story behind the slogan illustrates how good his campaign actually is, how it has manufactured an issue out of very little. The slogan was born in the summer when a letter sent out by one of George Landrith’s supporters as part of an invitation to a Washington fund-raiser fell into the hands of a Goode supporter. The author of the letter, the finance director for Landrith’s  run for Congress, extols his friend’s many virtues and makes some flattering comparisons of Landrith to his opponent: “Landrith’s Demo-

The Slow Talker

cratic opponent, Virgil Goode, is also a University of Virginia law graduate. Virgil has been a State Senator for  years. He speaks slowly, exhibits less energy, stamina and charisma than George, works crowds less well, and has a less magnetic family. He tends to be non-specific and sometimes evasive when asked policy questions. He essentially inherited his position, has never faced a tough challenger, and may find this Congressional race more than he expected.” At first, Goode’s campaign staff used the letter to tease the candidate and his wife. They soon recognized that it had some potential value in the campaign. The line of the campaign is that they found the references to the candidate insulting and figured others would, too. Goode’s campaign manager says, “Knowing how much Virgil is admired and loved by people who know him, I had no doubt they would be incensed by it.” But it was more than this. They also saw an opportunity in the letter, an opportunity to define an “us” and a “them” and to portray Landrith and his team as insensitive to the area. The “Slow Talkers” slogan they borrowed from the letter had the virtue of making the point that Virgil’s slow manner of talking and his southern speech patterns reflect (almost exaggerate) the dialect spoken in the area. The story behind the slogan would allow them to characterize Landrith, originally from northern Virginia, relatively new to the state as an adult, and with flatter, less regionally distinctive diction, as an outsider. Once the bumper stickers and buttons were commissioned and distributed, the campaign believed that they had struck a chord. People were walking into headquarters off the street asking for them. Demand was so heavy, in fact, they could not keep them in stock. Better yet for the campaign, the story found its way into the newspapers. When campaigns have large numbers of people asking for campaign material, it defies expectations, and this caught the attention of a Martinsville reporter. The campaign memorabilia story ran on the front page of the city’s newspaper with a picture of one of Goode’s supporters, Martinsville’s state senator, kneeling next to the bumper of his car pointing to his “Slow Talkers” sticker. The accompanying article had Goode’s official response to the insults. He was quoted as not wanting to comment on the letter other than to say, “I am from this area and I talk like a person from this area, so I certainly don’t apologize for that” (Martinsville Bulletin ). His surrogate, the state senator, made a more direct attack on Landrith, however. “I saw the original memo, which I thought was tasteless. I’m a slow talker. My wife is a slow talker. We are Southerners; that’s what we do. If Mr. Landrith were running for Congress in New York or Massachusetts, where people talk fast, that would be a different story. I’ve al-

103

104

The Slow Talker

ways equated fast talkers with slick talkers. When someone talks slow, you can understand him, I’ll say that” (Martinsville Bulletin ). Landrith did the best he could to respond. The letter did not come from the campaign, he complained, and “if they want to make an issue out of this, quite frankly they’ve got no grounds to.” Grounds or not, they did. And the slogan illustrates well how effectively Goode has made connections with his constituents without ever uttering a word about public policy.

COFFEE FUND-RAISER: DANVILLE, VIRGINIA

Danville was the last home of the Confederacy after the burning of Richmond. Jefferson Davis brought his cabinet to the town for four or five days at the very end of the war, and the Confederacy treasury is rumored to be buried nearby. Here, in a white-carpeted, elegant ranch-style home, the Confederacy lives on. On the wall is a picture of J. E. B. Stuart signed by his grandson. More than a Confederate cavalry general, Stuart was a cavalier, a romantic hero, and a martyr from the war. Stuart stares down at the scene below: well-dressed, age-assorted men and women mingling around a large coffeepot and a nice spread of hors d’oeuvres. This is a gathering of friends, Republican activists, and Christian conservatives from around the district. These are people who care deeply about politics, religion, values, education, Bill Clinton, and the South. They have served as delegates to Republican conventions. They are party officials in some of the southern counties in the district. They are involved with various conservative causes. They all are wearing the “George Landrith for Congress” buttons that they received upon paying their way into the fund-raiser, even though there are no votes at the party to persuade, and the media have been kept out. The buttons are an attempt to foster some sense of solidarity. As they swig Coca-Cola and coffee, there is some excitement in the air as Landrith’s best supporters await the arrival of the candidate and his traveling companion for the day, Colonel Oliver North. A group of men stands in one corner of the room talking vigorously about President Clinton, Virginia politics, and the state of the state. One of them, with a battle scene from the War of Southern Independence taking place on his tie, is steamed. Though not as refined as many of the others in the room, he seems perfectly comfortable in this crowd as he vigorously offers his opinion that Republican governor George Allen is a charlatan, a man who has sur-

The Slow Talker

rounded himself with liberals and homosexuals. “They’re running things up there in Richmond,” he says, too loudly. Others in the room are not terribly fond of Allen, either. Standing together are several veterans of the summer’s Republican National Convention in San Diego, where Allen headed up the Virginia delegation. One of these men was a Virginia delegate pledged to Pat Buchanan; the other two were Buchanan alternates. All three were bitter about an Allen power play on the floor of the convention hall that kept them from voting for Buchanan. Their story is that Allen, eager to deliver the entire delegation to the party’s nominee, Bob Dole, turned to the Virginia delegates shortly before the vote, made a speech about sticking together, asked if anyone planned to vote for anyone other than Dole, refused to recognize the young Buchanan delegate trying to get his attention, and turned to the microphone to deliver the unanimous vote. The spurned man tried to work his way up to the governor, but bodyguards held him back, and Allen delivered the “unanimous” delegation. That symbolic vote for Buchanan was important to these three men, who viewed Dole with some contempt. “I felt it was like being at the Democratic convention instead of the Republican convention,” says one of the men. “With Cow Pile [Colin Powell] and those other jokers there.” Yells a man sitting on a nearby sofa, “Yeah. With all that talk about affirmative action.” “Listen,” the first man resumes, a bit annoyed at being interrupted, “Dole kept saying, ‘It’s the party of Lincoln. Leave it if that doesn’t suit you.’ But then he held up the Tenth Amendment, which he kept in his pocket. Have it one way or the other, fella, one way or the other.” An earnest and open young man, deeply devoted to the pro-life cause, argues that Dole and Clinton are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, even on his issue. They just are not that different. “That’s right,” resumes the first man, “I mean, I’ll vote for Dole, I guess, but not without holding my nose. Things are going to change, though, after that turkey gets beat. I can’t wait for that to happen, and for the party to get rid of liberals like [Oregon senator] Mark Hatfield. They’re ruining our party and what we stand for.” His desire for purity is just as remarkable as his hyperattentiveness to politics. One thing that permeates the room is a poisonous, passionate hate of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Many in the room cite their feelings about the Clintons as driving them to a greater commitment to the Republican Party and to George Landrith. “Are politics more polarized than in the past?” asks one man. “It seems to me that they are. Everybody I know thinks Clinton is absolute scum. The worst ever. They are really bad, bad guys. I feel more and more strongly

105

106

The Slow Talker

about it. In fact, I tore up the check that I brought here and wrote another one doubling the sum after listening to him on the radio in the car.” Says another man, “We think Clinton’s bad, and there are people who think worse of him. He’s the anti-Christ in the tobacco warehouses down the road.” And there is the hostess of the party, who has an autographed copy of a book by Gary Aldrich, the Secret Service agent who has written a controversial book about Clinton and his White House. She is ready to believe anything about Clinton and his allies. “He was murdered and his body was moved,” she whispers about presidential aide Vincent Foster, “It’s absolutely true.” She has much more to say, especially about race and heritage. A former schoolteacher, she talks about working in the schools during a time of great change: “Let me tell you, we had a great textbook, a perfectly good book, and they made us throw them all in the dumpsters because it said that when the Negroes were freed, some of them stayed home because they loved their masters. Some of the children brought that home and they made a stink about it. You know, I never did throw those books away. Just Xeroxed the pages and brought ’em on in.” Others at the affair also have things to say about race. One man, who calls himself a “heritage, not hate” advocate, says he is not motivated by race. “I’m a heritage guy. It’s not a race thing. Blacks are part of the southern heritage. Their heritage should be included, too. Come on along.” He waves to some imaginary black person standing next to him. “You know, I like some blacks, just not the victimization blacks.” This fellow, who has led campaigns for southern heritage, the Confederate flag (“a Christian symbol, not a sign of hatred”), and the old state song (“Carry Me Back to Old Virginia,” written by a black man despite its references to “darkies” and “massahs”), is not popular with Oliver North, whom he hopes to avoid. Others in the room have a problem with him, too. One Christian activist says that she is grossly disturbed by what she views as the intolerance of some of the others gathered at the party. “Some of these people are haters,” she whispers. “When they get to heaven, and I hope to God there is a heaven and Jesus is there, what do they think they’re gonna find? That there’s a white area and an area for those who have kinky hair?” The crowd moves to gather in the elegant living room where North and Landrith will speak. As people settle in, a refined white-haired woman approaches the host. “So, when are we going to de-bone Virgil Goode?” “Starts right now,” is his reply, and he gets up and introduces his friend, George Landrith, and the esteemed Colonel North. As he finishes, everyone in the room, roughly fifty people, gets up from their seats and offers a long and warm standing ovation. Oliver North holds the crowd with his searing sincerity. He lauds his friend

The Slow Talker

George Landrith and the commitment of the candidate, his family, the host and hostess, and the faithful gathered in this comfortable room. He is there to motivate these people, Landrith’s most devoted supporters. It requires more than just bringing up an issue or two. It means defining a worldview, a world in which, for reasons that are easy to understand, Bill Clinton, not Virgil Goode, is the enemy. They must elect a Congress that will protect the country not only from the president, whom he has assumed will win the election, but from his wife. They need a Republican Congress, he tells them, to keep pursuing the White House and all of its scandals. “If the Democrats come to power, that will all be dropped. We need someone to get to the bottom of all their corruption. Virgil Goode’s a good guy, a hale weather guy. But he’s on the other side.” He brings the specter of Clinton closer to home. “Do you want tobacco in the hands of the FDA and Dr. Kessler?” he asks the crowd. When he mentions Kessler’s name, he puts on a German accent. The audience responds to the call. “No.” “What do you think about the curfews this president has proposed?” There is not much response. He talks about the president’s praise for a New Orleans curfew program that punishes the parents of offenders. As he explains the situation, there are gasps and sighs from the audience. “Can you imagine that a seventeen-year-old kid in New Orleans, a city with one of the most liberal mayors in the country, could be stopped and asked to show his papers? Can you imagine this in America? Where else have you heard this happening?” he asks, bringing back his German accent. “When Bill Clinton announced his support for curfews, did you hear Barney Frank or Ted Kennedy get up and denounce the idea, or the ACLU? [Crowd: “No.”) It is a stark choice.” George Landrith picks up North’s themes. He starts off with a LandrithGoode comparison. “It seems like a major question out there is what’s the difference between me and my opponent? Well, let me tell you.” He brings out his well-used props, two large cardboard checks, one made out to the IRS, the other to the American family. It is hokey but effective, and the crowd, warmed up well by North, appreciates it. He picks up some energy from their energy and accelerates through the meat of his talk: “And what about Congress? Who’s in power if the Democrats win? At Ways and Means, it will be Charles Rangel [“Boo!”], who once said that the IRS is the best tax-collecting service ever! Barney Frank [“Boo!”]—yes, that Barney Frank [laughter]—will head important subcommittees on Judiciary [“Boo!”]. Ron Dellums, an avowed socialist, will head our defense committee [“No!”]. Henry Waxman, instead of Virginia’s own Tom Bliley, will be in charge of the Commerce Committee [“Boo!”]. And Charles Schumer will be writing gun control laws if we elect the Democrats

107

108

The Slow Talker

[“Boo!”].” It is what the candidate calls “my five meanies speech,” and this crowd seemed to know the meanies even without the explanations. The candidate also hits Oliver North’s theme of “Let’s not give Clinton a blank check,” albeit without as much of the colonel’s genuine rancor. It is a strange argument to make two weeks before the general election, but, according to Landrith’s campaign manager, word has come down from the Republican National Committee to disassociate from Dole if that is necessary. Landrith finishes with a light touch, a Clinton zinger, a story about two chameleons he bought his children. His eldest son, he tells the crowd, wanted to name the lizards Bill and Hillary. Appalled, he asked why on earth did he want to do that. “Because,” said his son, “they’re always changing their colors.” The guests laugh. Clinton’s moves to the right are rather a sore spot with many of them, but they can appreciate the humor. The humor is actually blacker than on the surface, and many in the room know how costly those lizards have turned out to be. George Landrith has not told the entire story. The part he has left out would have ruined his punch line. Sadly, Bill and Hillary died only a couple of weeks after they were acquired, overheated—cooked—as they lay on a defective heating rock. To make matters worse, when Landrith’s pregnant wife, Linda, attempted to return the rock to a Charlottesville pet shop, she had a physical altercation with the store owner, one that has led to lawsuits filed by both sides (Foster b). The lawsuits have meant the story continues to be rehashed, and this has led to an unfortunate crowding out of some of Landrith’s campaign messages on local television.

PERSON-TO-PERSON POLITICS

There were so many mistakes made by the Republican side during the  campaign, and there were so many breaks that went the way of Virgil Goode, that his victory may have seemed inevitable by the end of the campaign. But it is worth remembering that Democratic success here was not a foregone conclusion at the beginning of the race. Indeed, Virginia’s Fifth District was ripe for Republican picking. Located in a very conservative and traditional part of the South, located in the middle of tobacco country at a time when a Democratic administration was aggressively pursuing policies hostile to tobacco interests, this election seemed to be a great Republican opportunity. George Landrith, the GOP candidate, was an attractive, articulate spokesman, and he had broad name recognition throughout the district from his surprisingly strong  challenge of Democrat L. F. Payne (Landrith won  percent of the vote).

The Slow Talker

Many even speculated that his success in  encouraged Payne to leave the seat to run for lieutenant governor. Landrith himself was confident going into the race, particularly as he perceived Virgil Goode to be an underwhelming politician still working with his father’s outmoded political formula. Landrith clearly underestimated his opponent, but he had reason to be optimistic. Outside experts saw this as a certain Republican pickup but for Virgil Goode. Charlie Cook, editor of The Cook Political Report, was quoted early in the campaign as saying, “Goode may be the only Democrat who can run for this seat and win it” (Associated Press ). In the end, Virgil Goode won the election convincingly, with  percent of the vote to Landrith’s  percent. Reform Party candidate George “Tex” Wood took the leftovers. At the same time, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole beat President Clinton in the district  percent to  percent. How to explain Goode’s victory and his ability to overcome the political liability of President Clinton? Several in the Landrith campaign were convinced that it came down to money, with Goode able to out-raise Landrith and even to freeze the Republican out of campaign funds that in other circumstances would have gone to him. According to Federal Election Commission records, Goode out-raised Landrith $, to $, in . Where did Goode’s advantage come from? First, Virginia’s state legislature is elected in odd years, a remnant of the Byrd Machine’s successful attempts to control electoral politics by depressing turnout. Goode was able to run for Congress without having to relinquish his state Senate seat. This situation provided him with leverage over potential donors in the district and even the state. If he won, he represented them. So, too, if he lost. It was a compelling reason to donate to his cause. “He was able to say, ‘Either way you’ll have to deal with me,’” said George Landrith after the election. “He’s not that crass, of course, but they understood.” Second, the very conservative Goode offered various conservative interests an opportunity to support a Democrat. To spread money to both political parties has virtue for many PACs, and here was a candidate with conservative values, a Democratic label, and a good chance of winning. Goode, for example, received support from the National Rifle Association, from tobacco interests, and from a large number of business and industry PACs, and what went to Goode was denied the more conservative Landrith. Goode received more than five times as much PAC money as Landrith (Federal Election Commission ). Third, the simple appearance of electoral weakness in the matchup with Goode made it difficult for Landrith to raise funds as the fall progressed. Even before the home-

109

110

The Slow Talker

stretch of the campaign, “many of the Republican-leaning interest groups had written Landrith off,” said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, “and they wrote him off mainly because Virgil Goode was perfectly positioned to win the district” (Jackson and Foster b). Individual contributions also were sluggish through the fall. A Landrith consultant noted that fall fund-raisers were bringing in $, –,, fine for August, weak for October. With little financial momentum through the campaign, money from the national party that would have enabled Landrith to run last-minute television advertisements in  never materialized. “This time,” said Goode’s campaign manager, a veteran of the  Democratic campaign, “the eleventh and twelfth hour came and went and there was nothing from the national party.” The lack of funds meant that Landrith was essentially unable to advertise widely on television. “He campaigned hard, like a chicken with his head cut off,” said an aide, “but it wasn’t much of a campaign.” The money explanation for Goode’s victory makes sense, but it is far from complete. While Goode out-raised Landrith about five-to-four, L. F. Payne out-raised him three-to-one. Goode outspent Landrith $, to $,. Payne outspent him $, to $,. The two outcomes, while both disappointing for the Republican, were dramatically different. This difference requires taking the explanation one step backward. How come Landrith was unable to make a compelling case for his candidacy this time around? If money was a problem for the Republican, why was he unable to raise it in what appeared at the beginning to be such promising circumstances? Why, in Sabato’s words, was Goode so perfectly positioned to win the very conservative district? Mostly it came down to the ability of Goode to match Democratic performance with black voters—crucial in a place like this district, where  percent of the population is black—while simultaneously winning the white vote. It is a powerful combination. Though a favorite of many groups on the right, Virgil Goode also had connections to African American leaders in his district and statewide. African American leaders remembered his fiery nominating speech on behalf of Douglas Wilder back in , when Wilder ran a successful campaign to become the first black governor in the South since Reconstruction. He had close ties to Wilder while he was in office. In this race, Goode did not appear to vigorously court black votes and may have benefited from the efforts of a free-spending Democrat, Mark Warner, further up the ticket, and the presidential campaign. Warner, running for Senate against incumbent John Warner, pumped a huge sum of his own money into turning out Democratic voters, helping Democratic candidates up and down the ticket. Goode’s positive repu-

The Slow Talker

Table 3.1 Voting Patterns in Danville, Virginia, 1989 and 1996 1996 Most heavily black wards Rest of city 1989 Most heavily black wards Rest of city

Total votes

Votes for Virgil Goode

1,142 15,333

973 (85%) 8,169 (53%)

Total votes

Votes for Douglas Wilder

1,435 15,742

1,291 (90%) 5,657 (36%)

Source: Virginia Election Data System.

tation in the black community, and the grassroots effort of Warner’s statewide campaign, helped him win an overwhelming percentage of the black vote without risking the white vote. Goode won  percent of votes cast in predominately black wards in the city of Danville and  percent of the votes in the rest of the city (see table .). In an interesting comparison, in , voters in these black Danville wards gave black Democrat Douglas Wilder  percent of their votes, while only  percent of voters in the rest of the city supported him for governor. There were  percent more votes cast in the black wards in . In the rest of Danville, there was only a  percent increase in votes cast (Virginia Election Data System). Clearly, Wilder activated black voters in a way Goode did not and could not, but Goode still had strong support in the black community. What is more, unlike many other Republicans in the South, Landrith was unable to take advantage of his opponent’s black support. Landrith’s aides did try to catch Goode appealing to blacks but were ultimately unsuccessful. “If Virgil had paid any lip service [to blacks], it would have been helpful to us. We’d have loved to get him publicly going after black votes, as we’d get a lot of white votes from him,” said Landrith’s campaign manager. While doing well with black voters, Goode still won a majority of white voters. Landrith’s inability to draw a stark distinction between himself and his opponent was at least partially responsible for this. Unable to make policy or ideological distinctions, in the end Landrith was left relying upon an argument that did not resonate with voters—a vote for Goode was a vote for a Democratic Congress. Landrith acknowledged as much after the election. “That argument doesn’t work with average voters,” he said. “It’s a political science junkie argument.” It was all he had left by the end of the campaign. The argument for Virgil Goode was much more compelling, and his effective campaign clearly contributed to his victory. First, he made the case that he

111

112

The Slow Talker

would be closer to the people of the district and on many different dimensions. “I’d be the most in-touch voice for the district,” he told a reporter covering his campaign. “Over these  years, I’ve been in touch with a lot of different people and probably know their concerns better than anyone” (McFadden a). At the same time, he was careful to evade issues that might ruin this impression. As Landrith’s media consultant said, “He [Goode] ran a soft cotton candy campaign. He had to. When issues are at stake, we win.” Even after the election, Landrith did not seem to fully appreciate the effectiveness of Goode’s strategy and style. He still equated an effective campaign presentation with smooth talking and cogent argumentation. “He’s not a great campaigner,” said the Republican. “He’s good one-on-one, but we’d kick his tail in debates and forums.” Goode’s ability to create the “in-touch” impression was most formidable in his home territory, those counties he had long represented and had built a reputation in. From this base, Goode ran a classic “friends and neighbors strategy,” a strategy that has long been used in the South. The original goal of the campaign was to carry the state Senate district with  – percent of the vote and to meet Democratic performance elsewhere. It seemed realistic. When, some years back, Goode had challenged incumbent Charles Robb for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate, he won  percent of the vote in his home Franklin County (Jackson and Foster c). Support in his reelections had always been overwhelming. “He always got more votes than any other senator in the state even though he never had an opponent,” said his campaign manager. “And the polling data. Lord have mercy. Virgil had favorability ratings of  –  percent. It was unreal.” The campaign thus focused on boosting turnout in his Senate counties, about one quarter of the congressional district, while introducing the candidate to the rest of the district. The effectiveness of Goode’s strategy is evident in the outcome. The Democrat won by overwhelming margins in his home base—an activated home base (see figure .). He won  percent of the vote in his native Franklin County. He did almost as well in the other counties he represented in the state Senate. Eighty-two percent of voters in his Senate district gave Goode their vote. To offer some comparison, L. F. Payne took  percent of the vote in these counties in his  victory (see figure .). Not only was Goode able to capture these local votes, but turnout in his state Senate district was high relative to the rest of the congressional district. Overall, there were over , more votes cast in the  election than in the  election, an  percent increase. This is not surprising given that  was a presidential year. But the increase was not uniform across the district. In Goode’s state Senate counties, there was an  percent in-

The Slow Talker

Figure .. Support for Virgil Goode in  election, by county

crease in votes cast. In the rest of the district, there was only an  percent increase in votes cast.2 It was a classic friends and neighbors vote pattern, at least in Virgil Goode’s part of the district, a pattern much like that described by V. O. Key back in the s in place after place in the South. Looking at patterns of political support,

Figure .. Support for L. F. Payne in  election, by county

113

114

The Slow Talker

Key noted that, in many places, it was geography—not ideology or demography—that mattered most. In fact, in such places, it was difficult to identify any real patterns to the vote other than those created by localistic voting behavior. It was a function of the pathology of southern politics, to Key’s mind. Though “rationalized as a calculated promotion of local interest,” he wrote, “[such voting behavior] also points to the absence of stable, well-organized, state-wide factions of like-minded citizens formed to advocate measures of common concern. In its extreme form localism justifies the diagnosis of low voter interest in public issues and a susceptibility to control by the irrelevant appeal to support the home-town boy” (, ). Of course, Key was describing politics in a one-party region, a place where real ideological differences were short-circuited by agreement on the most fundamental question of the day—namely segregation. In the absence of major differences between candidates, local networks created by candidates seemed to matter most. Key also described politics in the days before television, when candidates reached the average voter through personal and party networks. With the ability to communicate with voters directly, such networks, personal or party, are no longer so crucial to congressional candidates. This has dramatically changed the way candidates go about their business, in the South and elsewhere. Goode, nonetheless, worked the district in a traditional way and elicited this traditional response. Indeed, he seems to have stepped from the pages of Richard Fenno’s Home Style (). Among his classic types, Fenno describes “Congressman A,” a “person-to-person” representative from the rural, conservative, small-town South of the early s. “Congressman A,” whom Fenno has since revealed to be Rep. Jack Flynt of Georgia (), could be Virgil Goode, down to his plain clothes and the first-name connection he has with most everyone he meets: [W]hen he goes home, he [Congressman A] “beats the bushes” and “ploughs the ground” in search of face-to-face contact with the people of his district. From county to county, town to town, up and down Main Street, in and out of county courthouses, through places of business, into homes and backyards, over country roads, and into country stores, from early morning till late at night (“Anyone who hears a knock on the door after : P.M. knows it’s me”) he “mixes and mingles,” conveying the impression that he is one of them. In each encounter, he reaches (if the other person does not provide it) for some link between himself and the person he is talking with—and between that person and some other person. There is no conversation that does not involve an elaboration of an interpersonal web and of the ties that bind its members one to the other. (Fenno , )

The Slow Talker

The similarities between Flynt and Goode go beyond the personalistic nature of their political styles. Describing Jack Flynt’s assent to Congress in the s, Fenno writes: “Every incentive moved him, in path-dependent fashion, to keep the strategy with which he had begun. And there is every evidence that this strategy—initially successful in a small, homogeneous electorate and then applied to ever-larger electorates—was personally satisfying to him in meeting his goal of involvement in the political community” (, ). This describes Goode’s career path as well. Jack Flynt avoided issues where he could, a strategic stylistic choice. In Fenno’s description, “[Flynt had a] preference for de-emphasizing any and all policy discussion—at every turn and on every occasion. It was not just that he did not talk to me or to others in my presence about racial policy. He did not talk to me or to others about any policy” (; emphasis in original). Evasiveness also has served Goode well and become part of his political style and practice. Jack Flynt, at many points in his legislative career, sacrificed power in Congress for invincibility at home. The satisfaction he derived from the job came mostly from service to his district, not performance in the institution. Goode, too, fits this mold. His role in the power-sharing arrangement in the state Senate and his postelection decision to become an independent show a willingness to trade off institutional leverage for reputation at home. This is not to say that Virgil Goode represents all southern candidates. Nor do I suggest that contemporary southern congressional races are all set in an environment that encourages person-to-person home styles and friends and neighbors politics. Fenno himself has returned to part of the district represented by Congressman A—and now represented by Republican Mac Collins— and been struck by the change in the district and the resultant change in the home style of the representative.3 My point is that such politics do still work and that a prototype still exists. Moreover, Virgil Goode provides only the most vivid example of the person-to-person style in this book. There is evidence of it in all of the other cases described in these pages. This is also a depiction of the type of situation and the type of place in which this brand of politics still works. It is not a phenomenon peculiar to the South. But in more traditional places, and the South has many such places, candidates who establish connections with a locality, who help to articulate, in Fenno’s words, “the ties that bind its members one to the other,” and who establish a reputation for being well loved in their communities (the reputation being as important as the adoration) will win votes. This style and strategy work best in rural and small-town areas like the Fifth District of Virginia because they are parochial and because they have

115

116

The Slow Talker

stable populations. “There’s a keen sense of identity with place and region here,” said one of Goode’s campaign managers. “The population is less transient and that contributes to the sense of place.” This is the type of place where it matters that the Democrat’s family had long been in the area, and that he and his father, an anti-Byrd Democrat, had long represented the area. As one religious Right activist from Danville compared the two candidates: “[Landrith] wasn’t a local person. He was counting on us to carry him. But he didn’t come from our chain of command. Virgil, on the other hand, had what some people would call roots in the area.” In fact, Landrith tried to play this game as well; he made an effort to highlight his Virginia roots—the Civil War hospital he was born in, the generations of Virginians in his family, the ancestor who died defending Richmond in the Civil War. But he was less authentic, and this did matter. He lived in Albemarle County in the northern part of the district, a county more suburban than small-town, and a county containing lots of people from elsewhere. To these people, his campaign manager speculated, localism mattered less. Moreover, Landrith was like many of his neighbors. He and his family had moved to the county from California in the early s. By November, Gretna trumped Gingrich, the slow talker triumphed over the smooth talker, and Virginia  stayed Democratic. Virgil Goode shows how Democrats were able to survive an increasingly difficult region through a difficult time. By looking to the success of their predecessors, by adopting the person-to-person style so much a part of the Democratic political tradition, Democrats have had some success. Republicans, too, adopt elements of the style, but they generally have been more reliant on national themes that have worked so well for the party, and this has mitigated their use of the localistic elements of the style. Democrats have not had this luxury, and person-to-person orientations toward politics have allowed them to stave off the worst. Of course, for the Democrats to lose someone like Virgil Goode to defection four years after his first election was terrible news for the party. Politicians like Goode showed it was possible to win as a conservative Democrat and, as discussed, showed how it could be done. Every departure is one more seat to win back elsewhere. But more than this, such defections dispel the idea that conservatives can fit comfortably in the Democratic caucus and navigate the cross pressures of district, state, and national politics. As Goode’s career in Congress shows, it was not easy, and he ultimately made a decision that resolved these pressures.

The Slow Talker

POSTSCRIPT

Virgil Goode has behaved in Congress much as he did in the Virginia State Senate. Still a memorable character, he has defined the outer edges of congressional behavior. He has continued to be a notorious skinflint. A National Taxpayers Union study showed him spending a smaller percentage of his constituent expense account than any other member of Congress in , and by a wide margin (National Taxpayers Union ). He also spent his first two terms in Congress as its most conservative Democrat. In a  study of congressional votes, Goode was the Democrat least likely to support the party on party-unity votes (Congressional Quarterly Weekly ), the Blue Dog least likely to vote with that coalition of Democratic moderates and conservatives (Willis ), and the Democrat least likely to support President Clinton where the administration had staked out a position on an issue (Congressional Quarterly Weekly ). Indeed, Goode was less aligned with the president than four of Virginia’s five Republicans (and he was tied with the fifth). With a record like this, changing parties was long a possibility. Representatives and senators with more liberal records had made the change. Moreover, Goode had friendly relationships with important Republicans in the state as well as the National Rifle Association, the Christian Coalition, and the antiabortion movement. Goode’s terse responses to questions about his relationship to the party and President Clinton made it hard to predict if and when a switch might happen, but speculation continued over his first two terms. His reason for staying put—“my daddy was a Democrat” (Hsu )—seemed less compelling as Goode put together his supremely conservative voting record, voted to impeach President Clinton, and worked closely with conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill. It is worth noting that through this period of time, the House leadership did not punish Goode for his deviations from the party line. Their efforts to win back the House would have been compromised by his defection, and they offered him ample freedom to vote his own way and keep his own company. Minority Leader Gephardt was reported to have given clear instructions to colleagues to avoid criticizing the wayward Democrat. Rep. Ellen Tauscher, one of the cochairs of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, even declared that Goode’s “independence should be celebrated” (Cawley ). Goode himself reported that he had a good relationship with the House’s Democratic leaders, even after he voted to impeach President Clinton in  (Saunders ).

117

118

The Slow Talker

His vote to impeach the president, however, did anger some Democrats back in his district, and there were repercussions. Soon after, he was without an invitation to the state’s annual Jefferson-Jackson fund-raising dinner in Richmond. While some old Democratic friends defended Goode (and agreed with his vote), other local Democrats talked about supporting a challenge to him in the Democratic primary. Fluvanna County Democrats wrote Goode that because of his impeachment votes, they planned “to support any viable Democratic candidate against you” for the nomination. Even, remarkably, in his home base of Franklin County, the Democratic chair expressed disappointment with his failure to support the president and suggested he should leave the party (Hsu ). These Democrats back home did not appear to have received Gephardt’s instructions. In addition to the push from the Democratic side, the pull from the Republican side was significant. Ironically, Goode’s great advantage in his previous election had been geography, the enormous support he enjoyed in his home county and state Senate district. As  approached, however, Goode had a geography problem. His stronghold was on the far western edge of the district, close to Roanoke and the Sixth District as well as the western Ninth District, both represented by entrenched incumbents. With Republicans winning both houses of the state legislature and the state house in the  elections, they were in a position to redistrict Goode into the Sixth or, even more likely, the Ninth (the district most in need of territory in order to pick up new constituents). Though Goode denied it publicly, there were reports that he had met with old friends in the state Senate, as well as the governor, to protect his seat (Juersivich ). State Republicans were certainly the only ones in a position to help. Republicans in Congress also had an enticement: ironically, one made available by a very rare switch of a New York Republican, Michael Forbes, to the Democratic Party. Forbes had been a member of the Appropriations Committee, and his defection meant an open seat on the committee, a plum that could be used to entice a leaning Democrat to jump to the Republican side. A spokesperson for the Republican leadership said as much: “It’s really no secret we are holding this Appropriations seat up for bid to some degree. If Virgil Goode or any Democrat is interested in switching over and taking that seat, we would be happy to negotiate with them” (Hsu ). By assuring Goode’s seniority in the chamber and offering him a spot on a powerful committee where he would have an enhanced ability to bring home federal money to his district, Republicans made the proposition awfully attractive, and Goode responded, though, typically, in his own way. On the opening day of the  session, he

The Slow Talker

announced that he would run in his next election as an independent. Three days later, he announced that he would caucus with the Republicans. Denying that the decision was based on redistricting or other political considerations, Goode claimed to be leaving the Democratic Party for philosophical reasons. Republicans were more fiscally conservative. Democrats were not sympathetic to his positions against excessive federal spending, foreign aid, NAFTA, free trade, and efforts to curb tobacco. Not wanting to alienate his many old friends in the Democratic Party, he did not jump all the way and formally align with the GOP. But he was clearly a Republican in all but name. Democrats in Washington, no longer having to treat him delicately, excoriated Goode for his defection, which, given its timing, they attributed to political expediency and hardball redistricting politics. Gephardt, who had offered Goode so much freedom before, now criticized his colleague: “In my view, Virgil Goode’s decision today wasn’t the brave act of a maverick—he buckled under to Republican threats on redistricting his seat out from under him.” Back home, Democrats also assessed it this way. The former chair of the Virginia Democratic Party was quoted as saying, “This is hardball politics. It has nothing to do with philosophy. He wants to survive. The Republicans could have put him in with Boucher. He decided he’d rather switch than fight.” Fifth District Democratic Party chair Carl Eggleston was even more blunt: “He’s saving his own behind. He’s sold out to keep his seat” (all quotes from Cawley ). Republicans, on the other hand, lauded Goode for his courage and his principles. Although he had not taken the Republican label, they announced that there would be no Republican opposition to his candidacy. They invited him to the Republican National Convention, where he was a minor celebrity. They used his endorsement of Republicans George Allen and George W. Bush as evidence of independent support for Republican candidates. He was quite useful to them. Virgil Goode spent a couple of years as an independent. In early , he announced he would accept the nomination of the Republican Party for his congressional seat. It was a less ambiguous statement of his party affiliation, leading Republicans to celebrate and many Democrats, who had stayed with him as an independent, to abandon him. While some old Democratic friends continued to support him, several former officials in his campaign, his former chief of staff, even the mayor of his hometown now joined forces with his Democratic opponent, Meredith Richards, in her campaign for the seat. Goode won the election, though not at the stunning levels of support he had used to win as a state senator.

119

120

The Slow Talker

In Congress, Goode has continued to champion many of the same issues he has always championed. A leading advocate for gun owners, he generated a lot of publicity for proposing to repeal a District of Columbia law prohibiting the possession of firearms. Though he was ambiguous on the issue in his first campaign, he became a vigorous opponent of NAFTA and other free-trade measures. Economic stagnation and large job losses in the district have given those positions some resonance. As Goode analyzed the situation: “The job loss is not going to stop until we say ‘America First.’ [The United States should] say no to free trade. I want American jobs in America for Americans.” His responses to the economic problems of the district also have included controversial anti-immigration policies (putting troops along the U.S.-Mexico border and changing the law so that children born in the United States are not automatically American citizens unless their parents are American citizens). Like many other southerners, Representative Goode made his transition slowly, spending several years on the edges of the Democratic Party, then rejecting the party altogether, calling himself independent and aligning with the Republicans, and finally embracing the Republican label fully. It was a drawnout process, one that required him to break from his past and “his daddy.” There are few like him left at the congressional level. Most who were inclined to leave have already taken the opportunity. But at the lower levels, where Democrats are still in the majority in many places (though no longer in Virginia), this is a problem for the party, one that will continue to erode its position.

Chapter 4 Polis, Polis

Eighth District North Carolina,  North Carolina’s Eighth District is a place where the old meets the new, where Charlotte’s burgeoning suburbs continually creep into the rural counties east of the city. And the metropolitan line represents the line between the old and new politics, a Republican warm front meeting a Democratic cold front on a political weather map. The even balance of old and new makes this a “toss-up” district, one that the Republicans win in the  race described in this case. The growth of southern metropolitan areas has been a long-term boon to Republicans. The story here is representative of what has happened outside many of the region’s large and medium-sized cities.

UNION COUNTY FARM BUREAU FORUM: MONROE, NORTH CAROLINA

Republican Robin Hayes has been very disciplined. He will not do anything to raise Democrat Mike Taylor’s profile. Taylor complains, “I went up to Hayes and challenged him to debate me in every 121

122

Polis, Polis

county—Lincoln-Douglas debates—and he said no. He told me he didn’t want to raise my ID.” Says Hayes’s campaign manager: “They challenged us to debates. But we’re not going to go out and engage an opponent who is trailing.” “My mistake,” says the Democrat, “was to challenge him in person and not in the media.” Here in Monroe, the seat of a rapidly changing county, the two candidates are facing off. It is not a Lincoln-Douglas debate—the Union County Farm Bureau has invited candidates for thirteen offices, mostly county offices, to make their case—but it will have to do. With twenty-eight candidates sitting at tables ringing half the room, candidates outnumber spectators. There is one reporter here from the Charlotte paper, and a cable television camera is set up as well. There is a handful of locals in the audience, along with three women from the Charlotte suburbs who came to hear about solutions to the area’s overcrowded schools. This event will run periodically on local-access cable from now until the election several weeks hence. Looking over the room, the two candidates settle in. Each candidate has two and one-half minutes to talk. But talking a couple of minutes is not nearly so difficult as listening to the other candidates and watching county commissioner and sheriff candidates field questions. The candidates will have to listen a lot today, as the moderator suggests when he opens the forum with a poem: “Birdie, don’t you know a single song? I’ve been shot and I can’t sing along. Now I’m not singing any words, so I can hear the other birds.” The congressional candidates go first, being highest on the ticket, and Hayes leads off. Heir to the Cannon textile fortune, small businessman, former state legislator, and the Republican Party’s gubernatorial candidate in , Hayes has a history in the district and the state. Though very wealthy, he is described by friends and reporters as having “the common touch,” and that is very clear here. His remarks are notable not for their depth but for their simplicity and clarity. Hayes does not talk to the audience but turns directly toward the camera. “I’m Robin Hayes, and I’m a lifelong resident of the Eighth District.” It is a dig at relative newcomer Mike Taylor, who has lived in the district for only seventeen years.1 Let me tell you where I stand. I want to keep the federal government off the backs of farmers. On Social Security, we have to protect it. We have to make sure that money is not spent on anything else. We’ve got to get tough on crime. We have to protect our borders. On education, I’m for local control. I want to make sure you have choice in where you send your kids and grandkids to school. On the military, I’m for

Polis, Polis

strength. That’s a high priority for me, and I would seek to serve on the Armed Services Committee. I’m also for cutting waste. Anyone who has been to Washington has seen how many windows and how many bureaucrats and how many offices there are, and there is no doubt in my mind that spending should be cut—for me to stand here and tell you exactly what I would do would be somewhat irresponsible—but rest assured there are many things that can be cut. Less government is the best government. I’m for honesty, integrity, and truthfulness. These values are at the forefront of our country. It’s amazing how we’ve let such a simple thing like telling the truth become such a complicated issue. I went to a Little League opening ceremony over in Anson County. They started with a pledge, “I trust in God. I love my country. I respect the law. I strive to win, but win or lose, I’ll always play fair.” It’s amazing how children have the right answers. Honesty. Integrity. And truthfulness.

Mike Taylor could not be more different. An attorney, a Ph.D. from Harvard in classical archeology, the author of two books on the Civil War, Taylor is what a Union County reporter calls “the smart kid in the class.” Standing ramrod straight, he faces the audience. Although he has energy in his voice, he is a little tired. Last night, he was up past midnight researching farm policy on the Progressive Farmer Web site. “Who is Mike Taylor? He’s a small-town lawyer, a neighbor from just across the river up in Stanly County. He’s been married for twenty-one years. He’s a Vietnam veteran. He’s active in his church and his community. People ask me why I’m running. I’ll tell you. I’m running to fight for farmers. You’ve been in a great deal of distress lately—what with the drought and the embargo. Farmers are the backbone of this country. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, it was embattled farmers who fired the shot heard round the world. Saving farmers is a matter of self defense.” He hits his other points as well—putting all the budget surplus into saving Social Security, improving public education by instilling more discipline in the classroom, and choice in health care—before getting to his strong points. “I will stand up for good values. I have a background steeped in good values,” says the son of missionaries. Then, cramming it all in: “I’m also endorsed by the VFW. I’m very proud of that endorsement.” With all these candidates to speak, it will take a while. For Hayes and Taylor, there is little payoff for sitting through the whole debate, but it would be rude to walk out and not very strategic to offend colleagues lower on the ticket, whose goodwill has some value. Taylor cannot leave for an additional reason. His wife, Susan, running for reelection as a district judge, is still to speak. While listening to the other birds sing is taxing, the candidates can learn a lot at forums like these about who these people are and what issues concern them.

123

124

Polis, Polis

As the local candidates take their turns, most of their “speech time” is devoted to biography, and almost all of them seem to have farm connections, useful at a farm forum. One of the candidates at the tail end of the program even laments that his farm credentials are not so unique. “Everyone here was born and raised on the farm. Put a suit of clothes on us and we don’t look like farmers, but look at the wrinkles on our necks, and you’ll see that we are.” Indeed, even those who did not milk cows and slop hogs as youngsters were children of farm-equipment salesmen or married into farming families. All these farm folks, Democrats and Republicans alike, are compelled to talk about the issues associated with the not-so-slow and steady creep of Charlotte down into Union County. “We used to be a farming community,” says a candidate. “Then we talked about how many bushels of corn we produced. Now we talk about the number of homes we’ve built.” The candidates wrangle over school bonds, how to best keep agricultural acreage and open space, water, a highway to Charlotte, and environmental problems caused by pig farms. While these topics do spark debate, one issue seems to generate a lot of agreement. Almost everyone seems to agree that it is best to extract money from newcomers to pay for the infrastructure required to sustain the growth. Such “impact taxes” appear to have a lot of electoral benefits, as the burden is foisted heavily, though not unfairly, on those who are not yet constituents. Robin Hayes might be the only one who disagrees with this solution to the county’s problems—he opposes the taxes out of principle and believes they will lead Charlotte’s population to move elsewhere— but he is too strategic to volunteer this unless asked, and that is not likely. As the forum moderator runs a vacuum over the floor, Mike Taylor and his wife plot out the day. It is complicated, what with both of them out campaigning and three children to take care of and chauffeur. Taylor was going to take the rest of the day off, but now, energized, he has changed his mind. As he drives toward an event at a community center several counties away, he starts talking: about the beauty of the area, about his opponent, and about his opponent’s wealth, which was derived from some of the mills that used to pepper the area. Those mills, he says, and the mill owners, Hayes’s family, are not a selling point for the Republican. “It reminds me of that Blake poem, ‘And did those feet in ancient times walk upon England’s mountains green?’” The candidate closes his eyes and drums his forehead trying to bring forth the rest of the verse. As the car veers onto the shoulder of the road, it occurs to him. “You know, the one about ‘Jerusalem built here among those dark Satanic mills’?2 That poem is an inspiration for me.”3

Polis, Polis

Driving east by the Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, Taylor heads toward the Democratic part of the district, counties Taylor can expect to do well in if he can generate enough visibility and turnout. And he will have to. Without a media campaign in Charlotte, which Hayes is certain to have, Taylor will run as a virtual unknown in the most populous part of the district and will have to pull a lot of votes out of these Democratic counties.

HOMECOMING FOOTBALL GAME: ALBEMARLE, NORTH CAROLINA

With his Stanly County Raiders cap on, Robin Hayes stands outside the high school football game greeting people. “Saw Billy at the hospital,” he yells to one friend. Snatching a University of North Carolina hat off the head of another: “Here to see some real football?” It is a Duke joke. As Hayes works, a volunteer, the son of a “big Democrat,” hands out “Hayes for Congress” literature. Mike Taylor lives here in Albemarle, but this is Republican territory and Hayes is as comfortable here as he is in other parts of the district. The plan is to work this crowd the hour before the game and then at halftime. Leaving people alone during the game is generally a good idea. Hayes loves football, so watching the game is not an unpleasant way to pass the time. A large man, Hayes still bears the scars of football. He walks through the crowd with a pronounced limp, the result of a severe leg injury sustained in football back in college. He also has coached football, and he occasionally thinks about his campaign game plan with football in mind. Here he meets and greets happily—and he is very good at it—but he views this activity as quite subsidiary to the media campaign that he knows will take him to victory: “You have to do this campaigning to support your media campaign. You go to these events. You go to the forums with no one there. Clearly, they aren’t worth anything. But you can’t not show up. You have to do this to show you are who you say you are. I’m a believer that campaigning is tackling and blocking. I want to control the ball. Gain three to five yards at a time. Clemson’s coach said he only throws the ball two to three times a game, and never long. When you throw the ball, three things can happen, and two of them are bad. I don’t want to make mistakes. You play safe and let your media do the trick. You could even sit at home and let it happen, but that’s not what this is all about.” If Hayes sounds confident, he has reason to be. He started this race with a great money advantage, and he has stretched that advantage significantly over the course of the campaign. Because he started with a substantial personal for-

125

126

Polis, Polis

tune at his disposal, many even believe he scared incumbent Bill Hefner out of the race.4 And with Hefner leaving the race so close to the filing deadline, Hayes had a huge head start over his opponent in raising and spending money, a lead that has only gotten larger with time. In early October, Hayes reported in a press release that he had $, on hand, while Taylor had but $,. It is clear that Hayes will spend over $ million by the end of the campaign, and that Taylor will be lucky to raise and spend some small part of that.5 It means that Hayes will be able to blanket the area with television and radio advertising and send targeted direct mail as well. Having waged and lost the gubernatorial race to Jim Hunt from disadvantage back in , Hayes knows the value of the media campaign and is clearly savoring the financial advantage he has. “We had trouble raising money, and we didn’t have the financial freedom to listen to people and be visible. It affected our ability to be on TV. And then there was the hurricane, with the governor running all around the coast handing out money,” Hayes says. “This is much better, believe me.” It is not just that Hayes will have the resources to mount a media campaign several weeks out. He is using his advantage to keep money from flowing to Taylor. Part of his strategy is to choke off Taylor’s funds by advertising that the race is now out of reach. The campaign regularly sends press releases to the national political handicappers and Washington-based campaign journalists to tout Hayes’s money advantage and to shape coverage of the contest. And it has worked. Roll Call declares the race “likely Republican,” leads its coverage with Hayes’s money advantage, and notes that National Republican Congressional Committee chairman John Linder “routinely touts Hayes as the most likely GOP House pick-up opportunity in the nation this year and many Democrats privately agree” (rollcall.com 1998). The CQ Daily Monitor headline on the race is “Hayes’ Wealth a Big Obstacle for North Carolina’s Taylor” (Earle ). The Cook Report, an important source for regular donors, PAC officials, and members of Congress seeking “bang for their buck,” calls Hayes the “strong favorite”: Former GOP state Rep. and Cannon textile heir Robin Hayes, who was his party’s gubernatorial nominee in , remains the strong favorite to capture the seat of retiring Rep. Hefner. Hayes has a solid fundraising advantage over little known Democratic attorney Mike Taylor in a district that gave Dole a -percent to -percent margin of victory over Clinton in . As of June , Hayes had raised $, to Taylor’s $,. Democrats contend, however, that this seat is still very much in play. They note that recent redistricting has increased Democratic performance to  percent and they refer to polling done in the district that showed the generic ballot

Polis, Polis

test as even. Plus, Taylor supporters point out, Hayes didn’t even win this district in his  gubernatorial race against Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt. Taylor, a historian who helped reenact Pickett’s charge at the Battle of Gettysburg in early July, has the right profile and a great story to tell, but Hayes will certainly be on the airwaves and in the mailbox long before the underfunded Taylor. And Hayes, who in  had solid support from social conservatives, will certainly be helped by a strong turnout of anti-Clinton voters. (Cook Political Report )

Even where Cook discusses Taylor’s advantages, they are offered by Democratic sources, not by Cook’s anonymous analyst. In getting the message to PACs, the Republicans are hoping to encourage an investment flow to the likely winner and to discourage donations to Taylor at the same time. Mike Taylor has tried to use Hayes’s personal fortune against him. His press releases regularly call Hayes the “ million dollar man,” and one of his standard lines is “If you’re looking for someone who is going to fix Social Security, vote for the candidate who is going to need Social Security.” It is an attack that is delivered from weakness, however, and Hayes’s team knows it. While wary of overconfidence and acknowledging Taylor’s fight—“He’s run a tenacious campaign,” says Hayes’s campaign manager, “I’ll give him that”—they are confident indeed. At halftime, Hayes waits for the introduction of the two homecoming queens—one black, the other white—before heading to the concession stand to shake more hands. As he walks back to the car, he savors the thought of the radio ad featuring Charlton Heston that will hit the air tomorrow. “It’s a great spot,” says the candidate. “At the end of it, you expect him [Heston] to say ‘and now you have a collect call from God.’” The candidate takes off his Stanly County hat and throws it into the backseat, where it keeps company with the Loft Seed Co. hat, the Friend of Tobacco hat, the Brays Island Gun Club hat, and the half dozen other hats he has collected over the course of the campaign.

OVER THE AIRWAVES

Hayes Television Advertisement

         : Robin Hayes. Born and raised in North Carolina’s Eighth District [photos of Hayes as a boy on his mother’s lap, as a Boy Scout, as a football player]. Robin Hayes will carry North Carolina values and good common sense to Congress. In Washington, D.C., Robin Hayes will work for you and in North Carolina, Robin Hayes will listen to you [photo of Hayes talking to a man on a tractor]. Robin Hayes: family man, small businessman, community leader, friend [photos of Hayes in a fac-

127

128

Polis, Polis

tory, talking to a crowd on a ball field, with his hand on a friend’s shoulder]. On November , elect Robin Hayes to Congress.      ’       : Robin’s great! Hayes Radio Advertisement

         : The following is a message from Charlton Heston.       : I’m Charlton Heston. I believe we need strong leaders with sound character to guide our nation into the next century. That’s why I’m asking you to join me in supporting Robin Hayes for Congress. Robin is the kind of leader we need in Washington. He’s a lifelong sportsman. He supports the rights of gun owners. Robin Hayes is a small businessman who’s created jobs and opportunities. He’s a devoted husband and father who will fight to strengthen our families. Robin Hayes is a commonsense conservative who will support freedom and defend our individual liberties. Most important, Robin Hayes is a man of character and integrity. And he’s someone who will always put principle above politics. Folks, please join me in supporting a leader with vision. Someone we can trust with our future. On November , vote for Robin Hayes for Congress.

CARPORT: NORWOOD, NORTH CAROLINA; AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION PICNIC: FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA; FUND-RAISER, CHARLOTTE CITY CLUB: CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

Mike Taylor crosses the district on back roads to get home to Albemarle after a long day. As he approaches the Stanly County line, he decides to make one more stop and pulls out a map to figure out how to get to the mobile home dealership belonging to some clients. He has been intending to drop by for a couple of weeks. They have a contribution to make to his campaign, and this definitely requires a visit. How much their contribution will be he does not know, but in the scramble for dollars, this is a nice change. These friends live in a home on a hill overlooking their dealership office. As Taylor pulls up to the office, he warns of the photographs of aborted fetuses on the walls inside. They are pretty gruesome, but they make the antiabortion point about as vividly as it can be made. His friends are at home, and the clerk at the desk calls to alert them to visitors. Mrs. Wilson greets Mike Taylor outside the house.6 It is a glorious Sunday afternoon and she invites him to sit and talk in the carport, which serves as a kind of front porch and is cluttered, southern style, with old, comfortable fur-

Polis, Polis

niture. Taylor sits on a stool by an old piano, while Mrs. Wilson rocks back and forth, keeping an eye on a young grandchild playing with some rocks in the driveway. While waiting for her husband, who has just returned from missionary work in Mexico and is in the shower, she asks about the campaign. Taylor tells her the latest news, including his clever response to a Charlotte reporter that made the paper. “When they asked me about Charlton Heston, I said that as a student of the Bible, I recall that Moses didn’t make it to the Promised Land, but I told them that I would.” She smiles, and Taylor reviews all the encouraging signs he has picked up in the past week. After Mr. Wilson arrives, clean and apologetic, Mrs. Wilson goes inside to get the check, which she places, folded, into Taylor’s hand. The candidate thanks them profusely, putting the check into his shirt pocket without looking at it. After a bit, Mrs. Wilson stands up. “I know you have lots of places to go, and we won’t keep you here, Mike,” she says. “Thank you for coming by.” With that, she grabs his hand and a circle forms. Mr. Wilson leads a prayer for Taylor, his family, and his campaign (and throws in a prayer for this book), as his wife, eyes closed, rocks, nods, and praises Jesus. Taylor is touched, even more so in the car when he reaches into his pocket and finds the check is for $. Mike Taylor fits this district very well. While Robin Hayes did not serve in the military because of his damaged leg and a high draft number (Gomlak b), Taylor went to Vietnam, a point he makes to just about everybody. In this district, which contains a large number of veterans—approximately , according to the card-carrying Republican head of “Veterans for Taylor”—as well as Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, that should mean something.7 The son of Baptist missionaries and the grandson of a preacher, he is religious and socially conservative, and that should at least neutralize whatever advantage Hayes gains from being a high-profile social conservative in the North Carolina House. That he has written books on the Civil War and descends from a Confederate soldier who fought at Appomattox also should be a plus around these parts and perhaps makes up for the fact that he was born in Arkansas and has lived in North Carolina for only thirty-two years (and only seventeen in the district). Perhaps most important, he has a surprising victory under his belt. Back in , when Republicans were winning across the country, the South, and North Carolina, Mike Taylor, as chair of the county Democratic Party, put together a Democratic victory in Republican territory. In that election, Stanly County was the only county in North Carolina to vote out its Republican

129

130

Polis, Polis

County Commission, and Taylor led the way. With textile jobs leaving in the early to mid-s, Stanly County was suffering while nearby Charlotte’s economy was thriving. Taylor tapped into that anxiety in his political plan. “People were frightened, and local politicians were just sitting there. It’s like Aristophanes’ ‘Oh polis, polis,’ the heartfelt cry that leaders wake up and realize the problems of Athens.” Taylor recounts that a Republican friend, a state senator in Raleigh, recently told him that “Robin had the district all sown up; I said, ‘Just remember .’” He has the right background for this race, and yet Hayes’s personal fortune and the perception of an insurmountable lead have made it difficult for Mike Taylor to raise money, and he is downright frustrated about it. At an American Postal Workers Union picnic, he instructs a local union leader to contact the AFL-CIO: “This is a winnable race. This is a district that has elected Democrats for a long time. Get that point across to them. It is vitally important that you do this. It’s essential because we can win this if people would only see that.” He appears agitated and pounds his hand with his fist for emphasis. It is no act. Being written off by Washington has been the most dispiriting aspect of running for Congress, and the candidate cannot contain his pique toward Charlie Cook and the others who have helped shape the images of the campaigns, even knowing how the game is played. “That Cook blurb was a killer. But see, it’s a chicken and egg deal. You gotta have money to get taken seriously. You have to be taken seriously to get money.” Cook and the others have kept him off target lists and have made PAC money hard to come by.8 Taylor makes a few remarks to postal workers assembled in the park pavilion. He tries to be provocative—“You may think you’re doing well now, but these folks are a bunch of union busters. I’m not just blowing air here”—but very few are listening—the food and their neighbors are keeping their attention. So the Democrat walks along the long tables shaking hands and distributing literature. People are friendly, if not terribly interested, until he reaches a woman who asks if he is a Democrat. When Taylor says yes, she spits on the floor at his feet. It is not something to linger over, so he finishes working the table before heading to the parking lot. Not surprisingly, the exchange is upsetting to him, in part because it is so unexpected. Union members are supposed to be with him, and this hostile action seemed to come out of the blue. Moreover, he does not seem to be much associated with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and whites, at least, do not seem to be talking about it very much in the context of the election. Even though Taylor has not encountered that much Clinton-based hostility,

Polis, Polis

the president still hangs over this election. The timing of his scandal interrupted fund-raising and led to a redirection of campaign funds, particularly from the party. As Taylor describes it, “Raising money has been difficult for me. The D-Triple-C was ready to help, but then the Starr Report came out and everything froze. Then David Price and some other southern incumbents were said to be in trouble. That’s the true way that Clinton’s troubles have affected me. Money for voter ID isn’t coming. It’s all been used up by incumbents.” The cameras are all set up on the thirty-first floor of the Interstate Tower in downtown Charlotte. This is the Charlotte City Club, and it is filled with Democrats—lawyers mostly—waiting to hear from Mike Taylor, Gov. Jim Hunt, and President Clinton’s chief of staff, North Carolinian Erskine Bowles. The event starts off with an apology. Bowles is unable to attend, stuck in Washington in extended budget negotiations. Some nice checks have been written at the door, so this is quite unfortunate. Governor Hunt will have to do. Hunt, after lauding Bill Hefner for his service to the district and the state, introduces Taylor as “a man with heart.” “Who is Mike Taylor?” says the candidate, “He’s a small-town lawyer, a neighbor from Stanly County down the road. He’s been married for twenty-one years. He’s a Vietnam veteran. He’s the grandson of a minister who preached into his th year.” As the crowd murmurs its appreciation, Taylor describes living in Nigeria while his parents were missionaries there. It was a formative experience. “I’ve lived without electricity. I’m someone who understands that you sometimes need a little help from the government to get ahead.” Before he gets too far into his speech, the camera light switches off, and the two reporters in the room swing their notebooks shut and edge out. As Taylor finishes his remarks—“We must have common sense and fiscal responsibility, but we must also have compassion”—one of the staffers from the Robin Hayes campaign peeks into the room. Hayes is at a nearby event raising money, and they are trying to gauge Taylor’s progress. “They aren’t taking Taylor seriously in Washington,” says Hayes’s campaign manager somewhat later, “but we’re not taking anything for granted.”

ON THE ROAD: WADESBORO, LAURINBERG, AND WEDDINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA

As Robin Hayes walks up to the Wadesboro Peoplefest, he stops by the office of a supporter, who is thrilled to see him. “Listen,” says the man, “I want you to

131

132

Polis, Polis

meet my wife.” His wife, employed by Smart Start, Gov. Jim Hunt’s early-education initiative, is not very enamored with Hayes, who is “portrayed by my enemies as the number one foe of Smart Start.” Not surprisingly, she is a Democrat. But her Republican husband cannot wait to put her on the spot. Hayes charms it up as he shakes her hand, but she is chilly. Hayes winks at the husband as she excuses herself to take care of one of her children. As she walks away, he describes Smart Start as “one of those old southern Democratic plans to come up with a program, put a nice name on it, and get money to your supporters. And now the vehicle is children.” This is a heavily Democratic part of the district. It is small town and rural— conservative but traditionally Democratic. Hayes wants to make the rounds here. These weekend festivals offer a good opportunity to shake hands and be seen. Hayes is quite choosy about whom he approaches. As he walks through the crowd, he looks for older, better-dressed people who are more likely to be voters. He introduces himself and asks people what their concerns are. Friendly and homespun, he works the crowd. “Robin Hayes. How are you?” “Harold Jones [not his real name].” “I’m running for Congress.” “Shoulda known you a politician.” “I’m not a politician. I’m a statesman.” ... “Hi there, Ma’am. I’m Robin Hayes. Running for Congress here in this district.” “Hello.” “Is there anything you want to tell me about? Your concerns? Things I should know?” “I work for the public schools. That should tell you everything.” ... “Good to see you. Robin Hayes. Vote a couple of times for me.” ... “Hello, brother. How you doin’?” “Fine, sir, fine.” “You gonna vote?” “God willing. What you runnin’ for?” “U.S. Congress.” “U.S. Congress?” “Yes.” “Who you runnin’ against?” “You don’t know?”

Polis, Polis

“No.” “Well, you don’t want to vote for a stranger.” “No, sir, I don’t.” “Well vote for me.” “Yessir.” “Pray for me now.” ... “Harold, hey Harold . . . [aside] I’m an evangelist by heart.”

After a brief conversation with a retired state trooper—“Nice guy, but definitely a Democrat. Would have to be to have that job around here”—Hayes reflects on this part of the district, clearly a place where country boy Bill Hefner was a nice fit. Hayes is completely at ease putting on the country-boy persona and notes that Hefner himself had to put it on, too. “[Hefner] drove a caddy. But Elvin [Hefner’s right-hand man in the district] would pick him up [when he came into the district] and drive him around in a beat-up Chevy.” Although this is Democratic territory, there are reasons he thinks he can appeal here: this part of the district is more socially conservative than the suburbs of Charlotte. Hayes generated a lot of publicity in the state legislature for fighting to include abstinence in the sex-education curriculum in the schools, a fight in which some of his allies were Democrats. It was a tough legislative victory that he still savors, recalling the condom “rose” that he pulled out during the floor debate, a fancy collection of condoms that was handed out on prom night in some places. “Why would you have to work so hard for something so right?” says Hayes about the –  abstinence vote. That campaign was exhilarating to him, not just because it enacted his principles, but because he enjoyed the game and the winning of the game. That does not come across in his campaign, out here or on the television. But if sent to Congress, he will be a player. While he has forged a public image with socially conservative issues, his opponent, he thinks, has no image. He analyzes Taylor’s situation and links it to President Clinton’s scandal, which even in this Democratic area, he believes is upsetting people. “The association [of Taylor to Clinton] is there. He’s running for office, but he’s not well known. The president is extremely well known, but not for good things. It’s hard for him to create an image for himself outside that. That’s not a criticism of my opponent. Just the way it is.” Working the festival circuit is grueling business, and after several hours of shaking hands, Robin Hayes is hungry enough to eat a collard “sandwich,” a piece

133

134

Polis, Polis

of cornmeal wrapped in collard greens and topped with a small piece of fatback. For the unaware, the cornmeal has a hot-pepper surprise in the middle. This is a specialty here in Scotland County, where Hayes is working the John Blue Cotton Festival, named for the local inventor of the “guano knocker,” the machine that evenly distributes fertilizer over the fields and enormously improved cotton yields. Hayes is being led around by the Republican county chair. Here, in the Democratic part of district, Hayes does not mention that he is a Republican. “My research has shown that if someone asks if you are a Republican, they generally are.” The Republican chair sees his Democratic counterpart. Hayes wants to meet him, figuring that this fellow and others will spread the word that he was here and “magnify” his presence here. It will make an impression that Hayes is not conceding any territory. When they run into Mike Taylor in front of the dunking booth, there is the added advantage of “psyching out” the opponent by appearing on his turf. Hayes and Taylor exchange a friendly but awkward handshake, and Taylor is eager to move on quickly. Hayes has some fun about this. Seven years ago, Hayes, an ultraconservative Democrat, would have fit this area perfectly. But quietly, in , he became a Republican. His wife, Barbara, a smart and principled conservative and a Republican all along, helped push him in this direction. Ironically, says the candidate, “I supported Hefner. I thought he looked after the people. But she got on me. It was a bone of contention between us.” Campaigning in Union County’s Charlotte suburbs is an entirely different experience. This is an annual festival celebrating the incorporation of Weddington fifteen years ago. Held in the parking lot of a medical building housing the orthodontist who had the idea, the festival features a classic-car collection, an art show, a fire truck with youngsters lining up to “drive” the vehicle and “operate” the machinery, pony rides, and booths for the Scouts, the PTA, the local chiropractic center, and other local businesses. Hayes is tired now from the day, but this is not a place that requires much effort. “This is a . percent Republican town,” says the county commissioner taking Hayes around. “Not a place to break a sweat in.” Unlike the eastern part of the district, here just about everyone looks like a likely voter, and Hayes works quickly and efficiently. Before he leaves, he stops at a table where some parents are recruiting volunteers to help campaign for a school bond issue on the upcoming ballot. The schools in these new neighborhoods keep meeting their limits, and education is a pri-

Polis, Polis

ority for many of the residents in this affluent area. Hayes’s companion speculates that the school bond will boost turnout in this part of the county, and a tired candidate offers some extra warmth to the recruiting parents. OVER THE AIRWAVES

“Your Hour with Dr. Howard” call-in show, WFAI “The Fort”: Fayetteville, North Carolina

  .      :9 Welcome to the shortest hour on radio. Your hour with Dr. Howard. We’ve got an important election coming up soon. For Congress in Washington. It’s important to get someone representing us who knows veterans’ issues in Washington. So we’ll be talking about that this evening. Joining us is the Democratic candidate here in our district, Mike Taylor.       : Thank you, Dr. Howard, thanks for having me back. I’m always happy to talk about veterans’ issues. As you know, I have the VFW endorsement and I am a Vietnam veteran. Served in the navy. But I’m interested in the problems of all kinds of veterans, including the veterans of the Gulf War. I’ll fight for veterans’ health-care benefits, for veterans to get the access to health care they were promised.   .      : In , World War I vets went to Capitol Hill to get their World War I bonus. There were , “bonus marchers.” Not too many people remember, but President Hoover ordered General MacArthur to disperse them. The U.S. cavalry charged, and five hundred of those bonus marchers were massacred. It took that blood to start the V.A. in ’ and ’. I’m proud of that.       : My wife’s ancestor, sixty years after the Revolutionary War, had to prove his service under oath to get the benefits he was supposed to get. I know what you’re saying. ...   .      : In this area, retired military people are very interested in military issues. Interested in veterans’ rights. I’ll tell you, I’m seeing a fellow right now for posttraumatic stress disorder. He’s witnessed horrible things no person should ever have to witness. Terrible, terrible things. Now he’s totally and permanently disabled. He spent three years trying to get the V.A. to listen to him. He can’t even get turned down so he can appeal.       : Terrible.   .      : Veterans feel that they are dangling out in the wind. I know a fellow who fought in Cambodia. Won a Medal of Honor. He spent the last year living under a bridge. You know he swore never to tell of any of his experiences in Cambodia because they were top secret? I’d like to see people up in Washington not leave these people in the rice paddies.

135

136

Polis, Polis

      : It’s not a side issue. Protection of veterans is a central issue for our national defense.   .      : Right. Exactly. Speak up, Mike. The things that you’re saying are very important. We want to hear every word. ...       : Dr. Howard, have you seen my brochure with the picture of me going up the Mekong River? In those brochures I say I want to make sure that you have the right to choose your own doctor. You and your doctor should make your health-care decisions. You shouldn’t have an insurance company accountant sitting in the room with you. Not exactly an accountant in the room, of course, but it might as well be.   .      : I’ve seen people who were suicidal, but they were turned away because the insurance provider didn’t see the need for them to get help. This has become rampant in our community. I used to take all insurance, but it’s so frustrating. They give a course in how to deny claims now. Take every tenth claim and throw it in the trash can. Physicians are disenchanted. It’s infuriating. I think we should have a doctors’ bill of rights as well as a patients’ bill of rights.       : I have a number of doctors who’ve contributed to my campaign and they are dissatisfied. I pledge to make this an important priority.   .      : I love it. Love it. Listen, we have to break for a commercial, Mike, but we’ll talk more about this. This is Your Hour with Dr. Howard. [click] Mike, just keep right on that. I don’t want to talk too much about it because I want your audience, your constituents, to hear it. Hold on. [Dr. Howard breaks away for a minute to talk with an engineer.] I’m back. Did you hear that we had another baby die over at Womack [an area hospital]? They overhydrated a baby and killed it. You probably heard about that.       : Don’t ask me about that, Dr. Howard.   .      : Okay. [click] This is Your Hour with Dr. Howard. The shortest hour on radio. WFAI Radio. Welcome back. We’re talking with Mike Taylor, the veterans’ choice and the Democratic choice for the House. We were just talking during the commercial about some of the very serious problems with our hospitals. A good ole buddy of mine in the funeral business told me that they just buried another baby, just like that baby who died over in Womack [pause]. I’ll tell you, I just talked to a bereaved military man. He took his wife to the emergency room in that new hospital four times with chest pains. On the fifth night, they gave her decongestants. She died of a double pneumonia. They gave her decongestants. Now what I want to know is if there are so many diminished resources, why are they building beautiful buildings and then giving care that is not good?       : We need new hospital facilities because of advances in medical technology. But we need to spend money in the right places. There is a lot of waste. But let

Polis, Polis

me be clear. I’m going to stand up for Ft. Bragg and Pope [Air Force Base]. They serve a great purpose. They are strategically situated to protect the continental U.S.

WILLIAMS CHAPEL FREE WILL BAPTIST CHURCH: SPRING LAKE, NORTH CAROLINA; CAMP MEETING: COTTONVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

Mike Taylor is usually serious, but in church, he is especially so. He carefully follows along with his personal Bible, periodically locating scripture referred to by the preacher. While he is involved in the service, he is clearly not fully comfortable in this spirited and emotional black church. When a young man from juvenile detention gets up and preaches about his conversion to shouts and raised hands from the audience, Taylor sits intently. Unlike almost everyone around him, neither he nor his aide moves to their feet during the rousing gospel hymns. Indeed, the very idea of campaigning in a house of worship troubles Taylor. As he walked into the service, he expressed his discomfort, a function of his “feelings about the separation of church and state.” Nonetheless, he reasoned, “this is the best way to reach my core constituency.” There is one other politician in the crowd, a judge running for reelection, and for the same reason. Comfortable or not, with his religious background, Taylor has something to say to these people when the pastor calls him up to the pulpit. “Who is Mike Taylor? He’s a small-town lawyer from Stanly County. He’s a family man with three wonderful children. He’s a religious man deeply tied to his church and his community. Jesus is my Lord and Savior. And he’s the grandson of a minister who preached until he was .” He pauses for the inevitable murmur, which is even more appreciative than usual. “And the son of parents who put serving others ahead of personal gain, working as missionaries in Nigeria in Africa. I want to live out those ideals and serve my country, my church, and my family.” His speech is short—no need to add too much to the length of this service— but he does hit on two points, the troubles of President Clinton, which seem to have resonance with blacks, and the importance of an activist and compassionate government, which he links to Christian ideals.10 “Instead of what’s going on now in Washington,” he tells them, putting the two together, “we should be concerned about the least of our brethren. There are important issues that working men and women need to address . . . health care, education, jobs.”

137

138

Polis, Polis

The pastor thanks Taylor, and though he does not endorse him, the implication is clear. He also takes the opportunity to remind people to register to vote at a nearby Wal-Mart, then warms up for his sermon with some hymns and some announcements. Taylor has another place to be, but is compelled to stay, feeling that it would be disrespectful to leave before the sermon. He waves off his aide, who is tapping his watch. The sermon is quite lengthy, the preacher revving up over its course and stirring the mostly female congregation in call and response. His sermon takes President Clinton’s scandal as its starting point. At first, it appears to be judgmental. Interpreting an episode in chapter  of the Book of Daniel that introduces the idea of the “handwriting on the wall,”11 the pastor bellows, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Galatians :– ). His voice rises: “Sin is private but judgment is public, as a very prominent person is finding out. . . . It’s sinful indulgence that blunts the discovery of divine truth.” He is hard on the president, but he also preaches the recognition of human frailty, forgiveness of the sinner, and the need to move on. The preacher’s sermon moves seamlessly into another phase of the service. For a moment, it appears that Taylor’s decision to stay was fortunate, when the preacher declares it time to bless our public servants and calls the judge to the front for a blessing from the church mother. With her hands on his shoulders, she starts, “Lord, watch over this man. Lead him to show good judgment. We don’t want to hear about no sex !” She hits him—rather hard—on the chest, then puts her hands back on his shoulders. When she finishes with, “May the Lord guide you as you step into the black community, into the white community, into the Indian community, and speak for God!” she appears spent, and the preacher fails to call Taylor up for his turn. It is all for the best as Taylor, who most certainly would have done it, would not have been very happy getting whacked. The service ends with a very prolonged rendition of “The Saints Go Marching In,” the minister leading the chorus, doing a sprightly jig up and down the center aisle, and claiming to be ready to go to the heavenly gates when his name is called. Or even his Social Security number. So long as people are enjoying themselves, the preacher is willing to continue. This is not how it goes in Taylor’s white Baptist church in Albemarle, where the service ends at the same time each week.

Polis, Polis

Taylor needs more experience in these kinds of settings. His predecessor, Bill Hefner, thrived in them. Coming from a career in gospel singing, Hefner did more “singing than talking on the campaign trail,” according to his aide, and was happy and in his element in the black churches (during his first campaign, he even cut a gospel record and distributed it throughout the district). Some Democrats are a bit concerned because Taylor does not have Hefner’s ease or common touch, but as Hefner himself says about Taylor: “He’s not the most charismatic guy. He’s just a good man” (Gomlak a). The annual camp meeting here at Cottonville, not so much a town as a crossroads where there was once a cotton gin, has been bringing black people together to worship for over a century. There is no organized prayer going on now, but lots of people are milling around mobile carts selling sodas and snacks, T-shirts, and trinkets. Taylor straightens several of his signs along the road near the parking lot that are askew. “A district like this gives someone like me an advantage,” says the candidate as he lunches on crackers and Cracker Jack. “Someone willing to do the legwork.” As he makes his way around the various vendors and patrons, he has conversation after conversation about the president. He is personally disgusted with and disappointed in the president. At home, he has framed and displayed a letter from Clinton, a condolence letter on the passing of Taylor’s preacher grandfather in Arkansas. Unfortunately, that letter has lost its value to him. “I feel it’s stained now,” says the candidate. “What did Francis Bacon say? ‘The virtue of adversity is fortitude. The virtue of prosperity is temperance.’ It’s something our president seems to have forgotten.” But the people he is running into here are defending the president, and that is fine news to the candidate. Taylor walks up to a hotdog stand and introduces himself. Unlike people at many other venues, people here introduce themselves back. This man, like several others, asks Taylor where he stands on Clinton. “I’m a Democrat,” says the Democrat. The man and some women standing around express their sympathy for the president—not that he has been an angel—and decry the Republican efforts to “get him.” Taylor, clearly in no trouble here for defending the president, agrees, and the conversation turns to the Republicans more generally. A man at the stove behind the counter chimes in, “Republicans don’t even talk to us.” The women at the counter agree vigorously. As Taylor prepares to leave, he sees one more vendor to visit off in a corner.

139

140

Polis, Polis

As he approaches the man, he remarks that “[these people] won’t have a voice if my opponent is elected.” He sticks his hand out. “I wonder if I could ask for your vote?” Replies the vendor, “I wonder if you want to buy a candy apple?”

WHERE THE OLD MEETS THE NEW

Robin Hayes trounced Mike Taylor in the suburbs of Charlotte. In his home Cabarrus County, he won two-thirds of the vote. He replicated that in booming Union County, where turnout was especially high.12 The large school bond issue on the ballot clearly made a difference. Mike Taylor easily won the smaller eastern counties in the district—with two-thirds of the vote in some—but it was not enough to overcome Hayes’s numbers in the Charlotte area. Hayes’s success stemmed directly from a three-to-one advantage in raised and spent dollars. This made a tremendous difference in the campaign, as Taylor did not have enough money to advertise in the most populous part of the district until the very end. “It was hard to find Mike Taylor on Charlotte TV,” noted a Charlotte reporter. “It’s true, he was on Monday Night Football the night before the election, but that was it. The campaign was clearly underfunded.” Mike Taylor actually did have a chance to win this race. In the end, it was very close, much closer than the handicappers, donors, and party elites in Washington and Raleigh thought it would be. Perhaps they did not account for the recent redrawing of the state’s congressional map, compelled by a Supreme Court decision, that brought more Democratic voters into the district ( to  percent more, by one estimate [Barone, Ujifusa, and Cohen , ]). They may have missed how much President Clinton’s troubles would activate the black population here and elsewhere. Money pumped into black turnout by John Edwards, the successful Democratic Senate candidate, also helped Taylor more than was expected. Much of the problem, however, was that Taylor was underestimated. He did bring some assets into the race. His stance on issues matched the prevailing social conservatism in much of the district. His military background compared favorably to Hayes’s in a district with a large military presence. He had the stamina and optimism to run an underdog campaign and the intelligence to learn the issues and the politics quickly. These qualities were underappreciated, however, mostly because Hayes had convinced Washington that he was a foregone winner and partly because Taylor lacked the natural presence and charisma of his opponent. It also was clear that his story, while compelling on some counts, did not always translate well in the campaign. “Why does he tell

Polis, Polis

people he went to school at Harvard?” asked one of Bill Hefner’s district aides. “That’s not a badge of honor around here.” For whatever reason, Washington failed to recognize Taylor’s possibilities, and it frustrated the candidate greatly. During the campaign, Taylor complained aloud about the lack of financial support: “Sometimes I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall. I feel like saying ‘Wake up! This district is winnable.’” After the election, he described a conversation with Rep. Steny Hoyer, chair of the Democratic Steering Committee. As Taylor described it, Hoyer and his colleagues thought it was Bill Hefner’s gospel-singing, military pork–delivering fit with the district that had kept it Democratic all these years. When Hoyer told Taylor, “We didn’t think someone with a serious demeanor, like you, could win,” Taylor asked when he got credibility. Hoyer responded, “November ” . . . the day after the election. Robin Hayes, like Taylor, was well educated and smart, though it was perhaps less immediately apparent. His folksy person-to-person home style masked his political savvy and a confident command of issues. In the end, his advantages in the race were too large for Taylor to overcome. It was not just that he had more money to spend on his campaign, much of it his own. It was not just that he had a highly professional staff. It was that he (and they) ran a campaign that capitalized upon their contemporary advantages. Experienced from a  gubernatorial race and seasoned by several years in the state legislature, Hayes knew how to use these advantages and how to short-circuit Taylor’s. Understanding the value of perception, his strategy was to convey impenetrable strength, mostly by building up a significant war chest, at the same time choking off any assistance that Taylor might receive from Washington. His campaign was designed to be media-heavy. While his money went toward plying the airwaves in Charlotte, he did not settle back to just let the advertising do its work. He knew better. But he calculated that in the western part of the district, in the suburban sprawl providing almost half of the district’s population, his financial advantage, sophisticated operation, heightened name recognition, and conservative television message would lead him to victory. In many ways, Hayes is a lovely combination of the old and the new, an effective person-toperson campaigner who well understood that personal campaigning can take a candidate only so far. This half-rural, half-suburban district, like Robin Hayes, is a combination of the old and the new, a place, in fact, where the old meets the new. Over time, districts like this one—encompassing large swaths of suburbia—have become much more common in the South. These places, argue Earl and Merle Black in

141

142

Polis, Polis

their  Politics and Society in the South, the most important and comprehensive book about southern politics in a generation, have led much of the region’s political change. Black and Black argue that as the South has urbanized, as its modest cities have become metropolitan areas, and as its demographic portrait has changed, so has its politics. Black and Black’s starting point is the question that V. O. Key concludes with in his book. “Is there a way out?” asked Key, and as Black and Black note, his response centered on changes in the population, both generational and demographic. He did not envision reform being compelled by the federal government, and southern state governments were even less likely to be agents of change. Nor was a transformation, in his view, likely to come from black rebellion. The black population was just too weak. Instead, he argued that “changes in the composition and distribution of the population and in the nature of economic organization and endeavor . . . are altering the shape of the mold that influences, if it does not fix, the shape of southern politics” (Key , ). Forty years later, Black and Black test Key’s expectations, his hypotheses. The results constitute the foundation of their book; indeed, they make the case that Key was right in many respects. Of course, political reform did emanate from Washington, and black rebellion in the form of the civil rights movement did alter the region in a major way. But so too did major changes in the southern economy, the migration of northerners to the region, the significant outmigration of blacks (well under way as Key wrote), and the eclipsing of rural interests by urban interests. Black and Black contend that any attempt to understand contemporary southern politics requires knowing how industrialization, migration, and urbanization have changed the “shape of the mold” that Key wrote about. They look at the new mold and how it has allowed the South to address its most difficult political quandaries of visceral racial discrimination, one-partyism, and issueless politics. By looking at these large-scale environmental changes, it is possible, they argue, “to evaluate the extent to which the old South has given way to (yet another) new South and the degree to which the South still differs from the rest of the nation” (Black and Black , ). One of the major foci of Black and Black’s work, and the one relevant to this discussion, is that urbanization, and subsequently suburbanization and exurbanization, have profoundly changed the political dynamics in the region. In the past several decades, the rural areas of the South have lost population; rural residents went from  percent of the region’s population in the s to  percent in the s (Davis and Smith –). Almost all of the population gains have been in the suburbs. According to the General Social Survey, in the

Polis, Polis

s,  percent of the southern population lived in suburbs or in territory immediately outlying metropolitan areas. By the s, this had grown to  percent (Davis and Smith –).13 With these changes, rural and smalltown areas, homogeneous in population, traditionalistic in orientation, and once very dominant in pre–Baker v. Carr politics, have lost their centrality to electoral politics and have become eclipsed by the metropolitan areas. Suburban demands of government are different: in degree, character, and variety. But it is more than this. Suburbanization and the residential mobility that feeds it contribute to political disengagement. Political scientists such as James Gimpel () and J. Eric Oliver () find that the suburbs are heavily populated with migrants from elsewhere, people less familiar with the civic customs of a locality and more socially isolated, by choice and predisposition. The isolating effects of suburbia are particularly enhanced in the Sun Belt, where newer communities have been designed ever more for the automobile—spreading homes, people, and businesses over larger areas, and devaluing accessible common space (now more likely to be the parking lot of an orthodontist’s office than Main Street). The result, as Kenneth Jackson writes, is a “privatization of social life and a weak sense of community’” (, ). Clearly, this trend has accelerated since Black and Black wrote their book. While Black and Black do not discuss suburbanization and its deleterious civic effects, they do write of the impact that structural changes in society and the economy have had on political life in the South. What they identify as the political implications of urbanization continue to hold true as metropolitan areas become larger, in both population and area. Black and Black’s observations about what these changes mean for politicians and their efforts to get elected remain trenchant. Of course, much of the change involves partisanship. Those moving to the region and to the suburbs are more likely to have Republican leanings (Wolfinger and Hagen ; Stanley ), a cause for alarm among local Democrats.14 Laments an old-time Democrat living in North Carolina’s Eighth District, “With all the folks moving in here, we can’t keep our wives pregnant enough to keep up.” It goes well beyond partisan change, however. As Black and Black argue, urbanization has profoundly changed the environment in which southerners acquire political information, interact with political candidates and campaigns, and look at government and politics. It is little surprise that the colorful southern politician known for long “stem-winding” speeches and emotional, exaggerated appeals has disappeared, now just a stock character in dramatic evocations of the Old South. And while television “can be used to disseminate

143

144

Polis, Polis

old-fashioned ‘whispering campaigns’ based on gossip, rumor, and innuendo, it eliminates most ranters and ravers, who appear to be simple arm-waving, rostrum-pounding fools and are unwelcome guests in most homes” (). In the contemporary South (and certainly elsewhere), the attention span for politics, as all the candidates described in these pages found out, is quite limited, even outside the big city. Moreover, politics as entertainment has been replaced by politics as sport, which comes in smaller bites, even when in the field and especially when on television. In addition, the important intermediaries in the campaign, note Black and Black, no longer come from the county courthouses (though they are still important in the rural areas), and “though metropolitan elites are not without means of influencing electoral outcomes, the principal urban areas are not settings in which a handful of affluent, conservative white Democrats native to the South can ‘pass the word’ and expect instant compliance from a restricted and ‘reliable’ electorate” (). Of course, the privatization of social life in suburbia and exurbia makes person-to-person campaigning less viable and political advertising more important (whatever its ultimate effects—see Ansolabehere and Iyengar ; Lau and Sigelman ). But it is not so simple as just benefiting a more telegenic and media-savvy candidate instead of one who works a crowd well. Contemporary politicking in places like the Charlotte suburbs does require meeting and greeting and does require connecting to voters personally, even if that connection comes in a different way and in a smaller dose. What is different in contemporary southern campaign politics is the general political culture that receives the candidates. Permeating the Black and Black book is an argument that “traditionalistic” values and beliefs about government and citizenship have been replaced by “entrepreneurial” ones.15 While conservative in many respects, an entrepreneurial political culture contributes to individual expectations about what the government can do to promote economic progress in the region. It is an orientation held outside the South, to be sure, but what Black and Black note is that it is now predominant in the South’s growing areas. They write: “Its progressive element consists in its willingness to use governmental resources to construct the public infrastructure—highways, airports, harbors, colleges and universities, research parks, health complexes— that in turn stimulates and makes possible additional economic growth. The critical transition occurred in the aftermath of federal intervention, as southern states began to spend much larger amounts of money on public education. In due course the social payoff will be a significant reduction in the waste of hu-

Polis, Polis

man talent that had been one of the worst outcomes of traditional southern politics” (). This evolution of the southern political culture necessarily has changed some of the routine political discourse one finds in the South, even outside the metropolitan areas. The story here in North Carolina and, to a lesser extent, in the other districts visited in this book shows that Black and Black continue to be right. The mold has been altered, pretty much in the way Key projected it would, and southern campaign politics have changed as a result of the demographic transformations in the region. Still, as Black and Black argued nearly two decades ago, there is important continuity in the campaign politics of the region. Part of this is because the economic and urban transformations that have taken place have overlain a modern electorate atop a more traditional one, and just as the metropolitan areas have changed some of the character of the campaign, the traditional southern setting still shines through. This continues to be true, as all the cases described in this book illustrate. For one thing, Black and Black observe that many of the region’s most successful politicians are those, like several of the candidates portrayed here, who have been able to bridge the city, the outskirts, and the country. Much of what this requires, they note, is stylistic, rewarding “candidates who are modern enough to appeal to the more sophisticated city voters but sufficiently humble and down-to-earth to attract small-town and rural support” (). Those with this ability are often candidates not from the largest places, but from “the medium sized city,” where candidates are likely to retain some of their ability to relate to more traditional voters. Second, the South is still a very self-conscious place, a place that creates identity for many of its citizens—both white and black. Though black identity with the region is a more recent phenomenon (Black and Black , ), candidates for office continue to use the bond of people to place in their campaign efforts. Whether rhapsodizing about Civil War reenactments or eating a collard sandwich at the Cotton Fair, whether drawing attention to one’s ancestors or noting an opponent’s roots elsewhere, whether making public declarations of one’s southern faith or making a point of a slow-talking drawl, effective candidates and campaigns have relationships to southern symbols and are able to capitalize on them. Even the creation and cultivation of a new southern political symbol, the “blue dog,” works because it distinguishes southern Democratic candidates from national Democrats, situating them in a long southern tradition of oppositional politics. Writes John Shelton Reed (), likening

145

146

Polis, Polis

southerners to other ethnic groups: “This ill-defined mass of Americans has resisted and continues to resist the assimilating effects of powerful th-century political, economic, and social forces, and maintains, in the face of those forces, a sense of its own distinctiveness. Southerners retain a strong sense of themselves as different from other Americans [though] in some important respects they differ less than before” (). This is still valid today, even as the region continues to change, even as new southerners are created by migration, and even in the larger metropolitan areas. It means, as Black and Black argue, that regional pride “is crucial in understanding the environment in which southern politics proceeds” (). Finally, Black and Black note that while the metropolitan areas of the South have engendered a new entrepreneurial political culture, it still subsumes the conservative components of the previously dominant traditionalistic political culture. While incorporating progressive elements that call for a larger role of the state in generating economic progress, the general southern political culture still does not call for a larger redistributive role for the state. It is hostile to unionization and the regulation of business. In addition to general ideological predispositions, the political symbols that southerners embrace are symbols of authority (the police, the military), while symbols of change and challenge (black militants, gays and lesbians) are rejected even more than they are elsewhere in the country. Continuity in campaign politics comes from the fact that however much other things change, the region’s political culture has evolved only partially. Grand ideas about politics, and the expectations people have of the state, have generally passed from generation to generation. While some new ideas have been absorbed into this package of ideas, and others have fallen out, it retains its general form. Expectations about what government should provide are essentially limited and conservative, and this has shaped campaign strategy, style, and psychology.

POSTSCRIPT

The Eighth District is really two districts, a rural district and a suburban one. Elections are close here, with Democrats even having a slight edge. This makes the district challenging to represent, particularly for a Republican. How to do it? Robin Hayes, who was a conservative Democrat through the s before joining the state legislature as a Republican, has formulated an effective representational style in his two terms in office. His conservative bent (an average ADA score of , an average ACU score of ) and his traditional approach to

Polis, Polis

cultural issues fit the Republican and the Democratic sides of the district. His folksy manner also works for him, particularly in the rural counties. Yet, in these counties, it requires more to overcome the significant Democratic advantage. Hayes has taken an approach used by his Democratic predecessor Bill Hefner, who spent many terms on the House Appropriations Committee and rose to chair the Military Construction Subcommittee. Like Hefner, Hayes has become adept at securing federal money and tending to the district’s interests. Though Hayes the candidate campaigned against government waste, Hayes the congressman has worked tirelessly to deliver pork—in small and large portions. In his first several terms, he has had a string of successes in bringing federal money to the district through various appropriations, federal grants, and earmarks. And he has strategically used each of these successes to build a reputation in the district. Among the projects he has delivered to the district: • $ million in direct relief for tobacco farmers, $ million of which goes to North Carolina. (“It’s not enough, but we’ll take it. That’s what the money in this bill is about, to help [tobacco farmers] survive” [Pianin and Eilperin ]). • $, to fund the district’s Uwharrie State Forest. (“[I’m] proud that funding for the Uwharrie Forest is secure. There were many twists and turns during the final budget negotiations this year and a lot of funding was cut at the end. The Uwharrie is a vital national resource and I’m going to work hard to protect it” [Frago ]). • A $. million grant to extend a runway at a regional airport in the Charlotte suburbs, thus allowing for much larger planes to fly in and out of the area. (“We have to have markets for our products. . . . And being able to extend these markets makes us more competitive in being able to attract industry. [Moreover,] as the [air] traffic increases, it takes more people to fuel” [Knox ]). • $ million earmarked to build a National Guard disaster-staging area at the Albemarle-Stanly County Airport. (These funds are not about “my political future, but because a staging area at the airport can respond more effectively to disasters” [Associated Press ]). • A $ million grant for a North Carolina State/Georgetown University study on whether tobacco can be used to help create a vaccine to ward off cervical cancer. (“This funding could represent a brighter future for North Carolina tobacco farmers and potentially a giant leap forward for women’s health around the world” [Espo ]).

147

148

Polis, Polis

• Federal funds to tear down an old chicken-processing plant in the town of Hamlet. In the early s, the plant had been heavily damaged in a fire that claimed twenty-five lives. Not only did Hayes help obtain the money to finally get rid of the ten-year-old eyesore, he personally participated in the demolition, operating an excavator to knock down a piece of the building. (Nowell ) Hayes’s success in delivering federal money to the district has been made possible by Republican control of Congress, a situation for which contemporary Republican success in the South is almost entirely responsible (Black and Black ). With the ability to control an appropriations process that Democrats used so effectively for so long, the party leadership has been able to shore up its most vulnerable members and keep its majority. There is clear evidence of intent. In the appropriations process, for instance, the subcommittee chairs have been especially liberal in distributing pork to representatives from marginal districts, districts like the one Hayes represents. As Representative Jim Walsh, chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Veteran Affairs and Housing, acknowledged about one bill leaving his committee, “There are individuals we have to help—freshman Republicans [in tight races in ]” (Associated Press ). On another occasion, Chief Deputy Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) predicted that Hayes would receive special consideration in the doling out of federal projects, noting that when members “come from tough districts, they take some extra points into that process” (Eilperin ).16 The ability to bring home pork clearly has been central to Hayes’s reelection strategy. In campaign appearance after appearance, Hayes has touted his pork-delivering prowess, bringing along a large reusable check signed by “Uncle Sam.” At each stop, with some ceremony, Hayes writes in the amount of money he has brought to the area (Barone, Cohen, and Ujifusa , ). There has been only one exception to Hayes’s performance as the district’s delegate, and it was a notable one. On an important vote on presidential fasttrack trade authority, Hayes voted with his party and president and against a strong (and politically attentive) textile industry back home, an industry that has been devastated by foreign competition. For Hayes, whose family made its fortune in textiles, it was an agonizing vote—he even wept upon casting it (Klein )—and it represented a reversal from his previous votes on the issue. His switch in this case came only after a promise had been extracted from the Bush administration to take special care of the textile industry (a compromise negotiated by Rep. Jim DeMint of South Carolina—see chapter ). Even

Polis, Polis

with the promise, Hayes was excoriated by many in labor and in the textile industry for his vote. Hayes was well aware that large numbers of textile jobs had been lost in the district in recent years (, jobs between  and , according to one report [Perlmutt ]), leading to  percent unemployment in the district (Eilperin ). He argued that the promise to protect dying and finishing textile jobs would buffer the industry from further competition. The industry was skeptical. Hayes’s exemplary service has extended beyond the pork he has brought into the district. He has used his position to advocate for farmers and specific business interests in his constituency.17 While it is not unusual for a representative to help local interests, Hayes has been particularly good at it and has folded these efforts into his service-delivery practice. One of his most interesting projects was instigated not by a local interest but by the congressman himself. In , Hayes secured federal money to hire a consulting firm to do a $, study of county-by-county economic development in the Eighth District. The study, which Hayes planned to unveil in each of the counties in the district, was designed to serve as a blueprint for economic development in the district and had specific recommendations for improving public infrastructure, attracting and retaining businesses in the area, encouraging education, and developing new industrial sites. It also was to serve as a resource for Hayes as he sought more federal dollars for the district. This project did not involve a large amount of money, but it did help Hayes counter the fast-track vote and its connection to the loss of so many textile jobs to foreign competition. Indeed, one of the recommendations of the study is to purge the district of its “mill mentality” and to discourage workers from seeing their future in the textile industry. Hayes’s district was made even more Democratic after the  Census. A redrawn Eighth District was projected to boost Democratic performance between  and  percent, crucial in such a marginal district. Moreover, the new plan brought over , Charlotte voters into the district, making it much more complicated to represent. “All of a sudden, I’ve got all these urban voters,” lamented Hayes. “My seniority on the Agriculture Committee doesn’t help those folks a lot” (Mercurio ). The change in the district’s composition, along with Hayes’s fast-track vote, led many to view Hayes’s  race as a tossup. Hayes won reelection, however, in good part because his approach to the district has been much like the approach of conservative Democrats of old. Their formula, according to Black and Black () was to combine “liberal spending policies” with “conservative policies on race, taxation, and union

149

150

Polis, Polis

matters . . . to give most white voters what they wanted while protecting them from what they opposed” (). The racial component of this formula has changed, of course, but otherwise, it has allowed Republicans to start invading the last and most traditional Democratic territory in the South, the areas outside the cities and suburbs.

Chapter 5 Krispy Kremed

Fourth District South Carolina,  I end the string of cases with this one, a  election in South Carolina’s up-country that represents the southern realignment taken to its furthest point. What do elections look like in a place where the Republicans so dominate the scene? How does being in such a lopsided place affect the psychology of the actors? How has the Republican Party dealt with its huge majority status and the fact that it encompasses more interests and groups by virtue of its “big tent”? In answering these questions, I argue that there are significant parallels to a time past when Democrats were the overwhelming force in the region.

BRONZE ELEPHANT FUND-RAISER: SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA; YOUNG LIFE FUND-RAISING BANQUET: GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA

Jim DeMint is supposed to be in two places at the same time. The Bronze Elephant fund-raiser for the Spartanburg Republican Party, an 151

152

Krispy Kremed

after-work cocktails and hors d’oeuvres affair, is going on at the same time as the Young Life fund-raising banquet, a sweet tea and chicken sandwich affair, in Greenville. He can make them both with a mad half-hour dash. As he pulls into the downtown Spartanburg parking lot, Ralph Bristol is calling the Fourth District election to replace the retiring Bob Inglis “a no-contest race,” and DeMint smiles as he turns off the conservative talk show on News Radio WORD. He runs an electric razor across the faintest of shadows, rubs lotion into his hands, brushes his hair, checks his suit for wrinkles, then cuts through the parking lot of the building where the Bronze Elephant is being held. An older women taking money and coordinating name tags greets him as he walks in. She gushes, “That’s our candidate. Isn’t he wonderful?” Jim DeMint is reserved, perhaps a bit bland: conservative in demeanor as well as in his political thinking. A public relations and marketing consultant, he is selling himself this time and has approached this job much as he has approached other marketing jobs. His shiny campaign literature and sophisticated Web site proclaim that he will “Keep Freedom Home.” It is a theme that ties together all the conservative reform-minded things he has to say, and being an organized, stick-to-the-script kind of fellow (he is not just a consultant but someone who takes advice well), DeMint refers to it often. This candidate fits the district well. He is conservative and Republican in this, the seventeenthmost Republican district in the country (Greenville News ). He is also sophisticated, suburban, and business oriented. The booming Greenville-Spartanburg area is the most prosperous part of the state and indeed an important economic center in the New South.1 The winner of a very competitive, high-profile, well-covered, two-tiered primary race for the Republican nomination, DeMint is almost certain to win this congressional seat. But he does not want to become complacent and is campaigning hard. The national party is not involved in the race. According to a campaign official, when DeMint went to Washington to appeal for money from the National Republican Congressional Committee, he was told, “Dream on. That’s a safe seat.” So DeMint has had to raise his own money and wage the campaign with less than would be desirable. He does, however, have enough. Favorite status has required some adjustment for DeMint. Through the primary process, he was clearly the underdog. The Republican candidate was supposed to be state senator Mike Fair, a doctrinaire social conservative who returned to South Carolina and a career in insurance and politics after playing quarterback for the San Diego Chargers in the National Football League. Fair was certainly a well-known and pristine conservative (and well known to be a

Krispy Kremed

pristine conservative) in this ultraconservative place. As Fair put it, “Some might call it [his ideological position] far right. In South Carolina, we call it the dead middle.” He looked to be especially strong in Greenville, which he had been representing in the state legislature. Greenville holds roughly half the population in the congressional district. Fair also had the support of large numbers of Christian conservatives. He expected strong backing in the Bob Jones University precincts, and he received the endorsement of the Christian Coalition, an endorsement highlighted in , voter guides distributed through the district before the election.2 Although Fair and DeMint held nearly identical positions on social issues important to the Christian Coalition, Fair won the endorsement. As he explained it, “He [DeMint] did miss one question. On Internet porn. He answered it wrong. There are certain things you can overanalyze. He’s not in favor of pornography, of course. But he overanalyzed it. And my abortion position is a little better. But he was clearly acceptable to pro-lifers.”3 That the coalition strongly endorsed Fair on the basis of so little was resented by DeMint: “Some on the Christian Right don’t want to know what you think,” says the candidate. “They just want to know that you fully agree with them. I’m angry with them because of their tactics. But they have a legitimate purpose. I support what they stand for, but that’s because I believe in it [not because of the pressure they applied].” Fair’s other perceived advantage going into the primary was his campaign consultant, former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed. Reed, who had turned the organization into a political force with a pragmatic strategy, brought political savvy to the campaign, but it was more than this. As this was his first season as a political consultant, Reed’s presence in the campaign brought it national attention, funding, and high expectations, especially given the nature of the congressional district. Reed was not the only high-profile Christian Right figure in Fair’s camp. Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly campaigned for him, as did Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, who was in a Fair radio commercial. If Fair held a strong position among religious conservatives in the district, DeMint was not without advantages either. For one, the high-profile Fair had detractors as well as admirers, and his candidacy drove the dynamic of the Republican primary, which was held in two stages. The primary started out with five candidates, a field to be winnowed down to two for a runoff if no one candidate received a majority of the vote. Fair, perceived by many as hard-line in style as well as in substance, was not at the top of every Republican list. Indeed,

153

154

Krispy Kremed

there were many in Republican circles who, averse to his combative style, looked at the race as an “anybody but Fair” situation. And, according to some political observers, Ralph Reed may have cost Fair some support from those who had concerns about how important the Christian Coalition was going to be in the Republican coalition. “Mike Fair hired his own assassin,” said Clemson University political scientist Charles Dunn after the DeMint-Fair runoff (Bandy ). Observed Greenville’s political columnist, Dan Hoover, “I think Ralph Reed sent the wrong message to more moderate Republicans.” There were enough of them to deny Fair an outright victory in the first primary. A second edge DeMint had, both in the first primary and in the spirited runoff against Mike Fair, was his friendship with the outgoing representative, Bob Inglis. Inglis, sticking to his pledge to serve but three terms in the House, elected to give up his House seat to take on longtime Democratic senator Ernest Hollings. Though Inglis did not—probably could not—endorse DeMint, he left little doubt as to whom he supported and, as one Republican activist noted, it did not go unnoticed that he frequently showed up at DeMint campaign functions. DeMint, for his part, continually asked Republicans to connect the two candidates in their minds, making frequent reference to the fact that Inglis had “encouraged” him to run. Moreover, DeMint borrowed Inglis’s conservative reformist rhetoric in his public appeals. His themes and promises came directly from Inglis’s campaigns, from his acceptance of term limits to his refusal of PAC donations to his denunciations of special interests in Washington to his hand-wringing over pork. And when asked how he most differed from Mike Fair, he stated that he saw himself as a “citizen-statesman,” while his opponent was a “career politician” (Hoover e). This was in fact the candidate’s mantra: “I believe that career politicians and special interest groups are the root causes of most of the problems we face in Washington. And I think it would be a giant step backward to replace a citizen-representative like Bob Inglis with someone whose goal is another political promotion” (Hoover d). In this, according to Greenville political columnist Dan Hoover, DeMint was “an Inglis clone,” a political amateur who was “a real professional [because he knew] to do what works.” Not only had these issues proven successful in Inglis’s previous campaigns, but they gave DeMint a niche in the electoral marketplace, a coherent package of ideas upon which to attach his candidacy, and they matched the candidate well against Mike Fair. Though a conservative insurgent prepared to do battle against the forces of abortion, homosexuality, and liberalism, Fair was not particularly reform minded. He took PAC money. He argued that the federal

Krispy Kremed

transportation projects that DeMint proudly rejected as pork were not such a bad thing. At the one point where he did feel compelled to acquiesce to reformist ideas in the Republican campaign, it rather backfired on him. At one well-publicized point in the campaign, Fair signed on to a six-year term limits pledge (he had previously supported twelve-year limits), but when he breezily confided to columnist Dan Hoover that he had only reluctantly signed the pledge to fend off “blackmail” by the U.S. Term Limits organization, he created a bad headline for himself (“Fair Gets Behind -Term Limit: But He Says Tougher Stance Is Result of Political Pressure” [Hoover a]), which required yet another story to explain himself: “When a man has a gun held to your head and he asks you for $ out of your wallet, you give him your money. If he asks you to renounce the deity of Christ, you say, ‘Pull the trigger.’ Term limits is that kind of issue. It’s important, but it’s not abortion, tax reform, sex education. It’s not a principled kind of circumstance” (Hoover b). Perhaps the most important contrast between Fair and DeMint was in temperament and style: DeMint more restrained and analytical, Fair more passionate. The difference was communicated clearly throughout the campaign. For example, both would argue for eliminating the Department of Education while creating school-choice programs through vouchers, but their rhetoric was very different. DeMint contended that vouchers would create “a free-enterprisetype school system [without] a government system involved,” improve teacher salaries, and provide for more flexibility in education. Fair, calling the Department of Education “a playground for socialistic experimentation,” promised to use his office “as a bully pulpit to talk about empowering parents while we’re trying to shift power from Washington” (Hoover c). As the Greenville News () editorialized in its endorsement of DeMint, “Fair is a vigorous advocate of Christian religious doctrine in public affairs, and he shows a willingness to use a seat in Congress to further his moral crusades. On less rigid matters he and DeMint agree on many of the issues that will face the next Congress. An apparent difference is that DeMint has developed more thoughtful and rational solutions to the issues.” DeMint’s strategy in the runoff was a “second-choice” strategy. Though Fair led the first primary with  percent of the vote, such a strategy clearly had potential. DeMint had to get his voters back to the polls ( percent of primary voters) and then supplement them with votes that went to the vanquished candidates from the first round. The third- and fourth-place candidates—business-favorite Howell Clyborne Jr. ( percent of the vote) and Jim Ritchie, the only Spartanburg candidate in the field ( percent of the vote)—each drew

155

156

Krispy Kremed

from distinct niches in the district.4 DeMint, less associated with Greenville and more associated with business interests than Fair, was well positioned in the second contest to appeal to Ritchie and Clyborne voters. When DeMint beat Mike Fair in the primary with  percent of the vote, it became apparent that this “second-choice” strategy was well conceived. DeMint, the solid, sensible, and certainly conservative enough alternative, increased his percentage dramatically from the first to the second contest, mostly by building support in Spartanburg. His large victory there ( percent of the county vote) made up for Fair’s very slim majority in much-larger Greenville County ( percent).5 With the primary behind him, DeMint is now enjoying this campaign. Here, at the Bronze Elephant affair, he is relaxed among new friends. The Spartanburg Republican establishment, a collection of affluent people in law, business, and politics, has embraced him. DeMint does not have to sell himself here and does not talk about his positions or even about President Clinton, who, according to one political observer, “is widely hated here among whites” and motivates Republican voters. Instead, DeMint recalls that he has done some marketing consulting in the town and points out some of his wonderful friends in the crowd. Former state party chair Barry Wynn stands in the corner as DeMint makes his comments. He is more than optimistic about DeMint’s chances. Once Wynn “was one of three Republicans in the whole county.” Now, he says, smiling, times have changed: “Democrats are so out of it, you almost feel sorry for them.” As he finishes his remarks, DeMint apologizes for not lingering and hurries out of the function without seeming to be in a hurry, shaking hands warmly with dozens of people. He knows he is going to be late for his next event, but his wife, Debbie, is there representing him. The Greenville Young Life “Wild West” fund-raiser is well under way when DeMint arrives. Traffic was terrible on the way down from Spartanburg—as it often is. The executive director greets DeMint at the door and suggests that this is a good place for him to be. Though he will not be introduced here (nor will Bob Inglis, also in attendance), it is important to be seen. As the candidate says with a modest smile, “This is a Republican crowd.” Young Life, as described in its statement of purpose, is “a mission community of Christ-centered people committed to teaching adolescent youth with the Gospel of Jesus Christ” and “seeking to enflesh the Gospel in our lives and relationships.” The central work of the organization is to proselytize to teenagers in the community, to make the gospel accessible to them. Through high school–based youth groups and summer camps, the idea is to create “a

Krispy Kremed

theology of play,” says the singer/songwriter who is the featured entertainment at the event. “Most people think God and play have nothing in common, but Young Life has reclaimed play for the children of God.” That is very clear at this function, as the students, dressed in cowboy attire to go with the theme of the evening, race around frenetically putting on a morality play that lasts throughout the dinner and ends with some tossed shaving-cream pies. As the event ends and the crowd moves to the exit, Debbie DeMint is tired and clearly would like to go with them. She compares this race with the runoff as she watches her husband chatting and shaking hands with supporters. Last time, uncertainty reigned to the last minute. Now, things appear more certain. Her husband continues to work hard, but the edge is off.

ROTARY CLUB DEBATE: SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA

“If DeMint wins, there won’t be any debates here for six years until . If I win, which is highly unlikely given how Republican this district is now, they’ll put up a spirited challenger in ,” says the Democratic candidate, state senator Glenn Reese, as he heads into the Spartanburg YMCA building where he is about to engage in a lunchtime debate with his opponent. DeMint has pledged to stay in Washington only three terms—six years—as part of his “Keep Freedom Home” campaign. Reese is pessimistic about his chances, but here he has a good case. Bob Inglis, the outgoing congressman, has faced only token opposition since he upset a Democratic incumbent, Liz Patterson, in . Why would quality challengers run against a solid incumbent when the seat will open up on the near horizon? Reese is not very excited about this event. This crowd, with businesspeople from town, is not his natural constituency. “I’m not a member of a country club, or even a rotary club. We’re getting old-timey Democrats—mill workers, minorities, Kennedy Democrats.” He is also looking for support from those who have known him as a basketball coach at the high school, as a businessman in the community, and as a state senator. He has lived and worked in this community his whole life, and his name should be plenty good. “No way DeMint knows as many people as Glenn,” says his sister, his campaign manager. She derives some momentary optimism from the thought. Several hundred men and a few women gather in the plain room. The candidates sit up at the head table eating buffet food. Sweet tea, not water, is on the table. As those in the crowd finish their pecan pie, the chapter’s president calls

157

158

Krispy Kremed

the function to order. Below a “Follow Your Rotary Dreams” banner above the podium, a man in a Jewish yarmulke sings a strong bass “God Bless America.” Jim DeMint opens by telling the audience that the stress from the campaign has not been that bad, but it has been difficult to keep everything else in his life going. The clincher, he says, was when his yard was recently designated “Yard of the Month,” a reward by neighbors for keeping the finest, tidiest yard. DeMint was surprised. What the neighborhood saw as defining standards, DeMint viewed as shabby, and he ended up spending a valuable campaign afternoon cleaning it up. “The lesson?” he asks those assembled. “We become what we expect to be.” And it is a lesson for the country, which should expect morality and honesty from its leaders. It is a rather cautious and indirect way to talk about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which hovers in the background of the  congressional campaigns, but there is little doubt that it is hitting home. DeMint is serious and not very charismatic. But he is polished, and his talk is disciplined. “Freedom,” he tells them: “This campaign is about bringing freedom home.” The line is hokey, but from his mouth it sounds sincere. “I’m not the type of person who says, ‘There’s a problem. Someone ought to do something about it. Or the government ought to do something about it.’ Freedom. Side by side with folks like you, we can make things work. Too much of our money is out of our hands and in the hands of Washington politicians, interest groups, and bureaucrats. I want to shift control from the White House to your house.” There are two elements to his conservative theme, and they keep him from being just a basher of the federal government. His is a more optimistic, Reaganesque formulation. First, the federal government has taken our freedoms away. “In the s, they said, ‘give up your freedoms and we’ll solve the problems of poverty, education, security.’ . . . Well, it’s a myth that the federal government saves us from all our ills.” Second, he argues, we can control our own destiny by owning and controlling our own retirements (he advocates privatizing the Social Security of most participants), by replacing the income tax and the IRS with a simpler sales tax, by allowing individuals to control their own health care by choosing their own doctors, and by volunteering in service clubs and organizations. It is a coherent presentation, with the freedom theme permeating everything that he talks about—the problems he identifies, the solutions he proposes, and the promises he makes to limit his stay in Washington and to turn away PAC money. As Glenn Reese steps up to the podium, he surveys the crowd and points to “a lot of faces I know,” some men who played basketball when he was refereeing, his first employer, an important community leader. He reminisces about

Krispy Kremed

some of his friends, commenting on their waterskiing ability, their penurious nature, their old experiences, and a shared ninth-grade civics teacher, who made them read the Congressional Record and sparked his interest in politics. There is a lot of laughter and some good-natured heckling. “I’m killing a lot of political time, but it’s worth it,” says the candidate to his friends. DeMint’s story about the yard reminds him that he has been working hard on his boat, a boat sold to him by someone else in the room. But with the campaign schedule what it is, he agrees with DeMint, it is hard to find the time. Half his allotted time is up, and he is ready to give a little biographical information, his birth in Greenville and his growing up in Spartanburg, his business success—“If you eat a donut within seventy miles of here, you’re eatin’ one of my donuts”—his start as a basketball coach, his experience as a referee for international tournaments and his visit to the Soviet Union in that capacity, and his tenure in the state Senate. When he gets to his issues, his aide exhales audibly. “Last time, he didn’t get to his issues,” he whispers, “he had to use his summation time to bring them up.” Reese believes in the federal government. Here he talks about the role of the government in transportation safety and terrorism, health and Social Security. He is opposed to DeMint’s position on privatizing Social Security. Social Security should be shored up, and Reese is open to offering individuals some alternatives to the present system, but he draws the line at privatization. The problem, he fears, is that most people would not be able to make decisions about something so important as their retirement funds. “I’m a working man. The man on the street who works almost can’t be trusted with this money on his own. If we privatize, we’ll have him on the dole when he’s sixty-five anyway.” On taxation, though he pays “a zillion dollars a year” in taxes, he is also not aligned with conservatives. “I’m not crazy about doing away with the IRS” or drastically altering the tax code, as DeMint has argued. “As a businessman, I enjoy deductions for my business.” And the tax incentives that a flat tax might do away with are important. Smart tax policies have led to prosperity in the area, he argues. “The upstate is in an absolute boom. At both my facilities, we cannot make enough donuts.” What is more, healthy government revenues are important to sustain and even increase defense spending, as he advocates. “We’re about due for another Hitler on the horizon. We’ve got to be aware,” he warns, noting that his position is based on more than the importance of the defense economy, though that is important too. Reese is not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination, but he is not ashamed of his defense of the federal government. Because of the tremendous growth in

159

160

Krispy Kremed

the district, he is primed to take advantage of federal money and promises to “scavenger hunt in Washington to find the money and bring it home for infrastructure like roads, sewers, and water lines.” And he clearly defines his role as that of an ombudsman, as someone whom people can go to for help with problems: “I do politics like McDonald’s does hamburgers,” he tells folks. “Call me if you got a problem. Pick up the phone. I’ll represent the district and the philosophy we have here.” Reese takes so much time that the question-and-answer session has to be brief. There are only a few hands up anyway. The man who starts off has a specific question for Senator Reese and is well prepared for the moment. It is a question about President Clinton and Reese’s past defense of him. Some years before the president’s present problems with Monica Lewinsky, this man’s son had interviewed Reese for a school term paper. At that time, Reese had defended the president. The man consults the term paper, which he holds up to the crowd for credibility. “You said that Clinton had had youthful indiscretions, but that he had good character.” The man looks up with great seriousness. “In light of recent events, do you still defend him?” Reese, unfazed, ventures into an answer that combines his own insight into human nature with a defense of the president. “Clinton is one of the smartest presidents in history,” he says, “but lots of people are vulnerable to liquor, women, and gambling. Unfortunately, he was a victim of the women. Throughout the Bible, things like this crop up. Obviously you can’t defend it. It’s a weakness—by the way, I never close my door [when talking to a woman]. All the doors are open. I take that from Billy Graham. I can only defend Clinton on his job performance up to a point.” DeMint’s response is succinct. “I think he should do the decent thing and resign. I’m glad impeachment procedures are going forward. This is not the sign we want in our front yard.” The answer gets some spontaneous applause. There are only two other questions, but they are revealing for they put some of DeMint’s reform rhetoric to the test. One man asks about term limits and whether DeMint’s pledge means that he will return home in six years. It is a question given resonance by the Senate campaign of Bob Inglis, his term-limited predecessor. The candidate responds by saying that term limits are not intended to ban people from running for other offices but to move people around so that power does not corrupt. Reese tries out his if-you-elect-me-there-will-becompetition-here-two-years-from-now argument and throws in the observation that “Jim certainly voted for Strom Thurmond, who believes in the extended version of term limits.” The other question deals with the proposed Renaissance Center, a plan under way to redevelop a run-down section of Spartanburg with

Krispy Kremed

a major new hotel and a nine-hole golf course. Many of its biggest boosters (and perhaps some of those with a stake in the project) are in the room. DeMint calls it an example of bringing freedom home, a project spearheaded by local people to revitalize their own town. He will work in Washington to do what he can to encourage federal government support for the project to make it happen. Reese exudes less enthusiasm. He does not come out against the project but vows that “not one single dollar will be wasted as long as I have a breath in my body.” It is a peculiar line without any context, though Reese’s hostility to a plan that he knows will be a boon to some developers in town is well known. As the event ends, Glenn Reese greets some friends and slaps some backs, but his good cheer fades as he walks out the door. Though he had not shown it during the debate, he is sore about the term paper. “I didn’t appreciate that,” says Reese as he crosses the parking lot. “I helped his kid out and he saved [that paper] all this time to embarrass me. That was unethical, don’t you think?”

KRISPY KREME DONUT SHOP: SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA

Glenn Reese pulls into the parking lot of his Krispy Kreme franchise, parking under a red and green “KK” sign that flashes on and off. Though it is early afternoon, his campaigning is over for the day and he needs to stop and check on things at his store. He is very proud of the shop. Some people talk about him being “the donut man” with some derision, but donuts are serious business to him. It is true that he is no longer as challenged by the business as by his work in the state Senate—he got into politics after saying to himself, “There has to be more to life than dollars and donuts”—and he is preparing one of his sons to take the business over, but he is still deeply involved in the daily operation of his store. And, in fact, many of his political perspectives come from this place and his experiences in it. As Reese steps out of his car, he squints up the street to where the proposed Renaissance Center is to go. He is concerned about the traffic at this intersection, which is already bad. Whenever there is a headliner at the theater (Lou Rawls recently appeared) or a gun and knife show, there is gridlock and people cannot get into his parking lot. “I’m making them [the Renaissance project] go slow. They won’t waste one dollar. Reese ain’t no fool. I’m supposed to be for pork, and DeMint is supposed to be against pork, but this project won’t help the guy in that pickup truck,” he says, pointing to a passing truck. He then indicates some nearby newspaper boxes. “That’s a good story,” he

161

162

Krispy Kremed

says. He has had a long running battle with the local newspaper, a conflict complicated by the fact that this paper box has been the number-one selling box in the entire city. Lots of people read the paper with their breakfast. He has taken a lot of “hits” from the paper nonetheless: “Just because I’m a Democrat. Letters to the editor. Editorials. The gossip column. They once had a poll to see who was the ugliest public official in Spartanburg and I won. It used to upset my wife. Still does. Another time, I voted [in the state Senate] for a $ million proposal for property tax relief and against a $ million proposal. We were told by the experts that we couldn’t afford the bigger proposal. The paper reported, ‘Reese votes against property tax relief.’ I won’t get hung out to dry like that again. I always vote for the maximum now.” These incidents aggravated him, but it was a letter to the editor printed in the Spartanburg paper that caused him to take action. The letter writer, angry at Reese, called for a boycott of his donut shop. Reese, furious, pulled the box up, loaded it into his car, and dumped it at the newspaper’s office. The newspaper has since chained the machine out on the sidewalk just off Reese’s property. Reese is still angry. “It’s a reverse bribe. Let me have my political views and call me ugly, a liberal Democrat, or a stupid Democrat. But don’t affect my business.” He claims the letter cost him, with gross sales down $, since its publication. But the incident also cost the paper. He heads into his business. As he steps inside his store, there is a man at the cash register looking for some help. He waves a letter in front of the senator. A relative has been rejected from a long-term care facility and this man would like Senator Reese to find out why. People come by the store frequently with such requests. By virtue of his being so publicly associated with the store, people know where to find him, and he gets satisfaction from helping people this way. He is open and sincere; it is easy to see why people trust him with their problems. Reese takes the letter back to the very small office in the back and places a Xerox on a pile on his desk, then stops and opens a drawer. He pulls out a pistol and cradles it in two hands. “It’s loaded. I’m pro-gun.” He has come close to using it only once. Just two weeks back, a man came in to rob the store with something—perhaps a gun—under his shirt. When the cashier yelled out, “He’s robbin’ the store and I can’t open the cash register,” the man spooked and ran out. “That was a stupid thing for her to do, but it worked out,” he says, then connects the moment to his campaign: “It’s people like that who you can’t trust to invest their own Social Security.” In some ways, the cost of running for this congressional seat is not all that high. It is, he notes, “a win-win situation. Glenn’s a winner either way.” A win,

Krispy Kremed

of course, would be great. Still, if he loses—likely—he keeps his job in the state Senate until the next legislative elections. The only risk is in performing so poorly in this election that it creates an impression of vulnerability and invites competition. His  percent minority district—created, with Reese’s cooperation, in the process of carving out Republican districts in the rest of the city— is a prime Democratic district (and the only one in town). A challenge could happen, the candidate says matter-of-factly, but it is not likely. At a stoplight on the way back to his campaign trailer, Glenn Reese reaches into his glove compartment and pulls out another gun. “One hundred percent pro-gun,” he says before suddenly turning up the volume on the radio. Ralph Bristol is urging people to go to various locations to sign a petition for the “We the People Impeachment Tour.” Bristol does not bring up Reese very much. He does not see this congressional race as much of a contest. Nonetheless, Reese listens. This conservative show, in particular, allows Reese to follow what people are talking about. And he appears to like the mix-it-up of talk radio. Back at his campaign trailer, under a “South Carolina Democrats, Alive and Kicking” bumper sticker affixed to the wall, Reese discusses his campaign plans. The fact that the odds are so long is oddly liberating to him. It is an excuse to run the campaign he wants to run. He will not hire a pollster or commission polls. If he is way behind, he does not want to be depressed. If he is ahead, he does not want to get overconfident or lazy. That he has not heard any poll numbers from the other side is mildly encouraging to him. He interprets this in the context of the gamesmanship of campaigns: “If our poll numbers were up, we’d sure be leaking it.” He has not hired a consultant, though he has been pressured by the state party to do so, and he even brought one in for an interview. It led him to conclude that he did not want someone telling him how to run his own campaign. “[A consultant] would try to mold me into the candidate they wanted. I’ve got to be me. It’s my way or no way. We have to live here. Glenn Jr.’s affected too.” He does have a couple of loyal staff, and his sister Judy, who runs the campaign, is saving him a lot of money. The $, nest egg he has in the bank is for his next state Senate election. He will not spend that in this campaign. And there are other things he will not do. He has decided not to interview with the editorial boards of the Greenville News or the Spartanburg HeraldJournal. After all he has been through with the Spartanburg paper, he is not going to go in and kowtow to their editors. “Ethically, I can’t do it. Let ’em endorse DeMint and be done with it. In Greenville, they can’t endorse me. No way. The town would be up in arms. I wouldn’t endorse me if I were them. Of

163

164

Krispy Kremed

course, they didn’t endorse me in the primary. They endorsed McCuen, who had only been a Democrat for six months.” He also will not sign any pledges, though his opponent has. “I don’t sign pledges. They get you into big trouble, and I’m just not going to do it.” What Glenn Reese will do is accept PAC money. Jim DeMint not only rejects PAC money but has done so with some flourish. It is part of the reformoriented package he has put together. Reese sees this as an opportunity, figuring that various interests may be looking to help out someone who takes the opposite tack to send a message to the reformer. All this comes out as he and Judy fill out a questionnaire from a Realtors’ PAC. They are not quite sure of some of the demographics of the area. One of the two dedicated campaign staff can fill those lines out. Under consultants, they write “No. Local volunteers.” They list their core support groups as minorities, senior citizens, factory workers, teachers, and state and federal employees. And they work hard to fill out the question asking for local realtors supporting the campaign. Going through the yellow pages, they try to figure out who is with them. One acquaintance has not returned his calls recently. He must be for DeMint. Reese settles on another name, a fellow who comes into his donut shop every day. Some are criticizing Glenn Reese’s campaign as lackluster, but there is general thankfulness among Democrats that he is running. Reese decided to run when Frank Holliman, an attorney from Greenville and an assistant to secretary of education (and former Democratic governor) Dick Riley, decided not to. Democratic leaders in the up-country, eager to field a credible candidate and give the Republicans a contest, were relieved when Reese responded to their overtures. He was, after all, the senior Democratic elected official from the area. Reese defeated a couple of other candidates in the Democratic primary. Greenville architect Bill McCuen, a former Republican and former independent changing allegiance for this race, was his main competitor.6 While Reese acknowledged that McCuen “can really talk good from the floor,” he portrayed him as a political opportunist and beat him in a low-key contest that did not draw much interest or many voters.7 Now he has to accelerate his campaign and the going is tough, as might be expected for a Democrat in very Republican country.

PARTY IMBALANCE, THEN AND NOW

For Glenn Reese to win  percent and hold Jim DeMint to  percent of the vote in this election exceeded expectations. South Carolina, and indeed this

Krispy Kremed

part of South Carolina, is more Republican than the rest of a Republican-leaning South. This is where the realignment has gone furthest. According to the Reese campaign’s records, recent Democratic performance in the district’s three counties can only be described as dismal. In Greenville County, it was  percent. In Spartanburg County, it was  percent. While in rural Union County, it was  percent, this county holds only a small proportion of the district’s population. Although this is not a mirror image of the old southern party system, in which the minority Republicans hardly existed, voting patterns here reflect the fact that the Republican Party is now the very dominant party in upstate South Carolina. This is where the realignment has progressed to completion. My argument here is that the psychology of the parties and the political players is very much informed by the imbalance of the two parties in the up-country. And while the situation is not exactly the same as it used to be, a discussion of the psychology of the parties and politicians in a lopsided electoral environment does hearken back to an earlier time, a time when roles were reversed. It is not that there is something necessarily or prototypically southern about the psychology of politicians and party politics in this regard. One might find the attitudes and political conversations here to be similar to the attitudes and political conversations in other places where one party so overwhelms the other. But politicians have adjusted to the new circumstances of politics in places like up-country South Carolina so that there are all kinds of parallels to the southern politics of “the old days” in this, one of the “newest” parts of the region. Additionally, I make the argument in this chapter that the runoff primary, a device left over from the one-party days of the South—indeed, a device that came into being because of the one-party situation—continues to have an influence on campaign politics in the region. This case illustrates this well. Only a couple of generations ago, the Republican Party was completely out of vogue. It did not provide an option for southern white voters, particularly in local and state-level elections, because more often than not there were no choices offered there. All choice was completely contained within the Democratic Party. But it was more than this. It was socially unacceptable in most southern circles to affiliate with the Republican Party. Prior to the fall of Jim Crow, being a Democrat was completely enmeshed with being a southerner. And the stigma associated with Republicanism was significant. It is not just that Republicans could not harvest many votes. The party was completely alien to large portions of the electorate. As Merle Black and Earl Black () write in describing yellow-dog Democrats, “[Such] southerners would vote Democratic ‘even if Jesus Christ was the Republican candidate’” ().

165

166

Krispy Kremed

Not only was the Republican Party out of fashion in the South, it was organizationally pathetic. V. O. Key devotes one very short chapter to the Republican Party in his tome on southern politics—calling it a “note” on southern Republicans, some indication of its standing in the region at the time. It took, in his view, “fortitude” to be a southern Republican (, ). As a Republican, one had to be a hardy and committed soul completely aligned with the philosophy of the national Republican Party, or one had to see some interest to be derived from working within such a small organization. It certainly was clear that the party was weak, that elections were not winnable, and that one’s affiliation was probably not something to advertise among neighbors. And most Republicans, according to Key, were not unrealistic or blind to the situation. Those interested in funding politics did not invest in southern campaigns, and their dollars were spent to support Republicans outside the region where they could make a difference. Other Republican elites were “hobbyists,” Key argues, who enjoyed playing a role in national politics, rubbing shoulders with major politicians, and going to the national conventions. Key even argues that some Republican elites had a vested interest in keeping the party small and weak, comparing them to Japanese gardeners growing “stunted plants” and noting that many of them wanted to wield control over jobs and patronage should a Republican win the presidency. The smaller organization made this more possible. Of course, through the s and s, there was no patronage for Republicans to distribute. As Key’s colleague Alexander Heard put it, the most notable characteristic of the southern Republican leadership was “its lack of interest in winning elections” (, ).8 Without a viable Republican Party, the Democratic Party contained all the real political competition in Key’s South. Many southerners saw party factions as serving the functions of parties, though Key laments that in many places in the South, the factions were ephemeral and not based on any cleavages that were important enough to sustain themselves over time. In a handful of states, more durable factions did emerge, sometimes around a powerful personality, other times around the protection of wealthy interests. But even in these places, the out-faction was not able to provide the kind of electoral monitoring that an out-party offers the system. Whether this factionalized politics served the good of the system or not—and Key argues vigorously that it did not—electoral politics in the pre–civil rights era necessarily involved the identification, mobilization, and coalescence of different factions in Democratic Party primaries. This is, indeed, one of the major subthemes of Key’s book, and he spends many pages describing and analyzing the factional conflict in the different states and

Krispy Kremed

generalizing about factionalism, nominations, and electoral dynamics in a political system where parties fail to define cleavages. Though he mostly discusses factions in statewide political systems, the generalizations he makes certainly apply to legislative elections where the same rules and incentives existed. Key also argues that a peculiar nomination process based on the primary runoff evolved in the South due to the one-party nature of the region’s politics. With virtually all electoral competition contained in the Democratic Party, the runoff created something comparable to a general election and required candidates to generate more legitimate majority support before moving into political office. Key writes, “Under one-party conditions, the logic of majority decision makes the run-off primary a concomitant of the direct primary” (, ), noting that when runoffs were first put into place, state legislatures were mostly concerned with “the abstract idea of majority nomination” (). There was also a more practical and less lofty purpose for the runoff. Although it does not seem to have been instituted as part of the grander plan to support white supremacy (runoffs generally were adopted twenty years after the other features of the white supremacist polity), the runoff did help sustain the supremacist, one-party political system, and that had to have been recognized. If, in Walter Dean Burnham’s words, the primary itself “sapped the minority party’s monopoly of opposition” (,  –), the runoff was especially important for it fostered more vigorous intraparty competition. The runoff not only better structured competition within the Democratic Party, it offered an additional incentive for candidates and factions to enter the race—an increase in the likelihood of victory, or at least, perhaps, the perception of such an increase. There are two main lessons we can draw from Key’s discussions about political strategy and campaign psychology in a system so dominated by one operational party. First, of course, the primary structure was all-important, and the two-tiered primary process in place in almost every southern state determined strategy. Where primaries were held in one round under plurality rules (only Tennessee and Virginia of the eleven southern states), political machines developed and responded to the incentive to settle on candidates and operate more forcefully to winnow down the field before the primary. So, too, did the opponents of the machines.9 In the other nine states, where a two-tiered system operated, the dynamics were very different. With less incentive for different factions to coalesce around preselected candidates, the first round of the primary was often a general free-for-all between multiple candidates and miscellaneous factions. With this in mind, Key argues, “Only in a limited sense is it possible to speak of ‘the’ one-party system” (, ). Ironically, the multicandidate

167

168

Krispy Kremed

contests invited “a veritable melee of splinter factions, each contending for control of the state somewhat after the fashion of a multiparty system” (). With so many different candidates competing, strategy became devoted to mobilizing one’s faction, a faction not necessarily composing a majority of the state or district. Indeed, it usually was not close to a majority, but one large enough to win or place in the first contest. With the top two vote-getters advancing,10 strategy in the second round was devoted to bringing together different factions. While the dynamics of the first round were often fascinating and chaotic, the second round, the runoff, was a bit more predictable. A majority of the time, the frontrunner in the first round, often from the dominant faction in the constituency, was able to improve firstround performance enough to win the election. But not always. Occasionally such situations led various interests to coalesce around a second-place candidate emerging from the first primary. Key notes that a surprising amount of the time, the candidate with the lower vote total in the first primary won the second primary. By his calculation, this happened about  percent of the time (). The reconciliation of factions was not a long-term phenomenon, however, as the electoral structure invited them to resplinter once a position opened up again. The second main generalization to be made about political strategy in the context of elections in a one-party system is that candidates have to figure out creative ways to identify and communicate their connection to voters. Party affiliation is a very useful tool for politicians as well as for voters. For voters, of course, it is an informational shortcut, a large and easily accessible piece of data that encapsulates a lot of other information (or at least implies that information) and informs decisions. When that is taken away, voters are without such simple guidance, and this is a challenge to candidates. How do voters classify themselves? Are there distinctions between the candidates that connect to those classifications? How can meaningful distinctions between candidates be communicated to an uninformed electorate? Key writes at length about the importance of localism in southern primary elections. Voters, and the party elites on the front lines, knew where candidates were from. This was an immediate and easily communicated piece of information, a line that could be drawn around a (hopefully) large enough chunk of the electorate. As discussed in chapter , in the pre–civil rights South, candidates found it relatively easy to do this, which led to the dramatic friends and neighbors patterns that one finds throughout Key’s book. Candidates also found themselves trying to create or capitalize upon factions based on economic, so-

Krispy Kremed

cial, or vocational groups. Or they simply identified as the candidate not affiliated with a particular group, especially if that group was highly visible and powerful. While Key occasionally notes that a candidate arose from this group or that faction, the general point he makes is that other than localism and the occasional Populist alignment, most of the factionalism in the region was “confused . . . explicable on no rational grounds” (). The challenges of political strategists in such a situation were huge, especially in large fields of candidates. What does this have to do with politics in contemporary times? Do the strategic imperatives of days past still inform southern politics? Clearly, the South is no longer a one-party region. But in this South Carolina district—and in other districts in the state and the region—things have turned around so much that some of the same strategic challenges of the past must be faced in a new context. Now it is the Republican Party that is the party of southern whites, at least in the minds of many of the people who live there. This is not to say that every white southerner is Republican. Partisanship is not as uniform, or as enforced, as in Democratic days past. But whites in places like the South Carolina up-country are overwhelmingly Republican. This affects expectations about politics, the strategic imperatives that politicians face, and the psychology of the actors. It is striking how out of fashion the Democratic Party now is among whites ( percent of this particular district), here in a place where it was once so dominant. Large numbers of conservative and even moderate southern whites have been led in exodus from the Democratic Party, and after several decades in the partisan desert, they have now found their way to the party that makes sense for them. This situation is difficult for Democratic candidates to overcome, especially in districts with smaller black populations. The burden of the Democratic tag had long been apparent to Glenn Reese as he campaigned for votes, as he battled the area newspapers, as he encountered hostile voters, and as he defended President Clinton. One might argue that  was as good a year to run as a Democrat as any. With some strong Democrats on the statewide ticket, a crosscutting issue—the lottery—dominating the governor’s race, and a motivated black electorate, Reese had a couple of advantages in the race. But it was only enough to make him just barely competitive. If the race between Reese and Jim DeMint was, according to one political observer, “a foregone conclusion,” why did Glenn Reese take on the challenge? Clearly, he held onto a small hope that he could win, as most any candidate must in order to go through a political campaign. It was a pretty slender and unrealistic hope, however. “Reese will run a campaign,” said Dan Hoover, the

169

170

Krispy Kremed

Greenville columnist, “but he’s not going to put any of his own money into [the race]. He ain’t crazy.” Most important to Reese, this was a venture that posed little risk to him. He did not have to give up his seat in the legislature in order to run—“Glenn’s a winner either way”—and with expectations for his performance so low, it would be difficult to perform poorly enough to create an impression of political vulnerability and encourage competition in his next state Senate election. But it was more than just that there was little risk involved, because even without risk, there was cost involved; running a campaign, even a low-profile campaign, takes a toll. There had to be some advantages to be derived, even from a losing effort. Reese was motivated by a desire to do the right thing for his party, to which he was profoundly dedicated. Simply sticking with the party and not switching sides—and he had opportunity—was some evidence of this. He strongly believed that Democrats could not just fold in the area. To do so would harm the state party and the efforts of Democrats running statewide. Reese also felt that competition was important for the politics of the area. A DeMint victory in the election, he reminded people, would completely snuff out competition and accountability, at least for the three terms DeMint had limited himself to. Reese’s motivations went beyond being, as one commentator put it, “a good soldier for the party.” He has taken pleasure in being the “big Democrat” in the area. As one of the few Democratic politicians in the area, he has gotten to “do the party thing to the ultimate.” He has received frequent invitations to political events and has played a role in delegations to the state and national party conventions. With few other Democratic politicians around, he has received financial support for his campaigns that he otherwise might not have received. As the only Democrat in the legislative delegation in the Greenville-Spartanburg area, he has gotten a lot of attention from the media. “When anything happens,” he says, “they call me for the Democratic response. I get  percent of the coverage.” Moreover, being the lone Democrat, he has a safe gerrymandered seat that has allowed him to coast in his elections to the state Senate, and his job satisfaction there has been high. Reese has been able to nominate appointees to various positions. He has had a place in addressing the problems of the state and has had the ability to bring benefits home to his district. He has had a position from which he can help people and do favors, something he clearly has enjoyed about his job. And he has especially enjoyed working on the Rules Committee, where he has “conspired” with the Republican leadership. Being in the delega-

Krispy Kremed

tion’s minority also has meant that there is less responsibility associated with his position in the Senate. There is some safety in this; as he rationalizes, “I don’t have to solve the controversial issues. I don’t have to be in the fray. The delegation’s problems are not mine, and that’s got its advantages.” The benefits have been worth some of the aggravation and social pressures he has encountered as a Democratic politician in a Republican town. In this, there are certainly parallels to the situation of old-time Republicans. It is not the best situation to be in—and Reese certainly would trade minority for majority status—but there are some interesting possibilities associated with being a “big fish in a small pond,” opportunities not available to those in the strong majority. Like the oldtime Republicans, Reese has found enough of them to stay loyal and to represent such a weakened party. With the Republicans so dominant now, it should not be terribly surprising that the primary in this race was what people paid attention to. Democrats had a three-person race, but it was low profile and poorly attended. The Republican contest, on the other hand, was quite vigorous, with a field full of representatives of different points of view and different shades of view. If the political spectrum in the district is truncated, there were still opportunities for cleavages to materialize and for each candidate in this race to find a niche, a faction to appeal to. The Christian Coalition–identified candidate was the favorite, yet other candidates—the “establishment business” candidate, the Spartanburg candidate, the reform candidate hoping to inherit that mantle from the outgoing representative—were competitive. Only the one-issue antiabortion advocate was deemed to be out of contention. The field was so crowded with quality candidates, it even may have had an impact on the Democratic race. Two of the Democratic candidates were former Republicans, one switching sides right before the filing date. Of course, open-seat elections generally attract numerous candidates, and it is not surprising that each of the Republican candidates would have some rationale for his or her candidacy. What is different in this and almost all other southern districts is how the two-tiered primary shapes the contest, as it long has. The standard two-tiered primary, so important in Key’s day, is still in effect in nine of the eleven states of the region.11 Outside the South, primary runoffs are found only in neo-southern Oklahoma, almost all the rest using the conventional plurality primary to nominate candidates. Primary runoff rules thus continue to distinguish southern elections from those held elsewhere. Key and Burnham argued that one-partyism led southern state legislatures to adopt the

171

172

Krispy Kremed

two-tiered primary. One-party conditions no longer hold, but the runoff provision remains intact, and the runoff rules still make southern primaries distinctive and still have some bearing on things like political strategy, candidate emergence, and primary competition. Runoffs are a common occurrence in southern congressional nominations, as well as in nominations for other offices, when a seat is really at stake, when no incumbent is running. In the  open-seat congressional nominations held in the runoff states (excluding Louisiana and including Oklahoma) between  and , almost half of them ( percent) required a runoff.12 In this, things have not changed at all since , when Key found that the “odds were about even that no candidates will receive a majority in the first primary” (, ) in his analysis of Democratic gubernatorial nominations. Also as before, the runoff does matter to the result, with the second-place candidate in the first contest having a real chance to win the second contest. In the  open-seat southern congressional nominations that went to runoffs between  and ,  percent of them were won by the candidate who placed second in the first contest, again a result not so different from Key’s day ( percent).13 Key’s explanation for the nontrivial number of “come-from-behind” runoff victories is that in places where a significant plurality faction exists, the first round is really a contest for the runoff spot. Once that is determined, opponents to the strong faction occasionally will coalesce behind the second-place candidate and propel that person forward. Another explanation for come-from-behind victories is that voters are reassessing the first result, perhaps expressing concern about the electability of the frontrunner. One way this may manifest itself is for come-from-behind candidates to fare better in general elections than those who win both the first and second primaries. Indeed, there is a clear difference in general-election success. Regressing (via logistic regression) general-election success on a candidate’s route to the general and some relevant controls shows the difference (see table .).14 The two coefficients of interest are only marginally significant at ., but translating them into “first differences” shows that the differences in electoral success for the three categories of candidates are quite large.15 The probability of an “average” come-from-behind candidate winning the general election is .; the probability of general-election victory for the “average” candidate who wins the first primary outright (which would include all candidates who run unopposed or run in two-candidate contests) is .. For the average candidate who leads in the first election and wins the runoff, the probability of general-election victory is only ..16 Are southern primary voters

Krispy Kremed

Table 5.1 Come-from-behind Winners Fare Better in General Elections (logistic regression coefficients [with standard errors])

First-round winners Come-from-behind winners Presidential ebb and flow Presidential party strength Campaign expenditures Senate race Intercept

b

SE(b)

0.84* 1.16* 1.14*** 0.15*** 0.09*** 20.24 5.75***

(0.52) (0.71) (0.45) (0.03) (0.02) (0.67) (0.99)

Cox & Snell R square .. n  . *p  .; *** p  .. Note: The data in these analyses represent all open-seat primary elections for Congress held in runoff states between  and . Special elections are not included. Winners of both the first primary and the runoff are set to zero and thus form the base category in this equation. The dependent variable in the equation is general-election success.

taking electability into account? One cannot say on the basis of these findings that voters are considering electability. Such a conclusion would require a study of voters, not election results. But these findings do suggest this. When the runoff produces a different winner than the first round did, the end result is usually positive for the party. The dynamics of the South Carolina Republican primary in this race do roughly correspond with the expectations derived from these simple analyses. Clearly, the runoff was important in the nomination given that DeMint, the second-place finisher in the first round, won the second. But it was more than this. The case is especially illustrative because of the fact that the Christian Coalition is so seemingly strong in the area. Here, Christian conservatives had a standard-bearer in Mike Fair, who generated hostility from other Republicans concerned about their power in the party. When the first Republican primary winnowed the field down to two candidates—two candidates not all that far apart on the issues but clearly representing different points of view—they responded. In the view of party players and political observers, Jim DeMint, though certainly conservative, was perceived as being independent of the Christian Right and gathered second-choice support from those primary voters who supported other candidates in the first round and were concerned about Christian conservatives dominating the party. Said the former state Republican

173

174

Krispy Kremed

Party chair, “These days, the [right-wing] fringe is more emboldened, and people in the center fear it more. DeMint was not a conservative that the center would be threatened by. Fair had Phyllis Schlafly, Ralph Reed, and Gary Bauer endorsing him. Party people feared them—for the right or wrong reasons.” Charles Dunn, a Clemson University political scientist and analyst in the area, agreed. Hiring Reed, he said, “sent a negative signal to the electorate that kept Fair from broadening his base. Mike Fair hired his own assassin.” And political scientist Larry Sabato analyzed the race along these lines as well: “[Fair’s defeat was] very significant especially coming in South Carolina. It may not tear the party apart, but a substantial number of moderate and conservative Republicans are tired of the Christian conservatives playing like the -pound gorilla when they only weigh  pounds” (Hoover f). This cleavage runs through the Republican electorate in many southern districts now, and it is a cleavage that the party will have to bridge, though the primary runoff makes it more possible for this to happen, as it did in this district. There is yet another way in which the runoff primary may influence the politics of the southern congressional district, and the nature of southern politics in general, and that is by enhancing electoral competition by encouraging candidates into the race. This, as noted above, was part of the original intent of the runoff. For individual candidates, the runoff offers a greater likelihood of success, or at least creates that perception. After all, the odds are much better that any single candidate will finish in the top two places in the first round than in just the top spot. With this as an immediate goal, prospective candidates are more likely to be sanguine about their chances and should be more likely to take on the challenge (Greenberg and Shepsle ). The runoff also makes it possible for many different factions to be represented in the first round without fear of splitting the vote and electing a plurality candidate unpalatable to the party as a whole. With this logic in place, it would seem that the runoff provision again creates more incentives to compete. As Key argues, without the runoff, “the forces that unite behind a single man in [the runoff] would join in the first or only primary” (, ). Several studies of the past twenty years have shown that the runoff has, in fact, traditionally lured more candidates into elections. Looking at gubernatorial primaries since the initiation of the runoff, Canon (), Wright and Riker (), and Berry and Canon () all find that the runoff provision had an effect on candidate emergence. In these studies, southern Democratic primaries were more crowded than primaries outside the region, the runoff provision being the prime reason for the difference. Berry and Canon, however, suggest that

Krispy Kremed

Table 5.2 Runoff Elections Attract More Candidates (OLS regression coefficients [with standard errors])

Runoff Presidential ebb and flow Presidential party strength Outgoing rep./sen. Fee required Signatures required Convention delegates required Senate race Intercept

b

SE(b)

0.39*** 0.04 0.04*** 0.34*** 0.02 0.41*** 0.94*** 0.28*** 2.88***

(0.11) (0.09) (0.01) (0.10) (0.06) (0.10) (0.20) (0.14) (0.11)

Adjusted R square .. n  . *** p  .. Dependent variable: The data in these analyses represent all open-seat primary elections for Congress held between  and . Special elections and primaries without candidates are not included. The dependent variable in this analysis is the number of legitimate candidates in the contest. Legitimate candidates are all those who receive at least  percent of the primary vote.

this relationship may have more to do with other factors associated with southern primaries. Notably, they show that the effect of the runoff is partly contingent upon the strength of the opposition party. Where there is real interparty competition, the effect of the runoff is greatly reduced. Thus, because previous studies of the relationship all utilize pre-s data, they may be conflating the effect of a runoff with the effect of a primary in an environment of one-party dominance. Comparing congressional nominations in the nine southern runoff states with nominations in the rest of the country shows that this finding still holds in the politically competitive South in both parties. Regressing the number of candidates in a congressional primary field on whether or not an election is held in a runoff state, along with various controls, shows that the runoff provision still does encourage larger candidate fields.17 As shown in table ., primary elections that hold the possibility of a second round draw more candidates than those that do not, a finding that is highly significant, even controlling for the other important variables in the equation.18 Translating the coefficient into practical terms, the runoff provision leads to candidate fields that are  percent larger than nonrunoff primaries, all else the

175

176

Krispy Kremed

same. Put another way, runoff fields are four-tenths a candidate larger. Though no election has ever been won by a fraction of a candidate, the effect nonetheless comfortably confirms the hypothesis and bolsters the finding from previous work, an important finding derived from data from the precompetitive South but in need of update. Runoff elections contribute to more competitive elections in yet another sense. If one measure of political competition is how often the winning candidate generates majority support, the difference between the South and the nonSouth is quite large. Between  and , southern first primaries yielded a majority winner  percent of the time (n  ).19 Non-southern primaries provided majority winners  percent of the time (n  ). The runoff encourages not only more candidates into the race but more viable candidates into the race. The likelihood of one candidate dominating the primary election is thus reduced, and the end result is that competition is enhanced. One sees all this at work in an election like this one, where the first Republican primary attracted several high-quality candidates, all of whom had an incentive to enter the competition despite the fact that they had to face an especially strong candidate with name recognition and with long-standing ties to Christian conservatives, who are particularly likely to vote. The result was an especially competitive contest. This analysis and this illustrative case show how the runoff primary, an institution inherited from the past, continues to matter. The runoff came to be because of the Democratic Party’s complete domination of politics. It now has lived well beyond its original purpose. But with no obvious or compelling reason to change, the old rules have become custom, the old procedures habit. The original sponsors of the runoff intended to enhance democracy in an all-Democratic South. That intent is, in this small but important way, being met in contemporary times, even in a place like upstate South Carolina, where Republicans have come to so dominate interparty politics. Everything has turned around. Republicans are on top. Democrats are the clear minority. This is not to say that Republicans will win every election. In the state, white Democrats like Senator Ernest Hollings, former governor Jim Hodges, and Rep. John Spratt will occasionally win and survive, but they will be the exceptions, and it will never be easy. As the colorful Hollings said about campaigning as a Democrat in South Carolina, “Hell, these days, I could just go home and get drunk if I had an ‘R’ next to my name” (Mercurio ). With one party so dominant, the hand of the past reaches into the present. The fact that the white electorate tilts so much to one side, the fact that Democrats are

Krispy Kremed

so maligned and Republicanism is so socially enforced, the fact that an important institution born in the one-party era is still functioning, these things make for all kinds of contemporary parallels to electoral politics past.

POSTSCRIPT

Jim DeMint immediately found himself in a leadership role and a bit of spotlight upon his arrival to Congress. At the start of his first session, DeMint was voted by his Republican peers to be president of the incoming freshman class. It is a job that several southerners have held in recent Congresses. Indeed, four of the last six freshman class presidents have been from the South.20 A great deal has been made of the southern dominance of the Republican congressional leadership since the  takeover of Congress (Peters ; Black and Black , – ). The fact that DeMint is in a line of southern freshman leaders adds something to this observation. Why all these southern class presidents? While it is true that there has been an influx of southern freshmen in recent years, this is not the explanation. Southerners have been only modestly overrepresented among congressional freshmen (between  and ,  percent of all Republican freshmen were from the region). Rather, freshman class leaders are coming out of the South because they represent some of the best and most compelling newcomers to the party. The South is now the “hub” of the Republican Party, providing it with many of its most entrepreneurial leaders and its driving ideas. The grooming of leaders like Jim DeMint is just one manifestation of this. Since his auspicious start in Congress, DeMint has been an excellent fit for his district. He has been very acceptable to the large culturally conservative base in the district. His business background and orientation has made him popular with Chamber of Commerce Republicans. He also has bridged the gaps between these two sets of conservative core constituents and the required moderates. For years, white Democrats were able to hold together a delicate biracial coalition of blacks and moderate whites. Holding together the Republican coalition of white conservatives and moderates is much easier, and Jim DeMint has been well situated to do it. With just one exception, DeMint’s conservative line of representation has been uncontroversial in the district. The exception represents the most notable moment of his short congressional career. In late , DeMint, supporting President Bush and upholding his own ideological principles, voted against some important economic interests in the district on a very high-profile vote.

177

178

Krispy Kremed

The issue at stake was fast-track trade authority for the president, a free-trade position forcefully opposed by the textile industry that has long been based in North and South Carolina. DeMint, like many of his Carolina colleagues, voted against the fast-track bill when it came up in the House. But as the voting period on the floor was ending and the bill appeared to be going down to defeat, he seized an opportunity. The House leadership, in an unorthodox move, was holding open the vote and desperately seeking additional support. Although he had already voted, DeMint stepped up and negotiated a side deal, receiving an assurance from administration officials for some explicit protections for the textile industry, assurances they previously had refused to give (Espo ). With that agreement in hand, DeMint changed his vote and brought four other reluctant Republicans with him, three of them southerners.21 The House vote was abruptly closed, and the bill passed with a winning margin of one. Clearly, DeMint’s general libertarian inclination was to support free trade (the Cato Institute even called him “one of the top free traders in the House” [Barone, Cohen, and Ujifusa ]). By making this agreement, he was able to claim credit, to support the president, and to remain ideologically true, even if many in the textile industry were unhappy with him for compromising on their interests. The episode represents a certain amount of pragmatism, to be sure, but also a level of Republican maturity in the South and some confidence in new forms of representation. In places like Greenville-Spartanburg, it can work. DeMint’s predecessor in Congress, Bob Inglis, even rejected the role of service provider. Inglis opposed bringing federal funds into the state, on at least one occasion voting against federal financing of a transportation project in this traffic-filled metropolitan area (necessitating a toll road instead). As Inglis put it during his losing campaign against Democratic senator Ernest Hollings, “In , we sent senators to Washington to get whatever they could because we were desperately poor. Today, in the age of free-enterprise opportunity, we no longer want government guarantees” (Mercurio ). Although this comment comes from a purist member of Congress representing a very realigned place, it does illustrate the outer limits of Republican representation.22 Glenn Reese predicted that DeMint would go without opposition in his two reelection campaigns and indeed, DeMint ran unopposed in . In , however, the fast-track vote did bring him opposition, both in the primary (a candidate bankrolled by some major players in the textile industry) and in the general election. DeMint dispatched both easily. He had assumed a political risk and it paid off.

Conclusion: Partisan Change and Political Continuity in the South

The southern realignment has been dramatic, but it has not been sudden. Since the s (and even somewhat before this), the Republican Party has been steadily gaining ground in the electorate. Only in the s, however, did it become the majority party with regard to voting in the region, and gradually this majority status has become reflected in office holding, particularly at the congressional level. Nor has the realignment been even. Some parts of the South have “gone Republican.” Some places have not gotten there yet. And the urban centers and majority black areas are still heavily Democratic. The region now can be characterized as a “Republican stronghold,” but it is not nearly as “solid” as it was in the days of Democratic dominance. It is not that surprising that the big change did not come all at once. Old-time, hard-line southern Democrats in the mass public had to die out and be replaced. Candidates, even those of a conservative bent, had to see an electoral future in the Republican Party before they changed sides. Republicans had to start “filling in the base of pyramid,” winning judgeships, clerkships, state legislative seats, and lowerlevel offices where decisions are made that can have an impact on elec179

180

Conclusion

toral results. Blacks had to fully enter the political process, secure a place in the Democratic Party, and demand districts that could and would elect black candidates. Republicans had to have a change in their approach to party politics and discover that racial appeals could take them only so far (Glaser ). In this book, I describe the region’s politics now that all this has played out, with Republicans coming into power in much of the South. Here, I also show what politics look like in the various stages of Republican growth: from places with real partisan competitiveness, like East Texas, to places wholly under Republican influence, like the South Carolina up-country. There are also places in between, where the ground has shifted or is shifting toward the Republicans because of redistricting and Republican control of the electoral apparatus, elite party switching, and major changes in demography. The cases in this study represent points along this spectrum. If change is the obvious theme of southern politics in the past several decades, continuity is the less obvious one. But as I have argued throughout this book, there are significant continuities in the region’s politics. The southern past is evident in the southern present, and sometimes this gets lost in a literature so focused on the great changes. That said, there is one additional observation that brings together the grand change and the smaller continuities. Conservative whites have generally controlled the politics of the South throughout its history. Where they have been challenged, and where they have lost ground, conservatives have continually and successfully come back. The recent reassertion of conservative white political power in the South through the Republican Party is thus both a significant departure from the past and another iteration in a long-standing pattern. We see this pattern in how conservatives created the Jim Crow legal and social systems to fend off the threat of Populism to their control of the political system (Woodward ). Southern conservative elites were generally paternalistic and not particularly antiblack while in power from Redemption to the mid-s, and blacks “took an active, if modest, part in public life” in this period (). As the South became engulfed by depression and as the Populists began to bring poor blacks and whites together to challenge their rule, conservative elites abandoned their previous racial “moderation” and pitched white supremacy and Jim Crow—a “capitulation to racism” is Woodward’s term—to drive a wedge into the Populist coalition. They had used race before, in the Redemption crisis, but “had been able to tame the extremists into moderation” after the crisis was over (). This time, however, the direction of change spiraled

Conclusion

downward as the political lessons of the experience were learned, and Jim Crow became the vehicle by which conservatives retained their power through the ensuing decades. We also see this pattern in the early New Deal years, when the South’s lowwage economy was threatened by liberal national policies. Economic historian Gavin Wright () argues that southern opposition to many New Deal policies was rooted in fear of a change in the labor market, one unfavorable to southern elites relying heavily upon unskilled labor. As Wright notes, southern members of Congress were strongly opposed to state investments in education. While the demand for education was low because of poverty and the widespread acceptance of child labor on farms and in mills, “the planters and employers who dominated regional politics were well aware that education greatly increased the probability that a young person would leave both the home county and ultimately the entire region” (), thus creating pressures in the labor market they did not want to face. Likewise, during the New Deal years, many southern Democrats, “though extremely powerful in Congress during the s, . . . did not use their power to bring home federal money for work relief or other projects. Although the South was the poorest region in the country, it stood last among regions in per capita federal expenditure between  and . . . . Southern Congressmen often obstructed the application of federal programs to their region, and on many issues (such as the coverage of Social Security in agriculture, and local allocation of welfare benefits) they were successful. . . . In fact, they had good reason to be suspicious of outside influence, because national political forces were increasingly intent on eliminating the low-wage economy of the South” ( –; emphasis in original). Through the New Deal era, southern Democrats, “Boll Weevils,” were not wholly conservative. Nor were they aligned with northern Republicans on every set of issues that defined the day. They were particularly conservative, however, on labor issues, a manifestation of their dedication to the interests of the region’s conservative elites (Katznelson, Geiger, and Kryder et al. ) and their reliance upon these elites for votes (even black votes in some places1). Through malapportioned legislative maps that gave inordinate power to rural areas, black disenfranchisement, and outright fraud, this system perpetuated itself. The region resisted change particularly on racial and labor issues through the New Deal years and right up to the civil rights movement. “The dead voted alphabetically,” recalled Jimmy Carter (), describing his first uphill campaign for office in a  state legislative race in a small rural district controlled

181

182

Conclusion

by a powerful and corrupt boss. His story is a perfect lesson in how conservatives held power so tenaciously and for so long, not just in southwestern Georgia but in the state and in the region as a whole. From this perspective, the return of conservative control of southern politics in the mid-s is yet another instance of what has come before. Before , the region’s politics were not “liberal,” but to generalize, the southern political leadership in the majority Democratic Party was moderate. The reasons are clear and embedded in political interest and strategy. The fall of Jim Crow ushered in an era wherein blacks joined the electorate and white conservatives rushed out of the Democratic Party. The result was that Democratic politicians quickly became reliant on biracial coalitions to win and retain their offices. To keep this coalition together required a moderation of views (or at least behavior), and analyses of southern congressional voting patterns shows that the movement toward moderation (as measured by Democratic Party unity scores) was widespread and significant. Incumbent representatives and senators moderated their own views, and newcomers to Congress were more centrist than those they replaced, even to the point of becoming “national Democrats.” Moderation thus became a “Democratic asset,” a way to hold together enough whites with a unified black electorate to win elections through a time when Republicans were winning the South in presidential elections (Glaser ; Black and Black ). Most important, these southern Democrats also provided the necessary seats to keep Democrats in control of Congress. A Republican congressional breakthrough in the South, the reassertion of truly conservative representation, was required to bring Republicans into the majority in Congress. The grand plan was designed and implemented by southern conservatives already in Congress. It was, in Black and Black’s words, “the modern incarnation of the oldest story in southern politics [for] securing white majorities in virtually all-white districts was the standard route to victory among white Democrats in the old southern politics” (, ). This was not a repeat of the s. By , Republicans had generally abandoned outright racial appeals and were seeking support from conservatives, moderates, and independents with a strongly negative populist message.2 With the  strategy and the change in demographic, cartographic, and political circumstances, southern conservatives finally have reached the tilting point. Conservatives do not control every aspect of southern politics and society. Moderate white Democrats and more liberal African American politicians still and will have some success in the region. Nonetheless, conservatives have regained control over a good deal of the South’s representation.

Conclusion

SOURCES OF CONTINUITY

The fact that conservatives have returned to power in the South should not be surprising. There is a reservoir of conservative public opinion for politicians to tap into. Both in terms of ideological identity and on specific issues, conservative points of view are widely held. More than this, conservatives have the resources and the power in the economic and social system to assert some will on the political system. This is also true outside the South, of course, but the presence of countervailing liberal elites provides a check. Who are the liberal elites in the South? One is hard pressed to come up with indigenous supporters who routinely supply resources to Democratic campaigns other than trial lawyers and union leaders. Certainly, some groups of people are privileged and others are disadvantaged in the political process, and the distribution of political resources does not change all that much over time. This puts a natural check on how much “transformation” there can be—hardly a profound observation, but one worth stating in the context of this discussion. Continuity also comes from the fact that political culture evolves slowly. The southern case conforms to this expectation. As discussed in chapter , southerners share many expectations of government, its capacity, and the role of their representatives in it. Many southerners have almost “ethnic” connections to the place and its people. There is widespread appreciation for certain kinds of candidates, discourse, and political symbols. There are also common “turnoffs.” Many of the components of the southern political culture, the values and beliefs that people share, have been around a long time and are still intact. Even where some change is evident, as in the greater acceptance of the state’s role in education and economic development, there are strong conservative and traditionalistic strains that go with the entrepreneurial ones in southern political culture, and this creates the environment in which politicians must work. Of course, to say that there is a predominant political culture in the region is misleading because there are really two political cultures. Blacks and whites do have very different expectations of politicians and government, their political preferences deviate significantly, and their perceptions and interpretations of political events and figures can be remarkably different. How clear this was in , in the middle of the Starr investigations into the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Among most whites, Clinton was an object of scorn. People spoke derisively about his problems, and he was lampooned with frequency.3 Among many blacks, the investigation of Clinton struck a chord, a connection to their own sense of injustice. In North Carolina, Mike Taylor, personally disgusted by

183

184

Conclusion

the president’s behavior, still found Clinton to be of great benefit to his position in the black community. Said Taylor, “Has Bill Clinton had an effect on my race? Yes. African Americans are riled up by this thing. The most angry group out there about this is the black community.” Politicians must figure out how to appeal to the two populations (as I discuss elsewhere, the ability to run a bifurcated campaign is one of the few advantages southern Democrats enjoy in the present political environment) and how to balance the differences. Certainly, continuity on this count does not antedate the  Voting Rights Act, when blacks were blocked from the political system, but this challenge, for Republican and Democratic candidates alike, is the same pre- and post-, the demarcation point for a new partisan system in the region. Blacks and whites have quite different political perspectives; this is true both in and outside the South. What continues to be distinct about the South is that blacks constitute a larger proportion of its citizens. They also are more evenly distributed across the South than the non-South. In part, the answer to the question of where continuity comes from, then, has to do with demography, with the types of people who have resided in the South, with the racial balance that has long defined it, and with the types of politics that follow from a situation where a large minority, disadvantaged by both race and class, lives together with a relatively homogeneous majority white population. There has been, of course, some real demographic change in the South. Migration into the region is changing the South’s profile somewhat. Whites from outside the South, Hispanic immigrants, blacks returning to the region of their parents and grandparents all bring with them different demands, expectations, and behaviors. And generational change has meant, as Black and Black () document well, that more tolerant, less prejudiced cohorts populate the region. The fundamental dynamic of southern politics, a racial dynamic, still holds, however. The process of who gets what, when, and how still must take place between majority whites and a large black minority, and this is the stuff of politics. Of course, to say generally that race affects politics does not mean that race matters everywhere in the region and in the same way. If it did, then there would be no relationship between race and politics. The fundamental argument here is that racial balance affects political strategies, campaign dialogue, and the psychology of candidates. Variation in racial balance matters, and we expect that the strategies and psychology of campaigns will be different in places like heavily black southwest Mississippi than they are in places with fewer blacks like the up-country of South Carolina, a point that hearkens back

Conclusion

to the days of V. O. Key. Indeed, it was Key, with a broad vision not before brought to the study of the South, who identified this pattern. It is important to emphasize that this is not a point about lingering racism. It is not about candidates being unable to escape the shackles of virulent racism, though some certainly may be constrained by their racial attitudes. The argument here is that the racial balance of a district is determinative of so much in the campaign. The story of Delbert Hosemann is instructive. Here was a white man who had given enormously to the black community, and not from a sense of obligation or for political gain. But as a Republican candidate, he could think of blacks only as “not my people,” and savvy as he was, he recognized that there were no circumstances under which he could make headway into the black community. In this sense, the partisan history of the past forty years constrains contemporary party politicians, though it constrains them less in the less black parts of the South than in the old black belt. Continuity with the past also is assured by the fact that certain institutional features of the southern political system have remained in place, even as the partisan balance within this system has changed so significantly. The players have changed, the teams have changed, but some of the rules of the game remain the same. Party nominations in much of the region rely on a two-tiered process. The reasons the primary runoff was put into place no longer exist, but the process has not been questioned or altered, and there are real consequences to this: a more competitive intraparty process and additional opportunities for primary electorates to revisit choices. In Virginia, state government elections are held off the federal electoral cycle, a practice established during the Byrd Machine’s dominance of the state’s political system. By electing off cycle, turnout was assured to be lower, and the machine’s electoral goals were easier to attain. The machine is gone; Virginia’s election cycle remains. As Rozell and Wilcox write, “This has long meant that organized interests can exert disproportionate influence in the general election” (, ). In Texas, Populist reform that mandated elections for political and judicial offices, large and small, has contributed to a lengthy ballot and a crowded political environment. The imperative here is to get one’s message across, and the competition is not just the candidate one is up against but candidates for all of the offices up and down the ticket. This has real consequences for the types of campaigns found in Texas and the lengths candidates must go to penetrate public opinion. Electoral rules and political and social institutions often stay in place because

185

186

Conclusion

they are rarely questioned or challenged. If this does happen, it is usually only after their flaws are exposed, whereupon reforms are proposed. In the meantime, the distinctive features of the political system become standard, “the way we always have done things.” Even the peculiarities seem normal. The rules of the electoral process are not the only features of the political environment that have been shaped by the past. Other aspects that originate in another time continue to create incentives and disincentives for present-day politicians. One superb example seen here is the strong presence of the military throughout much of the South, the result of military pork delivered by southern Democrats from the New Deal era through the post–civil rights era. Southern Democrats, generating political support, appealing to the more hawkish attitudes in the region, and aiding local economies, assured that the South would have an inordinate share of military installations. The fact that the one-party system in the region meant longer careers, and long enough careers to build seniority and authority in appropriations and military oversight committees, gave southerners the ability to deliver in extraordinary ways. The contemporary association of Republicans with military personnel ironically has served to contribute to Republican growth in the region. Whatever its effect on party balance, the political investment in the military continues to have an effect on the type of candidates who emerge in the region, the messages they bring to their campaigns, and the reception those messages receive. Here, again, is an example of how an institutional fact of life, one with its genesis in the politics of the past, continues to shape the politics of the present and the future. Continuity in campaign politics also comes from candidates learning from predecessors how to operate within the distinctive southern political environment. As “Nothing succeeds like success,” political emulation perpetuates some of the distinct features of the political system. Candidates learn the lessons of the past and continue to apply them. Virgil Goode courts voters with language, political practices, and, most important, an orientation toward politics that he learned from his father, a successful local politician in his own right from the New Deal era. Certainly, it helped that he was very conservative in a very conservative place. But issue positions alone do not generate the kinds of support that Goode enjoyed, particularly in his home base. Max Sandlin’s most important lessons came from his predecessor, who learned from one of his predecessors. The story of the Texas election is basically one of political learning, Sandlin directly benefiting from the aid of an experienced campaign manager who had been through the previous wars and had a marvelous sense of the dis-

Conclusion

trict and what kinds of messages resonated in it. This was, of course, a district that had been represented by a quintessential populist for over fifty years. East Texas was even the cradle of the original Populist Movement. Sandlin’s campaign messages—and to a certain extent, even those of his opponent Ed Merritt—were very much informed by a populist impulse in the district, one both capitalized on and nurtured over the decades by representatives past. For all these reasons—the structure of power in southern society, the staying power of political culture, the demography of the region, the institutional legacies, the learning of political lessons—the South retains its distinct political quality. Will it lose this distinctiveness in the future? The bet here is that it will not, not because the region resists change, but because change will become incorporated into what is presently distinct. Clearly, as Greenville-Spartanburg, Charlotte, and the other metropolitan areas in the region grow and prosper, they will come to dominate the politics of the South even more, and the political system will evolve further. But despite immigration and in-migration, despite Republican dominance, despite a changing economy, and despite technological, generational, and attitudinal change, what is modern and new will continue to be absorbed into what is old and familiar. The region will retain its political character, a character apparent in the events and the personalities, the questions and the handshakes, the advertisements and the debates that compose the political scene in the American South.

187

Notes

INTRODUCTION

. This story is well told in Parker . . Though not completely uncertain. Gaddie and Bullock calculate that  percent of open-seat elections still fall outside the marginal range (, ). . It does not cover all the shades. There is no majority minority district in the sample. For a portrait of an election in a majority minority district, see chapter  of my previous book, Race, Campaign Politics, and the Realignment in the South, in which I cover an open-seat congressional election in Mississippi’s Second District. . The cases were chosen, of course, before I knew the results. It was a commitment of time and money with no guarantee of return, but I sought a set of cases that would represent districts that were differentially realigned. I chose two districts where a Republican was retiring, four where the seat was open due to a Democratic retirement (among these was the Kentucky campaign that I was unable to pursue). In two of the districts with retiring Democrats (North Carolina and Kentucky), Republicans were favored to take over the seat. I also sought diversity along other dimensions in the cases. In my sample there are districts from the Deep and Peripheral South and from the  presidential and  midterm elections. Case selection is one of the more difficult aspects of doing this kind of work (Fenno ). Nevertheless, I made choices in a conscious attempt to draw together a diverse set of meaningful cases. 189

190

Notes to Pages 11 – 35

. See Herrnson and Patterson  on the importance of campaign-issue selection in setting agendas and influencing vote choice. . Not everything described in these scenes was eyewitnessed. There were a few instances (so indicated in the text) where I relied on newspaper accounts or on the recollection of the actors involved. . It is not just a literature but, with the  The War Room, a documentary film genre as well. CHAPTER 1. SEEING RED

. Merritt even says that he entered the race after “God told me to run. He didn’t tell me I was gonna win. I wish he had. But he urged me to do this.” . A picture of Sandlin as a football player back in his hometown—bursting through the high school banner with hands and helmet raised overhead—graces some of his campaign literature. . In the end, only six other congressional candidates in the country invested that much of their own money in their campaigns (Federal Election Commission ). . The campaign finance data are complicated by the fact that a good portion of the candidate’s funds was spent in the primary—a different election, to be sure, but one that brought Sandlin’s name in front of the people of the First District. Sandlin spent a bit over $ million in the primary. . Sandlin’s campaign manager recalls that Edd Hargett, the Republican candidate, did not put his party label on his red and white bumper stickers and signs. To counter this, the Democrats created red and white signs that said “Republican” and planted them next to Hargett’s signs. “We spent $, to make sure people knew that,” he said. “We helped him do his braggin’.” . Sandlin’s victory over Howard was not just about ideology. Howard actually lived in Austin at the time of the election, and Sandlin and his team worked to point this out. Their key was a videotape of a deposition in which Howard is shown giving her home address as Austin and saying that she was using a Texarkana address for political convenience. The tape was not distributed to media outlets, but the situation was well known in Democratic circles, and Howard was rather rattled by it. It made a difference, according to one Democratic aide, as “East Texas is its own little place.” . It is not clear that this change occurred before the advertisement ran its course. . While Merritt’s media consultant is not apologetic about the ad—“Max Sandlin is a sympathizer of the liberal aspect of communism,” he says some months after the contest—he does acknowledge that it was hard hitting. . Indeed, Sandlin’s positioning in general is a source of frustration for the conservative Republican. One of his favorite lines as he chats with supporters is, “Max was a liberal in the primary, a moderate in the summer, a conservative in the fall, and now an extremist like me.” . And they were. Both the vacationing Republican incumbent state senator and the Republican state representative candidate won their elections, the latter by a mere  votes out of , cast.

Notes to Pages 38 –52

. . . .

He is actually off. In minority precincts, Sandlin won about  percent of the vote. After the movie of that name about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. For a fuller description of the Chapman race, see chapter  of Glaser . In addition to elections for governor and lieutenant governor, elections are held for attorney general, comptroller, commissioner of the General Land Office, agricultural commissioner, a fifteen-member state Board of Education, and a three-member Railroad Commission. There are also many judgeships up for election because of “a rather unwieldy hodgepodge of overlapping jurisdictions that produce many different courts” (Haag, Peebles, and Keith , ). . A percentage calculated for the First District. Over two-thirds of the district’s residents are adherents. As a basis for comparison,  percent of all Americans are classified as such. I derive the percentage of adherents and the percentage of Protestants among adherents from  data on the nineteen counties that compose the First District. There are a couple of counties that are split between the First and a neighboring district. I have used data from these entire counties in my calculations. The county and U.S. data are available on the American Religion Data Archive Web site. . On the environment, he opposed the Kyoto treaty and more stringent automobile fuel efficiency standards, while favoring drilling in the Arctic Reserve. On taxes, he has favored repealing estate taxes and the marriage penalty but opposed President Bush’s major tax-cut proposals. . The Americans for Democratic Action score for the average Democrat in these years was . The average Republican scored a . . Though the title was good publicity. In , Sandlin received more media attention for his pepper-eating prowess than for any Washington activity other than his confrontational role in the corporate scandal hearing. . Pelosi scoffed at the notion, calling it “insulting” (Houston Chronicle ). It was noted that Sandlin had supported Pelosi in her previous campaign for party whip before he had started dating her daughter. He also received his “promotions” after the relationship had ended. . Sandlin considered running in the northern half of the district, but the presence of party-switching incumbent Ralph Hall in that district led him to file in the southern half, where his home county is (Cillizza ). . In fact, about one-third of Gregg County and a piece of Longview were previously in the district but were removed with the  redistricting. CHAPTER 2. GIVE THEM HE--

. The district is actually  percent black in population,  percent black in voting-age population. . I was not present for this incident; it was related to me by the candidate. . Inevitably, the highway job also has created a few vulnerabilities for Shows. During the campaign, the Republicans are delighted when a sign reading “Thanks for the confusion, Ronnie,” shows up at a troublesome Brookhaven intersection where Shows had taken down a traffic signal. The opportunity to make enemies as well as friends exists in

191

192

Notes to Pages 55 – 85

.

. .

.

. .

.

.

.

. .

such a job. On the whole, his highway experience is a great benefit, and that is completely clear to the candidate. Hosemann was not the only candidate to be undermined by such campaign tactics. Three other primary candidates were victims, including Art Rhodes, Mike Parker’s chief of staff, who was the subject of a fake American Civil Liberties Union mailer that praised him for opposing school prayer. U.S. Post Office inspectors happened to seize the ACLU “Alerts,” and the case was investigated by the FBI. That the mailers had the same font type as other Davis mailers brought the candidate a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office (Natchez Democrat ). Documentation for all the charges appears on the screen. It is not the first threat Shows has issued through the press. Two weeks earlier, Shows noted that while Hosemann did not have a legislative record to attack, he was still vulnerable: “I guarantee I could go to his law firm and find all kinds of suits that have been filed against his law firm” (Herndon ). The Clarion-Ledger reporters, amused by the campaign’s prudishness, chose to run the quote verbatim and frequently whisper, “Give ’em Hee, Deebert” to each other at Hosemann events. Documentation of the accusation appears on the screen. It was not just in this district. The black turnout surge was notable throughout the South in this election. Some of this increase was due to issues particular to the various states (black candidates on state ballots, inflammatory Republican tactics), but Clinton’s problems and the Republican pursuit of his problems certainly resonated with blacks throughout the South. Black votes were up  percent from  in South Carolina. More than twice as many blacks voted in Georgia in  as in the  Democratic debacle (Sack ). An important part of the equation is that heavily black parts of the South have long contained whites who are more receptive to racially conservative messages (Wright ; Glaser )—and, recently, to the Republicans who deliver them (Giles and Hertz ). This is consistent with Republican campaign efforts across the country. As one analyst has put it, “[T]he Republican [black] contact rate is almost low enough to be accidental” (Wielhouwer , ). Sometimes the Justice Department can act much more quickly. A redistricting plan from North Carolina, for instance, was approved in two weeks. Mississippi heard back from the Justice Department on the fiftieth day, but without approval (Rosenbaum ). Instead, the Justice Department asked a series of detailed questions relating to whether a state court judge had the authority to create the redistricting plan and whether her participation was an electoral change that might negatively affect minorities. Though the connection of the change to the protection of minorities is not particularly clear, the Supreme Court ruled that these questions were “neither frivolous nor unwarranted,” no matter what the ultimate decision on the issue (Branch v. Smith ). The federal panel’s map did not have to be precleared by the Justice Department. Scalia’s participation in the case seemed irregular to the state Democratic Party. They ar-

Notes to Pages 86 –124

gued that Scalia, a personal friend of the Pickering family who swore Chip Pickering into Congress, should have recused himself (Edsall ). . Pickering gave back these donations. CHAPTER 3. THE SLOW TALKER

. Goode’s stand in the controversy also has helped him in another way. He has long been popular with Republican Party elites, some of whom have attempted to coax him over to their party, and the Republicans have never recruited a challenger to him. Brokering the deal has made it even less likely that Republican officials—especially those in the legislature—will criticize him. Even George Allen, the popular Republican governor and a key supporter of Landrith, has refrained from criticizing the Democrat while campaigning with his Republican friend. At one campaign visit in the district, he is quoted as saying, “I’m here for George Landrith and I know we can count on him. I don’t want to say anything against Virgil. Virgil and I have always gotten along, and I hope we’ll continue to get along because we need his presence in the state Senate” (McFadden c). . That he won over  percent of the mobilized vote in his home base was especially impressive to his opponents. “Look at those voters. There are massive numbers of Republicans in his home district. But even if George could have handed out $ bills, he wouldn’t have won votes in Virgil’s home base,” admitted Landrith’s campaign manager some time after the election. . Jack Flynt’s district is now split into several new districts. In  and , Flynt was challenged and almost defeated by Newt Gingrich, who won the seat in  when Flynt retired. CHAPTER 4. POLIS, POLIS

. He is less subtle when Taylor is not sitting next to him. Describing his opponent’s lack of credentials to a Charlotte reporter, Hayes said, “[He’s] a lawyer who’s never held public office and who moved here from Arkansas” (Gomlak b). . And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the countenance divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among those dark Satanic mills? (William Blake, “Jerusalem”) . In a little controversy in the newspaper, Hayes called textile workers “lintheads,” more in a sense of solidarity than as a derogatory term. Given that he is descended from the mill owners, some did not take kindly to it, and Taylor is trying to capitalize on the comment. Of course, it was a Taylor supporter who wrote the offended letter to the editor.

193

194

Notes to Pages 126 – 48

. That Hefner announced his retirement after Hayes’s declaration and only one month before the filing deadline supports this speculation. In the media, Hefner denied this. . In the end, Hayes spent $,, on the race, Taylor $, (Chapman and Leonig ). . I have changed the name of the couple here. . Taylor served as a military historian in Vietnam. His Web site and campaign material show him on a barge in the Mekong River, but because he is sensitive to charges that he might be inflating his military record, he frequently mentions that he did “not carry a rifle in the rice paddies.” While some Democrats in the district wish he would drop that line, he does try to counterbalance it by telling people that he organized a river convoy operation, received four medals, and worked in the jungles of Vietnam, well within range of the Viet Cong. . There have been a few good moments on the money trail, like the time a Lockheed Martin lobbyist saw Taylor’s Vietnam picture in his campaign literature, figured out that they had both been part of the same convoy on the Mekong River, and organized a fundraiser with defense firms. Overall, this has been a great struggle, however. . This exchange is not a direct transcript of the conversation that Mike Taylor had with Dr. Frank Howard, psychiatrist and radio talk-show host. Rather, it includes selected portions of that conversation. “Your Hour with Dr. Howard” actually was several hours in length, and Mike Taylor was the only guest on the show on this occasion. Dr. Howard interviewed Taylor over the phone. Gaps in the conversation are marked in the text. . “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke :). . That handwriting saying to Belshazzar, the King of the Chaldians, “God has numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. Thou are weighted in the balances and found wanting” (Daniel :–). . Union County experienced  percent growth between  and , according to U.S. Census data. . Outside the South, the percentage of suburbanites remained steady in the low s across the decades. Note that the General Social Survey does not break down its respondents by state, only by Census region, and the South in these calculations thus includes a few nonConfederate states. . It is worth noting that there already was some Republican tradition in the western part of North Carolina and that many of the counties in this district have a history of Republican strength, including Mike Taylor’s own Stanly County. Some of this goes back to the distribution of the races in the state, some to western resentment at the disproportionate distribution of resources to the East (Key ,  –). Either way, the Republican strength here is more than a function of metropolitan growth and goes back decades. . A categorization they borrow from Elezar . . Some of the conservative purists in his party have not fully appreciated the participation of their fellow Republicans in the full-fledged pursuit of pork. Responding to Hayes’s delivery of the Stanly County disaster-staging area, South Carolina representative Mark

Notes to Pages 149 –68

Sanford warned, “I would simply say to Robin: Be careful. You don’t want to get that hook in your mouth” (Associated Press ). Hayes generally has ignored this advice. . Hayes has not only defended the interests of the district but has taken the lead on symbolic issues that might resonate in the district, and indeed the state. Defending the honor of North Carolina, Hayes spoke for the state in a “controversy” over the birthright of American flight. When an Ohio Republican introduced a resolution to declare Ohio the “birthplace of American aviation,” Hayes was one of three members to vote against it ( voted in favor, the other no’s belonged to North Carolina Republicans Howard Coble and Cass Ballenger). With the state’s honor at stake, Hayes also went on national television to make the case: “Dayton is a great spot and Mike Turner is a wonderful congressman . . . but we just couldn’t allow him to rewrite history” (Rulon ). CHAPTER 5. KRISPY KREMED

. The I- corridor running from the Research Triangle in North Carolina through Charlotte and Greenville-Spartanburg to Atlanta is really the spine of the New South. . Bob Jones University—or BJU, as it is often referred to—is a fundamentalist Christian college perhaps known best to the outside world as the place that lost federal funding because of its ban on interracial dating. In recent decades, Bob Jones himself—Bob Jones III, the third president of the school—has encouraged his community to become involved in politics, and the area around the school has become a power base for many politicians in the area (Ehrenhalt ,  –). . DeMint opposes abortion except in the case of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Fair accepts it only if the life of the mother is at stake. . A fifth in the field, a one-issue antiabortion candidate, won about  percent of the vote. Altogether, close to , votes were cast in the first primary for the five candidates, about four times as many votes as were cast in the Democratic primary. . The two candidates split the vote in the small counties (Union and parts of Laurens) that compose the rest of the district. . A third candidate in the Democratic race also changed his party affiliation to run in the primary. McCuen was clearly the stronger of the two and did have some values and issue positions that could be classified as Democratic. . The contrast between the Democratic primary and the Republican was stark. Just over , Democrats participated in the election, while almost , Republicans cast ballots. . This is reflected in the results. Republicans won only  of , congressional elections in the South between  and , and most of these victories were in Appalachia. Outside those six traditionally Republican districts, Republicans won but  of , congressional elections. They did not win any southern Senate elections in this period (Black and Black , ). . The machines and more disciplined Democratic Party operations also may have been related to the presence of more viable Republican parties in Virginia and Tennessee, and vice versa. . There are some twists on this. Occasionally, the second-place candidate would drop out.

195

196

Notes to Pages 171 – 75

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Some states called the election at that point, while others had provisions for the next most-supported candidate to move into the runoff. Only Tennessee and Virginia run primaries without a runoff provision, and these states never adopted the runoff in the first place. Virginia mostly nominates by convention, though in some parts of the state, they do hold no-runoff primaries. Louisiana uses an open primary system, sponsoring a runoff between the top two vote-getters, no matter their party. The data for this analysis and those below come from the America Votes series (Scammon and McGillivray –; Scammon, McGillivray, and Cook –) and from various issues of Congressional Quarterly. A more technical and detailed version of the analyses here and below can be found in Glaser (). The result also matches that found in the s and s by Bullock and Johnson (). In their analysis,  percent of first primary runners-up won the ultimate nomination (). The dichotomous dependent variable (general-election success) necessitates the use of logistic regression. Included in the logistic regression equation are two variables to capture a candidate’s route to the general. One variable captures the effect of coming from behind, the other the effect of winning the first round outright. The base category thus includes all candidates who won both the first and second rounds. Additionally, there are controls for presidential party strength in the district (to capture any partisan advantage a candidate might have), whether or not the candidate is from the out-party in a midterm year or running with a president on the ticket in presidential election years (presidential ebb and flow), comparative general election campaign expenditures (the candidate’s share of expenditures in the general), and whether the candidate is running for the House or the Senate—all variables that have an independent effect on generalelection success. The “first difference” is the difference in the probability of winning the general election for one category of candidates versus another, while setting all of the control variables at their mean in the logistic regression equation (see Lupia ). Bullock and Johnson () find a smaller effect in their earlier study. Come-frombehind Democratic candidates won the general election  percent of the time, while first-round Democratic leaders won the general  percent of the time (). This difference is compressed by a “ceiling effect” caused by the overwhelming percentage of Democrats who won elections in the s and early s. In keeping with the literature, the number of candidates includes only those who win at least  percent of the vote. Controls include three variables capturing whether or not the election takes place in a state that restricts access to the ballot via fees, signature requirements, or minimum convention delegate support, a variable distinguishing House and Senate nominations, a variable tapping whether or not the election is taking place in the outgoing incumbent’s party, and a variable measuring the performance of a party’s presidential candidate in the last presidential election, a stronger performance making for a more attractive opportunity. Additionally, there is a variable distinguishing nominations in years where a candidate has a presidential advantage or disadvantage. This “presidential ebb and flow” dummy variable is coded one if the election is in an incumbent presi-

Notes to Pages 175 –83

dent’s party in a reelection year or if the election is in the out-party in a midterm year. Historically, these are good years for a party’s candidates and should generate more competition in the race. . Several of these variables have a significant effect on candidate emergence. Where a party’s presidential candidate has run well, more candidates do, in fact, run in that primary. Senate races draw fewer candidates than House races, the greater cost of running statewide and greater likelihood of a high-intensity contest against quality candidates (Krasno ) likely scaring off some potential candidates. State rules requiring the payment of a fee to get on the ballot do not appear to discourage candidates, but signature requirements do, and convention delegate requirements most definitely do. Not surprisingly, more candidates emerge in the party of the outgoing representative or senator. Surprisingly, the “presidential ebb and flow” variable does not achieve significance. . Because of the rules in North Carolina, where a  percent plurality is all that is required to avoid a runoff, the percentage of southern primaries actually yielding an outright winner in the first round is not  percent but rather  percent. . Also elected were Roger Wicker (Mississippi) in , Edward Schrock (Virginia) in , and Max Burns (Georgia) in . The other two freshman presidents were Kenny Hulshof (Missouri) in  and George Radinovich (California). The entering class of the th Congress was so large that a new president—Radinovich—was elected for the second session. . DeMint was the only one to change his vote. Among the four was Robin Hayes. Fasttrack opponents objected strongly to the delaying tactic, and Bill Thomas, the bill’s lead sponsor, objected to the DeMint deal, both to no avail. . Not all southern Republicans are so principled. Many—even, notably, the “revolutionaries” of the class of —have sought out their shares of pork in various transportation and public works bills over the years. Former Texas senator Phil Gramm justifies it as simple opportunism: “I’d vote against building a cheese factory on the moon. But if we decided to do it, I would want a Texas firm to do the engineering. I would want to use milk from Texas cows” (Wildavsky ). CONCLUSION

. For instance, Arkansas senator William Fulbright, generally a liberal, could not stray from the southern positions on race and labor, reliant as he was on the cotton planters of eastern Arkansas for votes. These planters would “deliver” farmhand votes to Fulbright, though it is not certain whether the farmhands actually cast their own votes. . Here is yet another interesting continuity. The vigorous negative campaigns of many contemporary southern politicians (and of the grand strategists of contemporary Republicanism) have their progenitors in the Old South Democratic primary campaigns— spirited, often personalistic affairs that compensated for the fact that the candidates were so close on the issues (Key ). . In one illustrative radio commercial playing in North Carolina during the election, a friendly, raspy Clintonesque character, “Bubba,” fearing he will soon be out of work, applies for a job as a used-car salesman and asks if used-car salesmen get interns.

197

References

American Religion Data Archive Web site. http://www.thearda.com/arda.usp ?Show=Home. Ammerman, Joseph. a. “Shows Pledges Social Security Defense.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September . ———. b. “Candidates’ Differences Clear during Debate.” Jackson ClarionLedger, October . Anderson, James E., Richard W. Murray, and Edward L. Farley. . Texas Politics: An Introduction. th ed. New York: Harper and Row. Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Shanto Iyengar. . Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate. New York: Free Press. Associated Press. . “Politics Smokin’ in Tobaccoland.” October . ———. . “Hayes Catches Heat over Pork-Barrel Project.” July . ———. . “House Backs Display of ‘In God We Trust’ Motto.” July . Baker, Donald P. . “Late in the Fight, Goode Comes Out Swinging.” Washington Post, June . Baker, Peter. . “‘Virgil’s in the Catbird Seat,’ Says GOP Official.” Washington Post, November . ———. . “Maverick Va. Democrat Lands in Senate Spotlight.” Washington Post, January . Bandy, Lee. . “Fair Set Up Own Defeat.” Columbia State, June .

199

200

References

Barone, Michael, Richard E. Cohen, and Grant Ujifusa. . The Almanac of American Politics, . Washington, D.C.: National Journal. Barone, Michael, Grant Ujifusa, and Richard E. Cohen. . The Almanac of American Politics, . Washington, D.C.: National Journal. Bensel, Richard F., and M. Elizabeth Sanders. . “The Impact of the Voting Rights Act on Southern Welfare Systems.” In Do Elections Matter? ed. Benjamin Ginsburg and Alan Stone, –. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe. Berry, William D., and Bradley C. Canon. . “Explaining the Competitiveness of Gubernatorial Primaries.” Journal of Politics : –. Black, Chris. . “Frank Pushes for Sharing of NATO Costs.” Boston Globe, July . Black, Earl. . “The Newest Southern Politics.” Journal of Politics :–. Black, Earl, and Merle Black. . Politics and Society in the South. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. . The Rise of Southern Republicans. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Branch v. Smith. .  F. Supp. d . Branson, Reed. . “Tuck Redistricting Riles Fellow Democrats.” Memphis Commercial Appeal, October . Brinkley, Alan. . Liberalism and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bullock, Charles S., III. . “Regional Realignment from an Officeholding Perspective.” Journal of Politics : –. Bullock, Charles S., III, and Loch K. Johnson. . Runoff Elections in the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Burnham, Walter Dean. . “The Changing Shape of the American Political Universe.” American Political Science Review :–. Canon, Bradley C. . “Factionalism in the South: A Test of Theory and a Revisitation of V. O. Key,” American Journal of Political Science : –. Carmines, Edward G., and James A. Stimson. . Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Carter, Jimmy. . Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Age. New York: Times Books. Cassidy, J. P. . “Democrats’ Retreat Mantra: Help the Little Guy.” The Hill, January . Cawley, Jon. . “Goode’s GOP Visit Raises Little Open Criticism.” Roanoke Times and World News, December . ———. . “Goode’s Defection Becomes Complete, Ex-Democrat Joins Republican Caucus.” Roanoke Times and World News, January . Chapman, Dan, and Carol Leonig. . “Sticker Shock: Bill for  Campaign Is In.” Charlotte Observer, December . Cillizza, Chris. . “GOP’s Texas Makeover Well Under Way.” Roll Call, January . Cohen, Dov, Brian F. Bowdle, Richard E. Nisbett, and Norbert Schwarz. . “Insult, Aggression, and the Southern Culture of Honor: An ‘Experimental Ethnography.’” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology : – . Congressional Quarterly Weekly. . “Washington Focus: Vote Studies,” –. Cook Political Report. . “NC-,” September .

References

Cowden, Jonathan A. . “Southernization of the Nation and Nationalization of the South: Racial Conservatism, Social Welfare, and White Partisans in the United States,  –.” British Journal of Political Science :– . Cramer, Richard Ben. . What It Takes. New York: Vintage Books. Cummings, Jeanne. . “Mississippi Election Campaign Indicates Scandal in White House Will Have Little, if Any, Impact.” Wall Street Journal, September . Davidson, Chandler. . Race and Class in Texas Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Davis, James Allan, and Tom W. Smith. –. General Social Surveys. NORC ed. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center. Earle, Geoff. . “Hayes’ Wealth a Big Obstacle for North Carolina’s Taylor.” CQ Daily Monitor, September . Edsall, Thomas B. . “Supreme Court Rejects Redistricting Appeal; Democrats Accuse Judges, Justice Dept. of Favoritism in Mississippi Conflict.” Washington Post, March . Ehrenhalt, Alan. . The United States of Ambition. New York: Times Books. Eilperin, Juliet. . “Will Lawmaker Pay for Trade Vote?” Washington Post, December . Elezar, Daniel J. . American Federalism. nd ed. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. Elliott, Jack, Jr. . “Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tuck Switches to Republican Party.” Associated Press, December . Espo, David. . “Congress Votes $ Million to See if Tobacco Can Cure Cancer.” Associated Press, June . ———. . “Last-Minute Concessions Gave President Bush a Victory in Trade Bill Fight.” Associated Press, December . Federal Election Commission. . http://www.fec.gov//states/va_.htm. Fenno, Richard F., Jr. . Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Boston: Little, Brown. ———. . Watching Politicians: Essays on Participant Observation. Berkeley, Calif.: IGS Press. ———. . Senators on the Campaign Trail: The Politics of Representation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ———. . Congress at the Grassroots: Representational Change in the South, –. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Foster, Richard. a. “Gingrich Supports Landrith; Goode Speaks at Gretna Barbecue.” Roanoke Times, July . ———. b. “Profiles of the Candidates—George Landrith.” Roanoke Times, October . Foster, Richard, and Todd Jackson. . “Mr. Jones’ Night Out: One Undecided Voter Spends an Evening with the th District Congressional Candidates.” Roanoke Times, September . Frago, Charles. . “Uwharrie Funds Clear Budget Hurdle; National Forest Funding Emerges Intact from Budget Negotiations and Awaits Presidential Signature.” Greensboro News and Record, November . Gaddie, Ronald Keith, and Charles S. Bullock, III. . Elections to Open Seats in the U.S. House: Where the Action Is. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield. Giles, Michael W., and Kaenan Hertz. . “Racial Threat and Partisan Identification.” American Political Science Review :–.

201

202

References

Gimpel, James G. . Separate Destinations: Migration, Immigration, and the Politics of Places. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Gizzi, John. . “Mississippi Congressional Candidate Delbert Hosemann Says He Did Not Know He Was Listed as Veep of Abortion Clinic.” Human Events, June . Glaser, James M. . “Back to the Black Belt: Racial Environment and White Racial Attitudes in the South.” Journal of Politics :– . ———. . Race, Campaign Politics, and the Realignment in the South. New Haven: Yale University Press. ———. . “The Primary Runoff as a Remnant of the Old South.” Unpublished paper. Glaser, James M., and Martin Gilens. . “Interregional Migration and Political Resocialization: A Study of Racial Attitudes under Pressure.” Public Opinion Quarterly :– . Gomlak, Norman. a. “His Mission Is Simple: To Satisfy Basic Human Needs.” Charlotte Observer, September . ———. b. “Vietnam Revisited: Taylor Raises Issue in th District.” Charlotte Observer, October . Goodwyn, Lawrence. . The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Graham, Jerry. a. “Merritt, State GOP Officials Defend Ad Critical of Sandlin.” Longview News-Journal, October . ———. b. “About Face: GOP to Remove Newspaper Reference from Ad.” Longview News-Journal, October . ———. c. “Replacement Was Promised, but Ad Still Aired for  Days.” Longview News-Journal, October . Greenberg, Joseph, and Kenneth Shepsle. . “The Effect of Electoral Rewards in Multiparty Competition with Entry.” American Political Science Review : –. Greenville News. . “Palmetto Politics.” October . ———. . “Jim DeMint for Congress.” June . Haag, Stefan D., Rex C. Peebles, and Gary A. Keith. . Texas Politics and Government: Ideas, Institutions, and Policies. New York: Longman. Haynie, Kerry L. . African American Legislators in the American States. New York: Columbia University Press. Heard, Alexander. . A Two-Party South? Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Herndon, Ernest. . “Hosemann Blasts Shows’ Record.” McComb Enterprise Journal, October . Herrnson, Paul S., and Kelly D. Patterson. . “Agenda Setting and Campaign Advertising in Congressional Elections.” In Crowded Airwaves: Campaign Advertising in Elections, ed. James A. Thurber, Candice J. Nelson, and David A. Dulio,  –. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Hofstadter, Richard. . The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Holland, Judy. . “Ban on Same-Sex Marriages Sought: Constitutional Amendment Draws Fire.” San Antonio Express and News, May . Hoover, Dan. a. “Fair Gets Behind -Term Limit.” Greenville News, April . ———. b. “Fair Now Says He Wasn’t Misquoted in Story.” Greenville News, April .

References

———. c. “Republican Quintet Mostly in Harmony.” Greenville News, May . ———. d. “DeMint Calls Fair a ‘Career Politician.’” Greenville News, June . ———. e. “Fair, DeMint Runoff: Two GOPs in a Pod.” Greenville News, June . ———. f. “Fair’s Loss Called Blow to Religious Right’s Clout.” Greenville News, June . Hosemann press release. . “Ronnie Shows Comes Out in Favor of Gun Control.” Houston Chronicle. . “Sandlin Hopes Coin Sale Brings Ex-Enron Staff Change for Better.” August . ———. . “Texas Lawmaker Tight with Pelosi Gets Coveted Seat.” March . Hsu, Spencer S. . “Va. GOP Sees Opportunity in Democrats’ Rage at Rep. Goode.” Washington Post, December . ———. . “House GOP Sees Virginia’s Goode as Potential Party Recruit.” Washington Post, August . Jackson Advocate. . Editorial cartoon. October  –November . Jackson, Kenneth. . Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. Jackson, Todd, and Richard Foster. a. “This Race Is in Turn No. .” Roanoke Times, May . ———. b. “th Race Contrast in Style; Goode’s Pencils His Trademark.” Roanoke Times, October . ———. c. “Down-Home Style Serves Goode Well.” Roanoke Times, November . Jacobson, Gary C. . “The  Elections in Perspective.” Political Science Quarterly :–. Juersivich, Heidi. . “GOP Again Tries to Get Goode to Join Party, Report Says.” Roanoke Times and World News, August . Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Patrick J. Kenney. . The Spectacle of U.S. Senate Campaigns. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Katznelson, Ira, Kim Geiger, and Daniel Kryder. . “Limiting Liberalism: The Southern Veto in Congress, –.” Political Science Quarterly : – . Kazin, Michael. . The Populist Persuasion: An American History. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Key, V. O. . Southern Politics in State and Nation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. King, Wayne. . “Texans Pick a Congressman Today.” New York Times, August . Klein, Gil. . “Hanging On by a Threat.” Hickory Daily Record, April . Knox, Michael. . “City Breaks Ground on Runway Extension.” Kannapolis Independent Tribune, March . Krasno, Jonathan S. . Challengers, Competition, and Reelection: Comparing Senate and House Elections. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kuklinski, James H., Michael D. Cobb, and Martin Gilens. . “Racial Attitudes and the ‘New South.’” Journal of Politics : – . Lamis, Alexander P. . The Two-Party South. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. . “Southern Politics in the s.” In Southern Politics in the s, ed. Alexander P. Lamis, –. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

203

204

References

Lau, Richard R., and Lee Sigelman. . “Effectiveness of Negative Political Advertising.” In Crowded Airwaves: Campaign Advertising in Elections, ed. James A. Thurber, Candice J. Nelson, and David A. Dulio,  –. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Layman, Geoffrey. . The Great Divide: Religion and Cultural Conflict in American Party Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Lublin, David. . The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lupia, Arthur. . “Shortcuts versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections.” American Political Science Review :–. Malone, Bill C. . Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers: Southern Culture and the Roots of Country Music. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Martinsville Bulletin. . “‘Slow Talkers for Goode’ Showing Their Allegiances on Their Bumpers.” October . McFadden, Laura B. a. “Goode’s Style All His Own.” Danville Register and Bee, October . ———. b. “Candidates Flail Away in Forum.” Danville Bee and Register, October . ———. c. “Landrith Admits Error; Goode Calls for Apology.” Danville Register and Bee, October . McPherson, Kevin. a. “Merritt, Ratliff Toss Verbal Darts at Sandlin.” Texarkana Gazette, October . ———. b. “Defense Becomes Bone of Contention for Candidates.” Texarkana Gazette, October . ———. c. “Candidate Refutes Ad’s Allegations.” Texarkana Gazette, October . Mendelberg, Tali. . The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mercurio, John. . “Hollings Lets Loose to Keep Seat: Inglis Decries Incumbent’s Style in Close Contest.” Roll Call, October . ———. . “Between the Lines.” Roll Call, December . Minor, Bill. . “Shows Shows Promise.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, September . Nadeau, Richard, and Harold W. Stanley. . “Class Polarization in Partisanship among Native Southern Whites, –.” American Journal of Political Science : –. Nakashima, Ellen. . “U.S. House Race in Va. Might Make History.” Washington Post, October . NASCAR press release. . “NASCAR Responds to FDA Tobacco Regulations.” Natchez Democrat. . “Davis, Hosemann Admit Race Hasn’t Always Been ‘Positive.’” June . National Taxpayers Union press release. . “House Members’ Office Spending Jumps % in Single Year, National Taxpayer Group’s Study Finds.” April . New York Times. . “New Bill Affects Aliens: Texan Has Plan to Make Illegal Hiring of Those Here Unlawfully.” February . Nowell, Paul. . “Demolition Helps Heal Memory of One of North Carolina’s Worst Workplace Disasters.” Durham Herald-Sun, September . Oldfield, Duane M. . The Right and the Righteous: The Christian Right Confronts the Republican Party. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.

References

Oliver, J. Eric. . Democracy in Suburbia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ott, Carol J. . “Wright Patman of Texas, Dean of the House . . . and Voice of the Common Man, Dies at .” Congressional Quarterly, March . Parker, Frank R. . Black Votes Count: Political Empowerment in Mississippi after . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Perlmutt, David. . “Hayes Holds onto Seat after Hostile Campaign.” Charlotte Observer, November . Peters, Ronald M., Jr. . “Southern Party Leaders in the Post-reform House.” In Eye of the Storm: The South and Congress in an Era of Change, ed. John C. Kuzenski, Laurence W. Moreland, and Robert P. Steed,  – . Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Petrocik, John R. . “Realignment: New Party Coalitions and the Nationalization of the South.” Journal of Politics :–. Pianin, Eric, and Juliet Eilperin. . “Congress Approves Farm Aid Package; Third Agriculture Bailout in  Years Set at $. Billion.” Washington Post, May . Popkin, Samuel L. . The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rae, Nicol C. . “The Conscience of the Revolution: Southern Influence in the House Republican ‘Class of .’” In Eye of the Storm: The South and Congress in an Era of Change, ed. John C. Kuzenski, Laurence W. Moreland, and Robert P. Steed, – . Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Reed, John Shelton. . “Southerners.” In Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Thernstrom, – . Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ———. . The Enduring South: Subcultural Persistence in Mass Society. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ———. . “Precious Memories.” In Whistling Dixie: Dispatches from the South, ed. John Shelton Reed, – . Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Reeves, Keith. . Voting Hopes or Fears? White Voters, Black Candidates, and Racial Politics in America. New York: Oxford University Press. Rollcall.com. . “th District.” http:/www.rollcall.com/states/nc.html. Rosenbaum, David. . “Supreme Court Takes Up Redistricting Case from Mississippi.” New York Times, December . Rozell, Mark J., and Clyde Wilcox. . “Virginia: Prophet in Waiting?” In Prayers in the Precinct: The Christian Right in the  Elections, ed. John C. Green, Mark J. Rozell, and Clyde Wilcox, –. Washington: Georgetown University Press. Rulon, Malia. . “Lawmakers Spar over Which State Is Birthplace of Aviation.” Associated Press, June . Sack, Kevin. . “Black Turnout in South Led to Surge by Democrats.” New York Times, November . Saunders, Debra J. . “Impeachment Still the Elephant in the Big Room.” San Francisco Chronicle, August . Scammon, Richard M., and Alice V. McGillivray, eds. –. America Votes. Vols. –. Washington, D.C.: Elections Research Center. Scammon, Richard M., Alice V. McGillivray, and Rhodes Cook, eds. –. America Votes. Vols. –. Washington, D.C.: Elections Research Center.

205

206

References

Scher, Richard K. . Politics in the New South: Republicanism, Race, and Leadership in the Twentieth Century. nd ed. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe. Schuman, Howard, Charlotte Steeh, Lawrence Bobo, and Maria Krysan. . Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Siano, Joseph. . “Tobacco Law May Stunt Racing Growth.” New York Times, August . Sinyard, Sheila. . “Forum Turns into Debate.” Cass County Citizens Journal, October . Smith, Steven S., and Chrisopher J. Deering. . Committees in Congress. nd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Stanley, Harold W. . “Southern Partisan Changes: Dealignment, Realignment, or Both.” Journal of Politics : – . Stanley, Harold W., and Richard G. Niemi. . Vital Statistics on American Politics, – . Washington, D.C.: CQ Press. Steed, Robert P., and Laurence W. Moreland, eds. . The  Presidential Election in the South: Partisanship and Southern Party Systems in the st Century. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Stern, Christopher. . “WorldCom CEO Says Firm May Face Bankruptcy: Sidgmore Cites Dwindling Cash Reserves as Company Seeks New Funding.” Washington Post, July . Swain, Carol M. . Black Faces, Black Interests. Rev. ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Tate, Katherine. . From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Taylor, Paul. . “To Bring Voters Back, States Innovate.” Washington Post, July . Turner, James. . “Understanding the Populists.” Journal of American History :–. U.S. Bureau of the Census. . Statistical Abstract of the United States: . th ed. Washington, D.C. Virginia Election Data System. www.lib.virginia.edu/socsci/elections/va.elections/var.html. Wagster, Emily. a. “Shows, Hosemann, Take Shots at Ad.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, October . ———. b. “Democratic, GOP Leaders Out in Force to Support Candidates.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, October . ———. c. “th District Candidates Do Battle over Crime.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, October . ———. d. “Liar, Liar: Hosemann, Shows Argue over Truth of TV Ads.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, October . ———. e. “Candidates Take Opposite Paths with Party Brass.” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, November . ———. . “Tuck Dismisses Rumors of Possible Jump to GOP.” Associated Press, November . ———. . “Republicans Give Several Maps to Federal Redistricting Panel.” Associated Press, January . Washington Post. . “Drink and Pack Heat.” February . ———. . “The New House.” November .

References

Weilhouwer, Peter W. . “Releasing the Fetters: Parties and the Mobilization of the African-American Electorate.” Journal of Politics : –. Westlye, Mark C. . Senate Elections and Campaign Intensity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. White, Theodore Harold. . The Making of the President, . New York: Atheneum. Wildavsky, Ben. . “Pigging Out.” National Journal, April . Willis, Derek. . “Democrats Feel Blue Dogs’ Bite.” Congressional Quarterly Weekly, . Wilson, Charles Reagan. . Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Michael G. Hagen. . “Republican Prospects: Southern Comfort.” Public Opinion :–. Woodward, C. Vann. . The Strange Career of Jim Crow. London: Oxford University Press. Wright, Gavin. . “The Economic Revolution in the American South.” Economic Perspectives :–. Wright, Stephen G., and William H. Riker. . “Plurality and Runoff Systems and Numbers of Candidates.” Public Choice :–.

207

Index

abortion, , , , , , ,  n. advertisements: campaign literature, , , – ; candidate control of, ; direct mail, , ; false information in, , ,  n.; on foreign trade policies, ; message development/timing of, –, ; negative advertisements, –, –,  n.; of nonissues, –; perception of insurmountable lead, , ; populist themes in, – ; on radio, , , , ; resentment themes in, –, , , , ; responses to,  –,  – ,  n.; on television, –, –; visuals in, , , –; Web sites and, . See also campaign strategy; media coverage affirmative action, , ,  Aldrich, Gary,  Allen, George,  –, ,  n. American Conservative Union (ACU), , , 

Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), , , ,  Armey, Dick,  Ashcroft, John,  Bauer, Gary, ,  Bentsen, Lloyd,  Berry, William D.,  – Beyer, Don, ,  Black, Earl: on blacks in the Democratic Party, ; on conservative Democrats’ strategies,  –; on federal funding, – ; on moderation in political positions, ; on regional pride, ; on Republican Party in the South, ; on urbanization in the South, –, –  Black, Merle: on blacks in the Democratic Party, ; on conservative Democrats’ strategies, – ; on federal funding, – ; on moderation in political po209

210

Index

Black, Merle (continued ) sitions, ; on regional pride, ; on Republican Party in the South, ; on urbanization in the South, –, –  blacks: in biracial coalitions, , , , –t, ; black churches, – ,  –, , , – ; black media, ,  –; civil rights movement, ; Clinton presidency and,  –, , , ,  –; Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, ; Democratic Party and, , , , –, – , , ; election turnout of, , –,  n.; health care issues, , ; Jim Crow, , , , , , , ; out-migration of, ; political culture and, , , , ; political representation for, ; racial issues as motivation for, ; redistricting and, ,  – ; Republican Party and, , , , – , , ,  n.; southern heritage, ; Voting Rights Act (), , . See also individual candidates Blue Dogs, ,  – , , ,  Blunt, Roy,  Bob Jones University, ,  n. Boll Weevils,  Bowles, Erskine,  Brady Bill. See guns Branch v. Smith,  Bristol, Ralph, ,  Buchanan, Pat,  Bullock, Charles S., III,  n.,  n. Burnham, Walter Dean, , – Bush, George W., ,  Bush v. Gore,  Byrd Machine/Byrd, Harry, , , ,  campaign finances. See fund raising campaign psychology, , ; bomb threat, , ; campaign handicappers in, ,

, , , ; candidate responses,  –,  –,  n.; debating skills,  – ; ideological differences and, , , –, –, ,  n.; managing pressures of the campaign, – ; motivation to be a candidate, –, ,  n.; political party imbalance, ; responses to newspaper criticism, – . See also fund raising campaign staff, ; community liaisons, ; consultants, , ; debate strategies of, – ; decisions of, ,  n.; on foreign aid, – ; on Goode victory,  n.; media consultants, , ,  n.; party switching, ; political experience of, , , , , ,  campaign strategy: attribution error, – ; biracial coalitions as, , , – , –, ; black church visits, – ,  – , , , – ; conservatism as, –; discrediting opponent in, , ,  n.; elusiveness as, –, – , , ; football compared to, ; friends and neighbors strategy of, , – (f ); image development in, –, –, ,  n.; issue selection, ; letters to the editor,  n.; literature and memorabilia as, , , , – , – ; local support as, –,  –, – , – (f ), , –, ; motivational speeches, – ; narrowcasting in, ; NASCAR sponsorships,  –; negative advertisements as, –, ,  – , , , ,  n.,  n.; party switching as, ; perception of insurmountable lead, , , , ; person-to-person campaigns, ; polls, , , ; press conferences,  –, – ; in primary elections,  – ,  –; racial balance as,  –; resentment themes in, –, , , , ; “Slow Talkers for Virgil Goode” as,

Index

– ; talk radio,  –, –, , . See also advertisements; fund raising Canon, Bradley C.,  – Carter, Jimmy, , –  Chapman, Jim, ; Congressional service of, ; on federal government, ;  Senate race,  –; on Wright Patman, ; Max Sandlin endorsed by, –; Texarkana, Arkansas and, ; on trade policies,  Choate, Mary,  Christian, Wayne,  Christian Right/Christian Coalition: candidates’ relations with, , , , , ,  –; politicization of,  – ,  Clinton, Bill, , ; black voters and,  –, , , ,  – ; ClintonLewinsky scandal, , – , , , ; image of, –, , ,  –, ; impeachment proceedings, –, , ; juvenile offenders program, ; presidential campaign of, , , ; Republican attacks on, , –, –; tobacco industry, , , , ,  Clinton, Hillary, , , , , ,  Clyborne, Howell, Jr.,  come-from-behind victories, –t,  nn., , ,  Communism, , ,  Congressional Quarterly Weekly,  conservatism: American Conservative Union (ACU), , , ; Boll Weevils, ; campaign strategy,  –; capitulation to racism by elites, ; Christian Coalition, , , , , ,  –; Democratic Party, ,  – , , –; fund raising, ; the media and, ; unskilled labor,  Contract with America, ,  The Cook Political Report, , , ,  Cramer, Richard Ben, 

Danville, VA, – , – , t Davidson, Chandler,  Davis, Phil,  debates: DeMint-Reese,  – ; farming in, ; fora for, –; preparation for, – ; press coverage of, , ; public interest in, ; question-andanswer session, ; televised debates, ,  –, –  Deering, Christopher J.,  defense issues,  –,  DeLay, Tom,  DeMint, Jim: on abortion, ,  n.; campaign issues of, , , , , , –; campaign style of, , ; on career politicians, ; Christian Coalition, ; in Congress, –; fund raising, , , , ; Bob Inglis and, , , , ; personality of, , –; personal networks of, – ; primary elections,  – ,  Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), ,  Democratic Leadership Council,  Democratic Party: biracial coalitions of, , , ,  –, ; blacks and, , , ,  –, – , ; Blue Dogs, ,  – , , , ; Boll Weevils, ; conservatism in, ,  –, , , , , , –, ; demographic changes and, ; Barney Frank in, , , ; Virgil Goode’s influence in, ,  n.; local identity of candidates,  – ,  –,  –; loyalty to, , , , ; minority voters and,  – ;  Virginia state legislature elections,  –; party realignment in the South and, – ,  n.; party switching and, , , , , , – , , ; person-to-person style,  – ,  – ,  –; redistricting, , ,  – ,  –, , ; runoff primaries, , – , – (t), 

211

212

Index

Democratic Party (continued ) n.,  n.; southern political culture and, – ,  –,  n.; strategic advantage of,  –; suburban constituencies, , ; university students, ; voter hostility towards, ; voting records of congressmen, . See also Clinton, Bill; Goode, Virgil; Payne, L. F.; Reese, Glenn; Sandlin, Max; Shows, Ronnie; Taylor, Mike demographics: exurbanization, ; generational continuity, ; migration, , – , , , ; population decrease in the South, – ; of southern blacks, ; stability of,  –; voting patterns and, t, f. See also redistricting Dole, Bob, , , , , ,  Dunn, Charles, ,  East Texas: black voters in, , –, ; campaign issues in,  –, , , – , ; Democratic Party dominance in,  –; elections in, – ,  n.; fund raising in, ,  n.; negative campaigning in,  –; political culture of, ,  –,  – ; Populist Movement in,  – , –, , ; presidential campaigns in, , ; primary campaigns in, ,  nn., ; Protestant churches in,  –,  n.; redistricting in, , – ,  n.; Republican growth in,  – ; student political activism in,  –; union relations in, –. See also Chapman, Jim; Merritt, Ed; Sandlin, Max Ebbers, Bernard,  education: debates on, ; funding for, , , , , , – ; labor market and, ; racist textbooks, ; school prayer, ,  n.; sex education, ; Smart Start, 

Edwards, John,  Eggleston, Carl,  Ehrenhalt, Alan,  factionalism, –,  n. Fair, Mike: campaign style of, –; as career politician, ; Christian Coalition endorsements,  –, , ; conservatism of, –, ,  n.; on education, ; press coverage of, ; primary elections,  –, ; Ralph Reed and, , , ; on term limits, ,  Falwell, Jerry,  Faulkner, William,  Federal Election Commission,  Fenno, Richard, , – Fletcher, Ernest,  Flynt, Jack, – Forbes, Michael,  Fordice, Pat,  foreign allies/defense payments, ,  Frank, Barney, , ,  Friedeman, Matt,  – Frost, Martin,  fund raising: Bronze Elephant (Spartanburg, SC), ,  – ; campaign credibility and, – , , ; candidates’ conservative views and, ; Clinton scandals’ impact on, ; PACs, , , , , ; perception of insurmountable lead, , ; personal wealth and, , , ,  –, , ,  n.,  n.; timing of, –, ; voter turnout and, , . See also advertisements Gaddie, Ronald Keith,  n. General Social Survey, –,  n. Gephardt, Richard, , , ,  Gimpel, James,  Gingrich, Newt, , , , , –,  Goode, Virgil, ; on affirmative action,

Index

; biracial support of,  –t; campaign style of, – , – , –, , –; Christian Coalition and, , ; Bill Clinton and, , , – ; conservatism of, , , , , –; elusiveness of, –, – , , ; on Equal Rights Amendment, ; friends and neighbors strategy of, –f; fund raising for,  –; gun lobby and, , , ; local networks of, – , , , ; party switching of, ,  –; percentage of votes received by, , f; personality of,  – , , , – , , – ; political background of, , , , ,  n.; pro-life position of, , ; redistricting, , ; “Slow Talkers for Virgil Goode” slogan, – ; tobacco industry, ,  –, ,  Goodwyn, Lawrence, ,  Gore, Al,  – Grady, Henry,  Gramm, Phil, , , , ,  n. Griffin, Gary Lynn, , –, , – ,  guns: Democrats and, , , , ; gun control, , , , ; gun lobby and, , , , ; National Rifle Association, , , , ,  Hall, Ralph,  Hall, Sam,  Harden, Alice,  Hargett, Edd, , ,  n. Hatfield, Mark,  Hayes, Robin: campaign style of, , , – , ,  –; community network of, , ; congressional voting record of, –, ,  n.; debates, –; in Democratic areas, –; district represented by, – ,  n.; on education, , ; endorsements for, ; family of, ;

gubernatorial race of, , , ; gun owners and, ; immigration restrictions, ; localism, , –; on military preparedness, ; perception of insurmountable lead of, , , ; radio announcement of, –; social conservatism, ; on Social Security, ; textile industry and, ,  – ,  n.; wealth of, , –, , , ,  n. Haynie, Kerry,  health care issues, , , –; black voters and, , ; Medicare, , , ,  Heard, Alexander,  Hefner, Bill, , , , , ,  Heston, Charlton, – Hispanic voters, , , –  Hodges, Jim,  Hofstadter, Richard, –  Holliman, Frank,  Hollings, Ernest, ,  homosexuality, , – , , , ,  Hoover, Dan, , ,  – Hosemann, Delbert: background of, ,  – , ; black voters and, , , – , ; campaign style of, , ,  –,  –; conservatism of, ; defeat of,  –, ; on drugs and crime, – , ; on education, ; endorsements of,  – , , –, – ; family of, , , , ; on Gary Lynn Griffin case, , –, , – ; gun control, , ; on health care, , ; national orientation of, –; negative advertising and, ,  – , , , ,  n.; pro-life position of, ; on radio, , , –; on Social Security, , – ; tactics against, , ,  n.; on taxation,  –; televised debates,  – , –  Howard, Frank, – ,  n. Howard, Jo Anne, , ,  n.

213

214

Index

Hoyer, Steny, ,  Hunt, Jim, , ,  Inglis, Bob, , , ,  Jackson, Kenneth,  Jim Crow, , , , , , ,  Johnson, Harvey, , , ,  Johnson, Loch K.,  n. Kazin, Michael, , ,  Kennedy, Ted, ,  Key, V. O.: on localism,  –, ; on the one-party system, – , –; on party factionalism,  – , ,  n.; on political reform, , ; prediction for the South, ; on racial balance in southern politics, ,  – ; on run-off elections,  Kirksey, Henry, ,  labor: employment, , , , ,  – ; textile industry, ,  – ,  n.; trade policies, , –, , , ; unions,  –, , ; unskilled labor in the South, ; wages, – , , ,  Lamis, Alexander,  Landrith, George: Bill Clinton and, , –, –; congressional committee aspirations of, ; fund raising for,  – , –; Virgil Goode as different from, , , – , – , ,  n.; local ties of, – , ; on Medicare reform, ; NASCAR strategy of,  –; national vision of,  – ; Oliver North and, , ,  – ; L. F. Payne campaign and,  – , , , – ; personal values of, , ,  –; political endorsements for,  –, , ; Republican support for,  – , ; on Social Security reform, ; tobacco industry, – Largent, Steve, 

Layman, Geoffrey, –  Lewis, John,  liberalism, , , , , , ,  Linder, John, ,  logistic regression, ,  n. Lott, Trent, , , ,  Mauro, Gary,  McCuen, Bill,  McDonald, Judy,  media coverage: of abortion issues, ; accuracy of, , ; in black media, ,  –; campaign literature, , – ; of debates, ,  –, , ; editorials on advertisements, ; endorsements by,  –,  – , –; of fund raising events, , ; of Virgil Goode, ; Hosemann-Shows issue positions, ; on Landrith’s national vision, ; media consultants, ; newspapers and, –, , –, , , , – ; placement of campaign reports, ; press conferences,  –,  –; of Max Sandlin, , ; talk radio, – , – , , ; of Mike Taylor,  Medicare, , , ,  Mendelberg, Tali,  Merritt, Ed: advertisements against Sandlin, –; campaign issues of,  –, , , ; campaign style of,  –, , – , ; Christian beliefs of, ; conservatism of, , ; credibility of, ; fund raising for, ; polls,  middle class, growth of,  military: foreign allies/defense payments, , ; presence in the South, , – , , ; service in armed forces, , , , ,  nn.,  Mississippi: black voters in, , , , , – , –, –, ; education in, , , ; Gary Lynn Griffin murder case in, , – , , – ; gun control issues in, – , ; health care issues in, , ; minimum wages as

Index

issue in, , , ; negative campaigning in, ,  – , , , ,  – ,  n.; racial balance in, –; redistricting in, ,  –,  n.; Social Security issues in, , ; taxation issues in, ,  – ; televised debates in,  –, – ; voter activism in, ; voter turnout in, , –,  n.. See also Hosemann, Delbert; Shows, Ronnie Morales, Victor, ,  Moral Majority,  Morrison, Toni,  National Republican Congressional Committee,  National Rifle Association, , , ,  Nixon, Drew,  North, Oliver, , , ,  – North Carolina: blacks voters in, – , ; campaign advertising in, –; Democratic areas of, – ; education issues in, , , ; fund raising in, –, , ,  n.; health care issues in, , –; Bill Hefner in, , , , , , ; local identity of candidates in, –, ; military community in, , – ; redistricting in,  –; rural and suburban districts in,  –; suburban development in Eighth District, , . See also Hayes, Robin; Taylor, Mike Oliver, J. Eric, ,  one-party system,  open-seat elections, ,  n. Operation Big Vote,  PACs, , , , ,  Parker, Mike, ,  participant-observation research methods, –, ,  n. Patman, Wright, 

Patterson, Liz,  Payne, L. F.: Bill Clinton and, , , – ; congressional voting record, ; election support for, f; Virgil Goode compared to, ; George Landrith campaign and, –, , ,  –; liberalism of, ; as lieutenant governor candidate, , ; on taxes, ,  – Pelosi, Nancy, ,  n. Pickering, Chip, , ,  – political culture: authority symbols in, ; blacks and, , , , ; Democratic Party and, – , – ,  n.; of East Texas, , –, – ; as entrepreneurial, , ; generational differences, –; old and new in, , – ; one-party system in, – , –; regional pride, –; television and, , – ; urbanization in the South and, –, –  Politics and Society in the South (Black and Black),  polls, , ,  Populism/Populist Movement: advertising terms and, – ; on banking institutions, ; Democratic Party and, , ; in East Texas, – , – , , ; election reform and, ; farmers, , – ; Jim Crow and, , , ; on migration, – ; in  elections, ; Populist Left, , – “pork” distribution, , – , , , ,  n. Powell, Colin,  press conferences,  – ,  – Price, David,  primary elections: finances of,  n.; non-primary vote, activation of, ; runoff primaries, , – , – (t),  n.,  n.; second-choice strategy and,  – ; strategies for, – , – ; two-tiered primary, , ,  n.

215

216

Index

pro-life cause, , ,  Protestant churches,  –,  n. public works initiatives, ,  n. Rae, Nicol,  Reagan, Ronald, , ,  –,  redistricting: Democratic Party, , ; elections impacted by, , –, , ; Justice Department preclearance, ,  n.; Republican Party and, , , ,  – , , ,  n.; special interest groups and, ; Supreme Court on, , ,  nn., ;  Census and, , ,  n. Reed, John Shelton, –, , –  Reed, Ralph, , ,  Reese, Glenn: campaign funding, , ; on Bill Clinton, , , ; family of, , ; on the federal government,  – ; on gun ownership, , ; motivation of,  –; personal networks of, – , ; press coverage of, , –; relationship with constituency, – , ; on tax policies, , ; on urban development in Spartanburg,  Reform Party,  Republican Party: blacks and, , , , –, , ,  n.; campaign funding by, ; Christian conservatives and,  – ,  –; Bill Clinton and, , , – , –; dominance of,  – , ; early-voting period, ; factionalism in, ; fund raising for,  – ,  –; gays and, ; military personnel and, ; national vision of,  –,  – , ; in one-party system, – ; party realignment in the South,  –,  nn., ; party switching and, , , , –, , ; racial issues in, –,  n.; redistricting, , , , – , , ; the South and, – ,  –; subur-

banization, ,  n.; university students and, ; white voters and, , ,  n.. See also DeMint, Jim; Hayes, Robin; Hosemann, Delbert; Landrith, George; Merritt, Ed; primary elections research methods, – Richards, Ann,  Richards, Meredith,  Riker, William H.,  Riley, Dick,  Ritchie, Jim,  Robb, Charles,  Roll Call, ,  Rozell, Mark J.,  ruralism, –, , , –  Sabato, Larry, ,  Sandlin, Max: black voters’ relations with,  – , ; Business and Professional Women’s Organization (BPW), ; campaign issues of,  –,  – , – , , ,  n.; Jim Chapman’s endorsement of, –; in Congress, – ,  n.; liberal stances of, , , , ,  n.; negative campaign against, –; personality of, , , ; personal networks of, ,  –; political background of, , , – ,  n.; polls, ; on populism, , ; primary campaign of, ,  nn., ; redistricting and, , – ,  n.; rural whites and, ; Texarkana, Arkansas, –; unions, relations with,  –; wealth of, ,  n. Scalia, Antonin, ,  n. Schlafly, Phyllis, ,  school prayer, ,  n. Severt, Jim,  Shows, Ronnie: advertisements and,  – , , , –,  n.; black support for, ,  – , –, ; campaign style of, –, , –; on Bill

Index

Clinton, ; congressional leadership roles for, ; conservatism of,  –,  – ; Democratic Party loyalty of, , , ; on education, , ; endorsements of, , , , ; Gary Lynn Griffin murder case, , –, , – , ; gun control (Brady Bill), – ; local orientation of, – , ; media coverage of,  – , , , – ; on minimum wages, , , ; negative advertising and, , , , ,  –; performance ratings of,  –; on prison sentences, , , , ; public works initiatives, ,  n.; redistricting and, ,  – ; on Social Security, , ; on taxation, ; televised debates,  – , – ; victory of, –; white voters and, , ,  Slagle, Bob, , ,  Smiley, Tavis,  Smith, George,  Smith, Steven S.,  social issues: abortion, , , , , , ,  n.; affirmative action, , , ; drugs and crime, – , ; environmental issues, , , , ,  n.; Equal Rights Amendment, ; school prayer, ,  n.. See also education; guns Social Security, , – , , , , ,  South Carolina: abortion issue in, ,  n.; campaign funding in, , , , , ; Christian Coalition in,  – , , ; conservative candidates in, – , ,  n.; education issues in, ; party imbalance in,  –,  n.; primary elections in, – , ; Republican dominance in, ; runoff primaries in, , –, –; voter turnout,  – ,  nn., . See also DeMint, Jim; Fair, Mike; Reese, Glenn

Southern Christian Leadership Conference,  Spartanburg, SC,  – , – ,  – ,  Spratt, John,  suburbanization, , , –,  n. Supreme Court, , ,  nn.,  switching political parties: congressional committee position,  –; to Democratic Party, ,  n.; Democratic Party loyalty and, , ; parties’ reactions to, ; redistricting and, , ; Republican Party, , , , –,  – talk radio,  –, – , ,  Tauscher, Ellen,  taxes/tax reform,  –, – ,  –, , , ,  Taylor, Gene,  Taylor, Mike: background of, , , ; blacks and, –, ; Clinton presidency and, – , , , ,  – ; community events, ; debates, –; defeat of, – ; education and, , , ; endorsements for, , , , ; family of, , , ; fund raising,  –, ,  n.; on health care, , – ; media coverage of, ,  – ; as newcomer, ; perception of Hayes’s insurmountable lead, , ; redistricting and, – , ; religious beliefs of, , , ; on Social Security, , ; Vietnam military service of, , , , ,  nn.,  television, , –, , , ,  –, –  term limits, , ,  Texarkana, ,  – ,  n. Texas. See East Texas textile industry, , – ,  n. Thompson, Bennie, , 

217

218

Index

Thurmond, Strom,  tobacco industry, ,  –, , ,  trade policies, , , , ,  Tuck, Amy, ,  unions,  –, ,  urbanization, , , –,  Vietnam War, , , , ,  nn.,  Virginia: Allen as governor of,  – , ,  n.; Byrd Machine in, , , ; Equal Rights Amendment in, ; fund raising in,  – ,  –; local identity, importance of, –; party switching in, ,  –; state legislature elections in,  – , ,  n.; taxes as campaign issue in, – ; tobacco industry, ,  –, , , . See also Goode, Virgil; Landrith, George voters: activism of,  –, ; biracial coalitions of, , , , ; candidate success and, ,  nn., ; community liaisons, ; education and, , ; foreign trade and, ; generational differences, –; social class, ; turnout of, , ,  – , ,  n.. See also blacks; Democratic Party; primary elections; Republican Party Voting Rights Act (), , 

Wallace, George,  Wallace, Rusty,  – Walsh, Jim,  Warner, John,  Warner, Mark,  – Waters, Maxine,  Ways and Means Committee appointment, ,  White, Bill,  White, Theodore,  whites, ; biracial coalitions and, , , , ; class interests of, , ; Democratic Party, ; Goode, Virgil, , ; political culture and, , ; Republican Party and, –, ; runoff elections and,  Wilcox, Clyde,  Wilder, Douglas, , t Wood, George “Tex,”  Woodward, C. Vann,  Wright, Gavin,  Wright, Stephen G.,  Wynn, Barry,  yellow-dog Democrats, ,  Young Life ministry, – Zogby poll, 