Prometheus 6

Not that I discount the possibility, but I suggest maintaining a healthy skepticism. 

In Dixie, Signs of a Rising Biracial Politics
By JACK BASS

Across the South, Barack Obama’s smashing primary victory in North Carolina last week reflects a new reality — a half-century of rising Republican red tide has crested, with signs of receding.

A week ago yesterday, Democrats won a special Congressional election in a Louisiana district held by Republicans since 1974. That outcome might well be replicated Tuesday in Mississippi, where a biracial Democratic coalition is optimistic in the second round of another special Congressional election.

Roger Wicker, a Republican picked to fill the Senate seat vacated by Trent Lott’s retirement in December, had easily held the Congressional seat since 1994. Yet former Gov. William Winter, a Democrat, says he has found “a lot of optimism among Democrats” for their candidate, Travis Childers, who received 49.4 percent of the vote — 3 percentage points ahead of his Republican opponent — three weeks ago, in a first round of voting in which the Republican secretary of state left the names of defeated primary candidates on the ballot.

In response to Mr. Obama’s energizing of black Southern voters, enlightened self-interest may well convince many of the region’s undecided superdelegates to endorse him. Over the last two years, there have been little-noticed Democratic gains in Congressional and state legislative elections across the South, as the solid black Democratic base has been joined by whites disenchanted with the Bush administration. New concern about the economy may be adding momentum.

The Republican tide surged across the region in the 1990s, bringing large gains in state legislatures and a vault from 39 members of the House of Representatives before the 1992 elections to a 71-53 majority in 2000. But in 2006 and 2007, Democrats in the 11 states of the Confederacy gained six Congressional seats — a Senate seat in Virginia and five House seats — and added 30 state legislators.

Florida’s battered Democrats gained two House seats in 2006 and five in the Statehouse. Arkansas elected a Democratic governor to join the party’s two United States senators and the majorities of both legislative houses. Democrats control both legislative houses in Mississippi as well.

The story is most dramatic in Virginia, which in 1976 was the only state in the South that failed to back Jimmy Carter for president. Republicans still hold a majority in the House of Delegates and an 8-3 dominance in seats in United States House. But with their second Democratic governor in a row, the party in control of the State Senate, and the likelihood of Mark Warner being elected their second Democratic senator, Virginians may have reached a Democratic tipping point.

The trends suggest a region in transformation, with dynamic economic growth, an expanded black middle class, the arrival of millions of white migrants, the return of scores of thousands of African-American expatriates, and an emerging native white generation with little or no memory of racial segregation. The result has been greater tolerance, an expanded pool of talent, and growing openness to new ideas.