JACKSON - Whenever you talk about the Mississippi Democratic Party, you have to think of what humorist Will Rogers once said, that he didn't belong to an organized political party, he was a Democrat.
Now even Mississippi Democrats have come to realize that in the 21st century political arena, driven by money and organization, they face a well-oiled Republican state machinery.
So state Democrats are launching a campaign to reinvigorate the state party under new leadership.
This time, however, Mississippi Democrats seem serious about getting reorganized to check the Republican apparatus from winning more public offices.
Over the past weekend, Democrats tapped former U.S. Rep. Wayne Dowdy, a well-known force in state politics, to take over the party chairmanship and generate sorely needed financial support for Democratic candidates, especially for the Legislature.
They are aware, too, that Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, in whacking 65,000 needy and working-poor Mississippians off state Medicaid rolls, has handed them the best ammunition they've had in years to rally the troops.
Barbour, the guy who won the governor's job with supposedly unmatched political smarts, made a colossal blunder by pushing through legislation that left thousands of recipients - many of whom voted for him - panicky over losing their present medicine benefits under Medicare.
His administration has failed to convince those cut from Medicaid that they would keep similar medical benefits under his plan. It switches them in September into the federally run Medicare program. They would otherwise be forced to go there in January 2006 if the new Bush administration Medicare reform law is not revised by Congress.
Protest rallies at the Capitol and around the state, together with news coverage devoted to the Medicaid cutoff, have focused attention of Mississippians that Democratic state lawmakers, especially the House, opposed the Medicaid cuts while Republicans backed them.
"This has done more than anything to emphasize the image of what Democrats have always stood for," said Dowdy as he took over the party chairmanship from Rickey Cole.
"We are the party which looks out for the needs of people, the little people, and Mississippians should be reminded of our core values," the 60-year-old Dowdy declared.
Four elderly couples recently visited him in his McComb law office distraught over losing their Medicare drugs, he said. "All of them voted for Barbour, and now they wish they had their vote back," Dowdy added.
In sharp contrast to the racial split that plagued state Democratic Executive Committee decisions in years past, the transfer of the party leadership from one white chairman to another was accomplished last weekend by a unanimous vote of the biracial committee.
Significantly, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the historic challenge brought by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic delegation to unseat the all-white regular Mississippi Democratic delegation at the national Democratic convention in Atlantic City.
Included in the Mississippi Freedom delegation were some of the most noted civil rights activists of that time, notably Robert Moses and the late Fannie Lou Hamer. Her testimony before the credentials committee so stirred the convention that the challengers were awarded two at-large seats and the Regulars were required to sign a mild loyalty pledge.
The state's Regulars, thereupon, were ordered by Gov. Paul Johnson to come home. (Five, however, did remain.) Meantime, the Freedom group rejected the offer of two seats but made themselves quite visible as convention guests.
The Mississippi challenge triggered such a furor throughout the convention that an alarmed President Lyndon Johnson ordered FBI agents and Secret Service men to surround the area reserved for the mostly vacant Mississippi seats when he appeared before the convention.
What resulted from the challenge was a historic shift in Southern Democratic politics. When it became indelibly clear that neither Mississippi nor other Dixie states could continue excluding blacks from participating in state party decisions, many white Democrats began defecting to the Republican Party.
Dowdy sees the Democratic contingent in the Mississippi House as the key building block in erecting a new and stronger state Democratic Party.
Before House Speaker Billy McCoy recently became ill, Dowdy said he had met with him and got his blessing to make the state party more proactive in legislative affairs and put party resources behind sending Democrats to the Legislature. He also was endorsed by members of the Legislative Black Caucus.
"While we've slept, the Republicans have been electing more lawmakers, as they did recently in the special election to replace Rep. Bobby Moody of Louisville," he said.
Dowdy had formerly been McComb's mayor and was elected to four terms in the U.S. House from Mississippi's old Fourth District before he collided in 1988 with then-U.S. Rep. Trent Lott for John Stennis' Senate seat.
While carrying more counties than Lott, and winning in three of the five congressional districts, Dowdy narrowly lost the election as Lott pulled a heavy vote in three predominately Republican urban counties.
Dowdy says he will draw no salary as Democratic chairman and will utilize his statewide political contacts to build state Democratic coffers.
He has no illusions that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry will be favored to carry Mississippi in November, but he strongly believes the addition of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards to the ticket will strengthen Kerry's chances.
"We just might surprise some people in Mississippi in November," he added.
