JACKSON - Not so many years ago in Mississippi politics, winning the Democratic primary in most races meant winning the election. No more.
With the exceptions of presidential and congressional politics, general election showdowns between Democratic and Republican nominees were more exercises in civics than contests with meaning in which either candidate had a legitimate shot at winning. No more.
In 2003, contested races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and state treasurer feature viable contests between strong nominees from both parties. A significant number of legislative races feature equally strong partisan contests.
If race dominated all other issues in state politics for more than a century after the Civil War, the decline of racial division has given way to partisan, philosophical and socioeconomic divisions - Democrat vs. Republican, liberal vs. conservative, affluent vs. the poor - that no longer fit into reliably convenient niches.
As was evidenced in the 2002 3rd District congressional campaign, Mississippi candidates are increasingly forced to measure their comfort level in the political "skin" of their national party identification. The notion of "Mississippi Democrats" being any different than national Democrats - and vice versa for the GOP - has fallen by the wayside. Candidates up and down the ticket in the 2003 elections are being forced by their opponents to carry the water of their national parties.
In the governor's race, issues like the national economy, homeland security, the North American Free Trade Agreement, gun control and abortion are all legitimate issues that both Democratic incumbent Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and Republican challenger Haley Barbour will exploit.
In attack ads, Musgrove is likely to be "morphed" into Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi or linked to national Democratic positions on abortion, gun control and social program excesses. At the same time, Barbour will be linked to Big Tobacco, pharmaceutical companies and foreign governments.
Much of the debate in the Musgrove-Barbour race and those races down the ticket will center on traditional party differences in taxing and spending. In no race will gut national party differences be exploited more than in the race between newly Republican incumbent Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck and Democratic challenger Barbara Blackmon.
Tuck has experienced a disastrous series of gaffes, stumbles and bumbles since her conversion to the GOP - including revelations about separate secret loans from a kingpin trial lawyer and a convicted felon linked to public corruption, fraud and bribery. Still, Tuck remains the odds-on favorite to win her race because Blackmon is vulnerable to attack as a national Democrat in a state that doesn't treat national Democrats particularly well at the polls.
President Bush will visit the state Sept. 12 to headline a fund-raiser for Barbour. The $1,000-per-plate luncheon was originally booked for a large downtown Jackson hotel, but brisk business has apparently kicked the event to an even larger public venue.
Mississippians literally stood in line for half a day to see Bush speak at Madison Central High School in 2002 prior to a fund-raiser for U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering. It's unlikely that his popularity has diminished much over the last year.
But with an uncertain economy looming and the threat of a quagmire in Iraq, Mississippi Democrats are not totally unarmed in a debate of national politics.
