How to win tough elections in the South: 10 strategies

How close did the Democrats come to retaking the House of Representatives in '96? No less than 10 Republicans won with less than 50 percent of the vote. And a handful more won by fewer than 4,000 votes.

But as close as those races were, we believe one of the main reasons Dick Gephardt is not Speaker today is because our party squandered opportunities in the Deep South. Look inside the numbers. At the same time that Democrats were defeating Republican incumbents and winning hotly contested o p e n seats across New England, the Rust Belt and the West Coast, we were losing Democratic-held open seats across the South. Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas all saw retiring Democrats replaced by very conservative Republican freshmen.

And, at the same time we were surrendering these open seats - many, like Alabama 3 and 4, in districts that had not elected a Republican anytime this century - we were squandering opportunities to defeat vulnerable GOP incumbents such as Congs. Saxby Chambliss (GA-8), Charlie Norwood (GA-10) and Tom Coburn (OK-2). In fact, while GOP freshmen and sophomores in the North were losing their seats, every southern Republican incumbent outside of North Carolina was winning re-election. Democrats even lost an incumbent in Kentucky's third district (Mike Ward).

So what can we as Democrats do to stop the hemorrhaging, and win back these key southern seats? - a question that becomes all the more important with redistricting only three years away and more seats certain to move from northeastern states like Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania to southern states like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Texas.

We believe the answers can be found in the lessons of two open seat winners .we worked with in '96: Congs. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) and Allen Boyd (D-FL). They won by running a different kind of campaign than most Democratic candidates in '96 and they did it in GOP-target districts. They provide real clues for Democrats running in '98:

1. Make It Personal Personal qualities and characteristics of the candidate are vitally important. Honesty, integrity, fairness, community involvement and a commitment to keeping one's promises are all qualities in which southern voters place tremendous stock; they should be stressed in the campaign's literature and early media. Mcintyre, for instance, connected with voters more for his background as a Sunday school teacher, volunteer public school teacher and Little League coach than for any single issue position.

2. Start Positive - And Stay There As Long As Possible. Too many media consultants are too quick to move into a comparative, or, worse, a negative phase of campaigning. Don't rush it. Folks in the South want to feel like they know candidates as people; that means introducing the family - their spouses, their children even their parents. It also means talking about the things southern voters care about - work, church, school and family. And it means candidates talking about themselves and what they will do with the job they're seeking long before mentioning an opponent.

Both Mcintyre and Boyd ran six positive ads before mentioning their GOP opponents. Those positive ads proved tremendously valuable in inoculating against the inevitable Republican attacks at the end of the campaign. They also gave our candidates more credibility, so that when it came time to launch an attack, our charges were more believable.

3. Emphasize Shared Values. At the Campaigns & Elections' national training conference last year, a prominent Democratic media consultant declared in front of a full audience that "bio spots don't work anymore."

Actually, bad bio spots don't work anymore. A good bio spot focuses not on the candidate's resume per se, but instead stresses values and introduces the candidate in a way that makes him or her seem less like a politician and more like a neighbor.

Boyd's first ad talked about how he'd "get up at five in the morning to go out and work on the farm." Mike Mcintyre spoke about "teaching our children respect and responsibility." Voters connected with the values of both.

4. Keep the Race Local - And Leave Newt Alone! For years, Republican consultants would try to nationalize congressional races, especially in the South, while we Democrats repeatedly won by keeping the focus local.

Somehow, too many Democrats have become too eager to wrap themselves in the national mantle - witness the number of spots attacking Newt Gingrich (even in Alabama!) in '96 - and embrace a nationalized message. Both Mcintyre and Boyd were quick to distance themselves from the national party and assert their independence where appropriate (tobacco, gays in the military, prayer in school, support for gun owners, etc.). And neither candidate talked much about Newt Gingrich.

5. Avoid Bitter Primaries. Open seats generally bring with them contested Democratic primaries, and despite the best efforts of party leaders they are usually hotly contested. Obviously, if it is possible to avoid a primary challenge altogether, your hand is strengthened. But in the event that you do face a serious primary or runoff opponent, try at all cost to stay positive. That does not mean you should ignore attacks or jeopardize victory; it simply means that you should make every effort to win without attacking.

Primary wounds are often slow to heal, and Democrat-on-Democrat attacks frequently resurface in the general election.

Both Mcintyre and Boyd won their nominations after tough primary and runoff battles, but both stayed positive throughout the intraparty contest and - because of that - were quickly able to unite the party and avoid limping into November with high negatives.

6.Raise Republican Money First. Every fundraiser advises candidates to raise money early. Obviously, that's important; Boyd, in particular, used early fundraising efforts to keep potential opponents out of the race. But what both Boyd and Mcintyre did most effectively was to raise money from traditionally Republican sources - such as the Realtors, Home Builders, Life Underwriters and Bell South - and hit up their Democratic base later.

They may not have gotten as much union money as other candidates, but they more than compensated with business money.

This strategy had the added advantage of choking off opposition fundraising as well, because every dollar they got from the Realtors was both an extra dollar for them and one less dollar for their opponent.

Both Boyd and Mcintyre did so well raising money among corporate and business PACs that they were highlighted in Businessweek magazine.

7. Mute Partisanship. In small cities and towns across the South, people from all walks of life commonly help each other out. They don't ask whether someone is a Democrat or Republican; they see such partisanship as part of the problem in Washington.

Both Mcintyre and Boyd understood instinctively that politics has an inherently divisive language, so they talked less about politics and partisanship and more about what the community could do to improve our quality of life. And they spoke in plain, everyday language without getting dragged into the mire of politicalspeak and process disputes.

8. Reach Out to the Christian Right. Those in our party who are quick to denounce in public forums the "Christian Right" do a disservice to our southern candidates. Many evangelical and fundamentalist voters are still self-identifying Democrats (or Independents), and could be persuaded to vote Democratic if the candidate is sufficiently conservative.

In both the Mcintyre and Boyd races, pollster Alan Secrest detected in the data a relatively large proportion of undecided or persuadable voters among evangelicals and fundamentalists, and at his suggestion both candidates used their conservatism and their faith to appeal to this key voting bloc.

In McIntyre's race, for instance, we bought radio ads on four Christian stations across the district, and employed biblical references in our TV ads. We may not have won the Christian Right vote, but we made real inroads and held down our opponent's margin.

9. Take Money Off the Table. Republicans know how to run one kind of campaign - "Candidate X is a tax and spend liberal." Southern Democrats can deflect this attack by stressing their fiscal conservatism and even turn the issue around to make the Republican appear the more extreme.

There seems to be a belief that it is somehow "not Democratic" to support a balanced budget amendment, spending cuts or tax reductions. This is nonsense. Southern Democrats can earn big points with voters by showing them that they believe the issue is not whether we balance the budget, but how.

McIntyre and Boyd, for example, campaigned for a balanced budget amendment and welfare reform that would cut wasteful spending. They further advocated using that savings to increase investments in schools and health care - and honor our commitments to our veterans and seniors. They even used that pledge to cement the allegiances of the more progressive voters in the district, particularly younger women, without alienating voters on the right.

10. Use Humor. Everybody says it, but no one really does it. Humor works, especially when tied to a negative or comparative attack.

Southern voters, more so than most, have grown wary of negative ads and are more inclined to believe that what Peter says about Paul tells you as much about Peter as it does about Paul.

Hard negative ads with grainy photos, damning newspaper headlines and eerie background music often turn voters off (and, in a primary, potentially depress turnout). Humor, in contrast, is an effective way to make the case against an opponent with it backfiring.

In Boyd's race, for example, we produced a response ad featuring our candidate's 85-year old mother washing dishes in the family kitchen telling voters that if Boyd's opponent were her son, she "just might wash his mouth out with soap." Voters laughed, and after 1,000 gross rating points of TV time featuring Republican negatives, Boyd went up six points in our tracking polls!

The bottom line is simple: Democratic candidates (and their consultants) still can win in the Deep South - they just have to work a harder. That means employing a positive, values-laden message that appeals to more conservative, traditional, religious and family-oriented voters. It also means espousing - even embracing - some views that are at odds with the national party platform. It does not, however, mandate a total retreat from core Democratic principles.

Indeed, the real challenge is to take those core principles - support for working families, concern for seniors, protecting children, etc. - and frame them in the context of Southern values and the Southern lifestyle.

By championing the district's values and the region's lifestyle, and in the process adhering to our ten basic rules, Southern Democrats stand a good chance of retaining or winning back traditionally Democratic districts trending Republican.

Of course, if a candidate does not want to follow our ten-step process, they do have an alternative: move to Massachusetts.

Bob Doyle is president of Sutter's Mill Fund Raising and Strategy, a Democratic fundraising firm; David Heller is president of Main Street Communications, a Democratic media consulting firm that specializes in electing "Blue Dog" Democrats.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
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