Wedge issues divide state, national Democrats

By By Sid Salter / syndicated columnist
August 4, 2004
Cleaning out the notebook from the Democratic National Convention in Boston:
The Mississippi Democratic Party state delegation departed Boston for home last week on a political high. Strong speeches by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton along with par acceptance speech by vice presidential nominee Sen. John Edwards and a tough, well-delivered speech by presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry on the final night of the convention bolstered their spirits.
And why not? For a week, the delegates lived in a culture that really doesn't like Republicans in general and who specifically despise the Bush administration.
It's difficult for most Mississippians who live in what has for most of the last 40 years been a solid majority Republican "red" state that gave President Bush his highest percentage state win in the nation in 2000 to fathom the real, visceral hatred that is targeted against him in the Democratic majority "blue" states.
It wasn't merely the Democratic delegates and politicians who were excoriating the Bush/Cheney ticket in Boston it was working people on the streets.
Wedge issues
But when the Democratic delegates returned to Mississippi, they faced the same gauntlet of wedge issues that divide Mississippians with party allegiances abortion, gay marriage, God, guns and taxes.
As noted in a previous column, the state and national party platforms differ on the issue. The state party platform reads: "The Mississippi Democratic Party is the party of inclusion and we believe in the sanctity of life."
But the national party platform reads: "We stand proudly for a woman's right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay."
Separating Kerry from that thorny issue particularly given the contradictions of his own Catholic faith will prove a hard road in Mississippi Gay marriage will be a critical issue in Mississippi's presidential politics despite the fact that the Mississippi Legislature has already outlawed such unions.
Guns? The state party platform is succinct: "We believe in the affirmation of the Second Amendment as an individual right." But the national party platform promises an assault weapons ban and restrictions on purchases of weapons at guns shows.
That language will bring heavy fire from the National Rifle Association in that state where gun ownership is considered the norm for the majority of the state's residents.
Those issues will be contrasted against Democratic criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and on terror.
War protests
There were a significant number of war protestors in Boston the self-proclaimed "largest college town in the world." But expect far more, far more emotional war protests in New York in early September when the Republican convention gets in full gear.
The knock on Mississippi Democrats for years has been a lack of money and a lack of party organization and discipline. The emergence of Republican Gov. Haley Barbour as a strong governor who seeks and gets party discipline from a state Senate controlled by Republican convert Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck has the potential to energize the Democrats.
Most state Democratic delegates I spoke with in Boston believe that new state chairman and former U.S. Rep. Wayne Dowdy can cure both the money ills and the organizational lapses.
Dowdy believes it, too.
Sid Salter is Perspective editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. Contact him at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com.