Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, was elected governor of Mississippi by a margin of 53 percent against 45 percent for incumbent Gov. Ronald Musgrove, a Democrat. In Kentucky, the Republican candidate Ernest Fletcher won even more decisively with 55 percent of the vote against 45 percent for his Democratic opponent, state attorney general A.B. Chandler. This was the most weighty victory for the Republicans, since the Democrats have held the governor’s mansion in Kentucky for 32 years.

Republican party officials in the south were quick to point out that the victories follow the party’s win in the California governor’s race and bode well for president George Bush’s reelection in 2004. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, and other leaders of the Republican Party campaigned vigorously in these two races.

In both states, the Democrats went to great lengths to associate their Republican opponents with the economic policies of the Bush administration. In Kentucky, the Democratic candidate charged that Bush’s economic policies had led to the loss of 60,000 jobs in the state.

Both capitalist parties spent millions on the campaigns. The Republican Governors Association slapped down $4 million to back their candidate in Mississippi. Its Democratic counterpart threw in $2 million behind their candidate. Between the two parties $18 million was spent on the race, three times more than the highest amount previously spent in a gubernatorial race in that state.

In the Kentucky race, the Republican candidate made use of a “sexual scandal,” an increasingly frequent feature in capitalist election campaigns—best described as pornographication of politics. The Democratic incumbent did not seek reelection after admitting to an extra-marital affair with a woman who accused him of sexual harassment after she broke off the relationship.

In Mississippi, Barbour attacked his Democratic opponent for sponsoring a referendum to change the state flag by removing an emblem of the Confederate battle flag from its design.

In another registration of the shift to the right in bourgeois politics, Howard Dean, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, told the Des Moines Register in an interview, “I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.” Dean was roundly criticized for these remarks by some of his rivals for the Democratic nomination. Dean spokeswoman Tricia Enright noted the candidate had received applause and no criticism from his rivals when he made a similar statement about “southern white voters and the Confederate flag” at the Democratic National Committee meeting last February.

Dean has justified his shift to the right stating, “We can’t beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broader cross section of Democrats.” Dean was subsequently endorsed by the Service Employees International Union, one of the largest in the AFL-CIO.

Last August, U.S. senator Joseph Lieberman, himself a Democratic presidential contender, admonished the Democratic Party against a “turn to the left,” according to the Washington Post. He warned that by abandoning the “vital center” that helped elect William Clinton to the presidency in the 1990s, the Democrats could be sent to “the political wilderness for a long time.”

Following the Republican gubernatorial victories in Kentucky and Mississippi, Sen. Zell Miller said the Democrats have refused to heed his warning that the party has moved too far to the left. “I’ve been trying to throw them a life preserver,” the longtime Georgia Democrat commented. Miller endorsed Bush for president.

The November 6 online edition of the Atlanta Journal reported that after their victories in Kentucky and Mississippi Republican Party leaders in Georgia held a celebration at Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta, an old Democratic Party hangout that is adorned with portraits of Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Zell Miller staring down from its smoky walls.  
 
 
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