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That follow-up article deserves to be posted too:

Outside View: Emerging Dem. minority II

By HORACE COOPER, A UPI Outside View commentary

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- It's been a year since the November 2002 midterm elections.

At this time last year, the serious erosion of the Democrats' national political support was obvious for all to see. The 2002 election was an almost across-the-board loss for them, leading some to suggest the results be taken as a wake-up call, an indication of the need to recalibrate the party's philosophy and message.

No such action occurred and, a year later the problems are even more pronounced.

Relying on indicia such as predicted demographic changes in the United States in the 21st century, the so-called expert opinion is that America is a 50/50 nation, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, aggressive Internet activity and fundraising by leftist organizations such as MoveOn.org and a nascent anti-war movement, most party leaders have determined that no course correction is necessary.

In fact, many have argued that they are winning. As Texan and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey would say, "You can't be this wrong by accident."

The 2002 midterm elections revealed a 53-47 national preference for Republicans over Democrats. A crushing blow, it resulted in the GOP retaking control of the U.S. Senate, maintaining and increasing their control of the U.S. House and taking control of a majority of statehouses and maintaining a majority of governorships.

What's changed since then? The GOP has added three governorships to its majority -- in California, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Going in to the 2004 election close to 60 percent of Americans now reside in states with Republican governors, including the four largest -- California, Texas, Florida and New York.

Sadly, the nation's oldest political party's prospects look more like the short-lived Whigs of the 19th century than that of a thriving national organization capable of governing a nation.

A "values gap" that aids the GOP and hinders the Democrats has accelerated the decline of the venerable party of Jackson and FDR.

Some centrist Democrats and party elders including retiring Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., have sounded an alarum, time is quickly running out. Like the Whigs, the disparate groups that make up the Democratic Party -- union leaders, racial group activists, environmentalists, feminists, economic populists, etc -- find cohabitation with moderate and centrist Democratic Leadership Council types unpalatable and dissolution seems inevitable.

The party faces a Hobson's choice. It can ill-afford to reduce its political coalition to an even smaller level while it tries to remake itself into something more acceptable to the vast center.

For the better part of three decades, the Democrats have faced a structural disadvantage in the Electoral College, the so-called "GOP electoral lock" consisting of states in the South and Southwest that traditionally tilt right in presidential elections.

Although they were able to pick the electoral lock three times by running southerners at the top of the ticket -- Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 -- they've only received a majority of the popular vote for president twice in the 40 years since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide: Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Al Gore in 2000, who ran up the vote in places like California but failed to win the states he needed to create a majority in the Electoral College.

On the other hand, the GOP has prevailed six times in the same period, winning a majority of the popular vote four times.

Furthermore the GOP's late 20th century "electoral lock" is becoming nearly impregnable and the troublesome trend for Democrats is that it is expanding to lower ballot offices, starting with the U.S. Senate and spreading to state and local elections.

Just 20 years ago -- even in the wake of losing national presidential elections -- Democrats controlled outright 32 state legislatures and Republicans 11. The ominous winds of change have been blowing ever since. Today Republicans control 21 legislatures outright and Democrats 16, exactly half the number they once did. And the gap looks likely to expand rather than contract.

Rather than acknowledge the structural political disadvantage they face, the Democrats seemed poised to pursue even more insularity and division. In less than six months the Democrats are likely to exacerbate the developing split within their party when its dominant liberal/leftist wing flexes its muscle and selects one of their own as a nominee.

This impresario will likely run on a campaign of revulsion for our nation's mainstream anti-terrorism policies and adopt an enthusiastic embrace of the left's divisive secularist liberal social agenda. If 1994 was America's temper tantrum, 2004 is gearing up to be America's drive-by. Woe unto other Democrats running at the local and state level, because they'll likely get taken out as collateral damage.

The Republicans have a much easier time selling lower taxes, individual responsibility, traditional values and a strong national defense to the typical voter than Democrats have explaining a strident secularism, social schemes that cater to minorities at the expense of equal opportunity, counter-cultural value systems and a remarkable unwillingness to promote America's national security interests.

The headwind that the Democrats faced in the midterm elections may seem like a tsunami if trends continue.

The South, once a stronghold for the Democrats, is fast becoming the GOP's permanent base. Republicans now hold nearly two-thirds of southern House and Senate seats. In 2004 Senate seats held by Democrats in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina and Georgia are in danger of flipping to the Republicans.

Due to population growth and related demographic changes, the 12 Southern states including Tennessee that denied Gore a stay at the White House will be worth more -- 168 electoral votes this time -- and will take Bush three-fifth's of the way to re-election, all before winning a single non-Southern state. In Texas alone, the new GOP-controlled Legislature's redistricting plan will likely extend the GOP margin in the House of Representatives.

Things are not much better elsewhere. The Democrats may have established a stronghold of their own in the Northeast, but it is a poor trade. Recent GOP gubernatorial victories in Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire show that even here the extremism endemic to the Democratic Party can be a big loser.

Rather than respond to the alarm, some suggest this is the low-water mark for Democrats and they are about to start the climb back up. In fact, things can and may get a lot worse.

According to a recent Pew Research Center report, fewer and fewer people wish to associate with the Democrats. Once the overwhelmingly dominant political party in the United States, only 31 percent of Americans now see themselves as Democrats, the weakest position of the party since the dawn of the New Deal. A national Harvard University survey found that 61 percent of college students -- normally a liberal-leaning bloc -- support Bush and the GOP.

And many of these former Democrats have become Republicans. Worst still, these switches have taken place in key swing states that will likely turn an electoral squeaker into an electoral nightmare. Consider: in Minnesota where Democrats traditionally outnumber GOPers, now Republicans have a 3-point registration advantage. In Michigan what was formerly a 7-point Democrat registration advantage has turned into a 3-point preference for the GOP. Similar changes have occurred in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Florida. Except for Florida, these are all states that Bush lost in 2000 in his successful presidential race.

In November 2003 in nearly two-thirds of the country -- the areas that some Democrats deride as "flyover land" -- Democrats face significant political headwinds that will be nearly impossible to overcome. A victory plan in 2004 predicated on an agenda of pacifism, tax hikes and counter-cultural liberalism sets up all the needed elements for a perfect storm. Yet Democrats continue to console themselves with the Pollyannaish notion that America is still a 50-50 nation.

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(Horace Cooper, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow with the Center for New Black Leadership.)