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There's this political consultant for the Democrats named David Saunders, who goes by "Mudcat", and he's full of, well, he's full of a lot of stuff, but he's no doubt an interviewer's dream because he's full of earthy local-color quotes. He's profiled by one of the Weekly Standard's best writers, Matt Labash, and drops an interesting bit of strategery: Mudcat, who describes himself as "an old-timey Democrat: pro-gun, pro-God, pro fiscal conservatism," is tired of teaching remedial Mudcat Math to deaf ears in his own party. It can be distilled as The Twofer Strategy: If you get a rural white...

Democratic state Senator Tom Butler will announce that he is changing parties and run for the state’s 5th Congressional District seat as a Republican, according to two sources close to the situation. Sen. Butler of Madison is one of the “dissident Democrats” who caucuses with Senate Republicans in a minority coalition. Many believed that Butler’s differences with Senate Democrats were more personal than political. State Sen. E. B. McClain (D - Midfield) once described Butler’s relationship with the party as wounded. (Another Senate insider described it to the Parlor in much the same way. See also here.) Democrats had hoped...

Harrison County Democrats held a caucus on Saturday, and nobody showed up. The good weather, said party chairman Andrew "FoFo" Gilich, was partly to blame. "It was a nice day. It was probably hard to break away," he said, referring to family activities. The caucus is held every four years, he said, and has two goals: to elect delegates for the county's Executive Committee, which oversees elections for a four year term, and to elect county delegates for conventions. Local delegates help select national delegates for the Democratic National Convention, set for August in Denver.

JACKSON (AP) — Sen. Nolan Mettetal, whose win in the Democratic Primary was disputed last year, said Wednesday he's leaving the party to become a Republican. "Switching is not the proper terminology. I'm just joining a party. The (Democratic) Party abandoned me," said Mettetal of Sardis, who has served in the Senate since 1996. Before Mettetal's switch, there were 28 Democrats and 24 Republicans in the Mississippi Senate. The balance is now 27-25. Mettetal said Wednesday that he felt the Democratic Party didn't support him in last year's election. He represents District 10, which covers Panola and Tate counties. Mettetal...

Elba's Jimmy Holley expected to announce decision Jan. 10 MONTGOMERY - A veteran Democratic senator will switch to the Republican Party, but his move won't affect the Democrats' stranglehold on the Alabama Senate. Sen. Jimmy Holley of Elba is expected to announce his decision at a news conference in his hometown on Jan. 10. Neither Holley nor Rep. Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, who is chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, would officially confirm Holley's switch Wednesday. But Hubbard called it "the worst-kept secret in the state." Holley, 63, who has served in the Alabama Legislature for 30 years, joined the GOP...

Democrats angered at the image of country and western as Right-wing “redneck music” are planning a tour of Middle America during the 2008 election campaign by Nashville artists opposed to the Iraq war. An alliance called the Music Row Democrats is poised to re-launch itself early next year in an attempt to seize back country music from the Republican camp and spread their message that President George W. Bush’s party does not care about ordinary people. Slowly but surely, more country singers are performing songs critical of the Bush administration. Merle Haggard, who once sang the anti-hippie anthem “Okie from...

Black South Carolinians are Democrats. But they’re far from liberal. African-Americans in South Carolina have nuanced, sometimes seemingly conflicting opinions that reflect, at times, the state’s conservatism, a groundbreaking Winthrop/ETV poll found. For example, according to the poll: • Two-thirds say they are Democrats, and four in five plan to vote in the state’s January Democratic presidential primary. But almost six in 10 describe their political beliefs as conservative or moderate. • Despite that conservatism, more than half say government “definitely� should ensure every American has a “decent standard of living,� a liberal belief at odds with free-market capitalism. •...

Former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn says he is disappointed with the current presidential campaign and is considering a bipartisan or independent run for the White House in 2008. “It’s a possibility, not a probability,” Nunn said in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “My own thinking is, it may be a time for the country to say, ‘Timeout. The two-party system has served us well, historically, but it’s not serving us now.’” The Georgian said he’s distressed by the “fiasco” in Iraq, the out-of-control federal budget, U.S. energy policy, and a presidential campaign that has not dealt straight on with...

A leading liberal blogger has declared political war against centrist Democrats – the latest move in an intensifying show of dissatisfaction with the Democratic Congress by the once-friendly blogosphere. Matt Stoller, who blogs at the well-trafficked OpenLeft.com, has compiled a list of 38 House “Blue Dog” Democrats who have voted with Republicans on key legislation, and called on the activist community to put pressure on them – and perhaps challenge them in primaries – if they fail to shape up. “Some of these members may need to face a primary challenge, and it's useful for potential primary challengers to know...

Georgia state representative from the Atlanta has switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party, bolstering the wide GOP majority in the state House of Representatives. "My strong belief in fiscal responsibility and restraint... is not a good fit within the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives," Rep. Mike Jacobs, R-Atlanta, wrote in an entry on his blog Tuesday morning. Rep. Jacobs' move to the Republican Party increases the GOP House majority to 107, and reduces the Democratic minority to 73 members. House Democrats criticized the move as opportunistic.

Biden not worried about Southern Dems 43 minutes ago Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record) says he can hold his own in a 2008 presidential primary against Democratic contenders from the South, noting that his home state of Delaware was a "slave state." Biden dismissed the notion that he was a "Northeastern liberal" who would have a poor showing in the South against other likely contenders such as Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee. "Better than anybody else," Biden said, when asked on "Fox News Sunday" to...

JACKSON, Miss. - Former Rep. Gillespie V. “Sonny” Montgomery, who during his 30 years in Congress pushed through a modernized GI Bill that boosted recruiting for the all-volunteer force, died Friday. He was 85. SNIP On Thursday, the House voted to name a national defense authorization bill in his honor. A conservative Democrat, Montgomery represented an east-central Mississippi district in Congress from 1967 to 1997, and for 13 years chaired the House Veterans Affairs Committee. He himself was a 35-year military veteran, serving in the Army in Europe during World War II, then returned to active duty during the Korean...

GALIVANTS FERRY, S.C. - Many species are rare, even threatened, in the swampy marshes along the southeastern coast, and perhaps none is closer to extinction than the "yellow-dog" Democrat of the Old South. For decades, straight-ticket, conservative white voters who displayed unyielding loyalty to the Democratic Party — they said they'd vote for a yellow dog if the Democrats ran one — transformed the South into a party stronghold. The tide began to turn in the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Act alienated some lifelong conservative Democrats and Republican President Nixon courted yellow dogs with his "Southern Strategy." Since the...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — Democrats in Georgia and Alabama, borrowing an idea usually advanced by conservative Republicans, are promoting Bible classes in the public schools. Their Republican opponents are in turn denouncing them as "pharisees," a favorite term of liberals for politicians who exploit religion. ...The Democrats who introduced the bills said they hoped to compete with Republicans for conservative Christian voters. "Rather than sitting back on our heels and then being knocked in our face, we are going to respond in a thoughtful way," said Kasim Reed, a Georgia state senator from Atlanta and one of the sponsors of...

MONTGOMERY - Democratic lawmakers are pressing for a uniform Bible literacy class in Alabama's public schools. At a news conference today, the legislators plan to announce they will push in the Legislature early next year a bill that would allow local school boards to offer "Bible literacy" classes as elective high school courses. House Majority Leader Ken Guin, D-Carbon Hill, and Speaker of the House Seth Hammett, D-Andalusia, were expected to make the announcement. Opponents say the Democrats' bill sanctions one religion; Republicans say Democrats are stealing their ideas. The course will center on "The Bible and Its Influence," a...

BATON ROUGE, La. The state Republican Party can count three more members among its fold in the Legislature. Representatives Ernest Wooton of Belle Chasse, Dan "Blade" Morrish of Jennings and William Daniel of Baton Rouge have jumped to the G-O-P. Their switches bring the G-O-P membership in the Legislature to 55: 40 members of the 105-member House and 15 members of the 39-member Senate

The South Carolina Democratic Party is in a sorry fix, and it might take decades to repair. Inez Tenenbaum’s decision not to seek re-election in 2006 as state superintendent of education shocked the party, left it gasping for air. Experts stop short of declaring the party dead, but they don’t hold out much hope for recovery any time soon. “The outlook certainly is not bright,” says College of Charleston political scientist Bill Moore. When one looks down the road, things don’t look that promising for the Democrats. They have no reserves. In fact, they have no starting lineup to speak...

The only Democrat to unseat a Republican member of the U.S. Senate in the last two cycles - Mark Pryor of Arkansas - told a gathering of frustrated centrist Democrats a couple of years ago that one of his out-of-state consultants did some research and concluded that Pryor ought to talk about his religious faith in every speech. Pryor said he was wholly comfortable doing that, and pretty much did so. He also ran a television commercial showing his family with bowed heads around the dinner table. He earned 54 percent of the vote while Democrats were getting their clocks...

CANTON - Van Zandt County Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Ronnie Daniell announced that he is switching parties and will run as a Republican in 2006. Daniell ran for office in 2003 on the Democratic ticket. He said his change of heart comes from his disappointment in certain leaders of the Democratic Party. "It's just very simple: I'm a person who believes in trying to be a peacemaker," he said. "With the leadership I've noted in the national and local party, I cannot in good conscience follow that party." Daniell said he has been considering the switch for awhile,...

A seven-year legislative veteran is switching parties, giving Republicans a milestone 100 seats in the House of Representatives. State Rep. Greg Morris, a Vidalia Democrat and entrenched party insider, is set to appear before friends and supporters in his hometown today to announce his defection to the GOP. His decision bolsters the comfort level of the new Republican leadership in the 180-member House, which heads into the 2006 General Assembly session in control of 100 seats, nine more votes than they need to pass most legislation. His defection is significant for Democrats since Morris, 41, was part of former Democratic...

A seven-year legislative veteran has switched parties, giving Republicans 100 House seats and added momentum to the party going into the 2006 governor's race. State Rep. Greg Morris, a Vidalia Democrat and party insider, is set to appear before friends and supporters in his hometown tomorrow to announce his defection to the GOP. His decision bolsters the comfort level of the new Republican leadership, which now heads into the 2006 legislative session with nine more seats than they need to win any vote in the 180-member chamber. His defection is significant for Democrats since Morris was part of former Democratic...

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean urged members of his party to "stand up for what you believe in" at a lightly-attended fundraiser Thursday night, but none of Louisiana's leading Democrats was there for the message - not Gov. Kathleen Blanco or Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, or even the chairman of the state party, Jim Bernhard. Dean afterwards attributed the absences to "schedules," but his selection as DNC chairman earlier this year was opposed by many conservative Democrats, and they continue to express dismay over the Vermont governor's tough words for the party in power. The no-shows underscored the challenge...

N.C. governor polls 'King of the Hill' fans The Associated Press June 26, 2005   6:11 pm RALEIGH, N.C. -- Gov. Mike Easley has turned his affection for Fox TV's animated show, "King of the Hill," into a target group in his polls.Easley, who views the show's main character as a man devoid of party label, asked his pollster several years ago to separate "King of the Hill" viewers in poll results in order to use them as a political barometer."What happens in the show is, the wrestling (with issues) manifests itself in the gray area," Easley said Friday. "He...

COLUMBIA -- When National Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean visits Columbia on Wednesday, South Carolina's top Democratic elected official, Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, won't be there. "I had already, months ago, scheduled to be out of state," she said last week. Florence Mayor Frank Willis, one of two announced Democratic candidates for governor in 2006, also has other plans. Willis said he'll be touring Dillon, Marion and Williamsburg counties. "We're going to start early that morning and finish late that evening," he said. The other Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Aiken Sen. Tommy Moore, couldn't be reached. Winthrop University political science...

If you watch a lot of cable news, by now you've probably heard someone refer to a bloc of voters known as '' 'South Park' conservatives.'' The term comes from the title of a new book by Brian C. Anderson, a conservative pundit who adapted it from the writer Andrew Sullivan, and it refers to the notion that Comedy Central's obscene spoof of life in small-town America, with its hilarious skewering of liberal snobbery, is somehow the perfect crucible for understanding a new breed of brash and irreverent Republican voters. In truth, aside from its title, Anderson's book has very...

Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett announced Tuesday that he is switching parties. Burnett, formerly a Democrat, has aligned himself with the Republican Party. He said his decision has nothing to do with the people of the Democratic Party, but hinges entirely on platform issues. "I'm committed to doing the right thing," he said. "I thought it was the appropriate time to do it. It's not right before my election so it becomes an issue, it's the issue now." Burnett also said it's no secret that he ran as a Democrat in 2000 because "my mother asked me to." "I...

South Carolina Democrats will be holding their breath next week when their embattled national chairman arrives in town to have a few beers with the grass-roots and raise money for the state party. Please, Howard Dean, don’t say anything that will embarrass us or subject us to ridicule, the party faithful pray. Dean still is smarting from his remark that Republicans are “pretty much a white Christian party.” Several congressional Democrats have called him on the carpet and ordered him to halt his divisive comments. A handful of S.C. Democratic leaders tried to downplay a series of controversial remarks made...

Agriculture Commissioner Lester Spell has switched to the Republican Party almost 10 years in office as a Democrat, saying his work within his department is more in line with the principals of the GOP.

JACKSON, Miss. - Agriculture Commissioner Lester Spell has switched to the Republican Party after nine years in office as a Democrat, saying his work within his department is more in line with the principals of the GOP. Spell announced his decision late Friday in a written release. "I think over the years I have made a lot of changes in my department...increased efficiency and downsizing government," Spell said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This is very much in line with the principals of the Republican Party." Spell, a former mayor of Richland, said the switch to the...

Lawrence Davis, a former state Democratic Party chairman from Raleigh, has switched his registration to the Republican Party. Davis said he decided to switch parties because his personal beliefs on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriages and the lottery differed from the positions of the Democratic Party. "Basically, it's an effort to bring some coherence between my beliefs and my actions," Davis said. "I felt my [former] party was on the wrong side of right-wrong issues."

Southern Democrats Turning GOP NewsMax.com Wires Monday, April 25, 2005 WASHINGTON -- In consecutive days last month, Alabama lost two legends from a disappearing movement - Southern Democrats who were powerful in Washington because of their party's majority and powerful back home because of their tendency to buck it. Look around Congress these days and you'll find few conservative Democrats in the mold of the late Sen. Howell Heflin or Rep. Tom Bevill. Those who remain are almost as likely to represent the Midwest or Great Plains as the once-solid South. According to Congressional Observer Publications, only one current House...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In consecutive days last month, Alabama lost two legends from a disappearing movement - Southern Democrats who were powerful in Washington because of their party's majority and powerful back home because of their tendency to buck it. Look around Congress these days and you'll find few conservative Democrats in the mold of the late Sen. Howell Heflin or Rep. Tom Bevill. Those who remain are almost as likely to represent the Midwest or Great Plains as the once-solid South.According to Congressional Observer Publications, only one current House member voted against his party at least a third of...

In consecutive days last month, Alabama lost two legends from a disappearing movement — Southern Democrats powerful in Washington because of their party's majority and powerful back home because of their tendency to buck it. Look around Congress these days and you'll find few conservative Democrats in the mold of the late Sen. Howell Heflin or Rep. Tom Bevill. Those who remain are almost as likely to represent the Midwest or Great Plains as the once-solid South. According to Congressional Observer Publications, only one current member of the U.S. House voted against his party at least a third of the...

Howard Dean called the other day and started talking about Jesus. Yes, that Howard Dean. Yes, that Jesus. Dean is the doctor and former Vermont governor who now is chairman of the Democratic National Committee, having pretty much screamed himself out of the Democratic presidential nomination last year. Along the campaign path he remarked that his favorite New Testament book was Job, which, actually, is in the Old Testament. It was insinuated that Dean, like the Alan Alda character on "West Wing," wasn't all that much for churchgoing. The way to insinuate such a thing is to call a man...

THE first signs of a Democratic revolt against Senator Hillary Clinton’s much-anticipated march on the White House are emerging in the American South, where one of the party’s most successful state governors called last week for Democrats to consider other candidates. In a calculated snub of Clinton’s accelerating bandwagon, Governor Philip Bredesen of Tennessee warned that voters were “kind of dissatisfied” with the Democrats’ current presidential contenders and that Clinton would face an “uphill road” to win the White House.

JACKSON, Miss. - Praying for American troops and evoking biblical images of helping the needy, Howard Dean told Mississippi Democrats on Tuesday night that the national party won't give up on socially conservative states. "We're not going to concede the South," the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee told an overflow crowd of more than 900 people in a dining room that was set up for 800 in the Clarion hotel near downtown Jackson. "The South will rise again, and when it does, it will have a D under its name," Dean said to applause from the diverse crowd...

WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- Citing his dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party and its liberalism, Tippah County, Miss., Sheriff Brandon Vance switched parties Tuesday. "Howard Dean taking the chairmanship of the Democratic Party brought home to me that I was no longer comfortable in the Democratic Party. Dean's and the Democratic National Committee's values and beliefs are too far on the fringe for me," Vance said. Vance's decision to join the GOP continues a trend that picked up steam after Mississippi Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck switched parties prior to her successful bid for re-election. State Republican officials said four state...

Friday, February 25 Mudcat Slings It Southnow’s Jon Bloom had the chance to sit down with political strategist David “Mudcat” Saunders, a speaker on the “Mind of the South” panel. Saunders, a self-confessed ‘colorful quote,’ did not disappoint. A word of warning to sensitive readers: Saunders did not pull any punches. SouthNow: Why did the Democrats lose in 2004? Mudcat: They can’t f***’n count. That’s the Democrats’ problem. You don’t get in the football game and punt on first down. You concede nothing. We condeded 20 states at first and then six more by Labor Day. That’s 227 electoral votes....

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2 county officials make shift to GOP By Kurt Allen/Assistant Managing Editor When Robyn Flowers and Barbara Hale were trying to find their place in the world of politics, it was almost a given it would be the Democratic Party. Growing up in the South, Democrats ruled the region, and there was little thought given to being Republican. "I think probably, like most people my age, if you were born and raised in Texas, you've been a Democrat because that's what your family did," said Hale, Walker County's court-at-law judge. How the times do change. Now the South, and Texas...

While they fight it out, a long-time Democratic commissioner in Hamilton County, Tennessee announced Monday that he's switching parties. A release from the State Republican Party pegged Curtis Adams' move to Dean, but a spokesman for the state party tells us that "local party officials have left the option open for Commissioner Adams to join the Republican Party for some time, and I think he has been watching the direction that his party has been taking and decided that now was the right time." Said Adams yesterday: "For almost 18 years in office as a Democrat I believed in what...

JACKSON, Miss., Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Mayor Rusty Quave of D'Iberville, Miss., switched his party affiliation Monday to Republican. With Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour at his side, Quave said he was honored to have found a proper home for his views. "I have served the citizens of D'Iberville as mayor for the past 12 years with a conservative attitude and strong emphasis on economic development and quality of life," Quave said. Quave's decision comes just days after members of the Democratic National Committee elected former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean to be the party's national chairman. The number of Mississippi's Republican...

DURHAM, N.C.--The hundred or so Democratic activists gathered in an auditorium at North Carolina Central University on a January weeknight to meet with state party bigwigs have each been given two paper flags--one green, one red. When someone says something they agree with, attendees are supposed to wave green flags; if they disagree, they wave the red. Plenty of the proposals elicit green flags, like withdrawing from Iraq. Then a member of the state party's executive committee suggests reaching out to NASCAR dads. "We have churches and values," she says, "and we have to make that clear." A wave of...

Raleigh – Jan. 26. As has been reported in the Charlotte Observer, and elsewhere, changes made in the Rules governing the state Senate, upon the opening of the 2005 Session, have raised some eyebrows. Democrat leaders appear to be providing cover for their embattled conservative Senators without causing a revolt among liberals. Maintaining a ban on laptop computers and banning smoking in the Senate Chamber grabbed more attention as Democrat leaders changed the way the Senate does business in fundamental ways. Even greater power over the Senate agenda has been placed in the hands of Rules Committee chairman Sen. Tony...

The biggest political news, at least locally, last week was that Jackson County Tax Assessor Benny Goff switched parties, joining the GOP. Also last week, in faraway Washington, D.C., Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., was speaking to the National Press Club on how to revive the Democratic Party. The two events, as you could easily surmise, were quite different. But there was one word common to both: Values. Goff said the reason for his switch is that his "beliefs and values closely align with the Republican Party's beliefs and values." Kennedy, too, mentioned the "V" word in his speech, saying Democrats...

Trap-shooting rarely qualifies a candidate for public office, but, in 2002, it helped decide the Tennessee governor's race. Sometime that summer, a range owner in eastern Tennessee got wind that both candidates--former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, and Representative Van Hilleary, a Republican--were avid hunters. As a way to bring his range a little publicity, he challenged the candidates to what he called the Great Tennessee Trap Shoot, to be held over the Labor Day weekend. A souped-up version of skeet, trap involves shotgunning clay pigeons from a variety of positions as they hurtle through the air. In other...

TALLAHASSEE — Pro-guns, pro-business, pro-family and patriotic — sound like the GOP? Nope, it's the Mainstream Democrats, a group of Florida lawmakers touting personal responsibility, morals, patriotism and efficient government to woo back voters in a state where Republicans dominate politics on all but the local levels. "The Republicans started this campaign that the Democrats were liberal, left-wing wackos, and we ignored it because it was so ridiculous," said Sen. Steve Geller of Hallandale Beach, who formed the Florida Mainstream Democratic Alliance last year with a handful of Senate colleagues. "We thought nobody would believe it," Geller said. "We were...

Democrat chairman resigns after disappointing fall elections By The Associated Press After a series of stinging disappointments in this fall's congressional elections, the head of the Louisiana Democratic Party said Monday that he is stepping down from his leadership post. Party chairman Mike Skinner said his resignation would become effective at the next meeting of the Democratic State Central Committee early next year. Skinner, a former U.S. attorney in Louisiana, was elected chairman in March 2003, and that year the Democrats regained the Governor's Mansion with the election of Kathleen Blanco and held onto nearly every statewide elected position. But...

Mississippi's Republican elected officials are robustly promoting their party's presidential ticket, but voters shouldn't expect the same level of partisan enthusiasm from most of the state's top Democrats. At the Neshoba County Fair last week, Mississippi's longest-serving Democratic statewide official, Insurance Commissioner George Dale, surprised some listeners by declaring that he supports Republican President Bush because he doesn't like the Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards. Dale said Edwards' tough questioning of Judge Charles Pickering during a Senate confirmation hearing was "a slap in the face of every American" - a line that, coincidentally or not, echoed GOP...