Bush support eroding in South

This story might be good news:

Lynn Mayson is an unemployed machine operator here. Roger Chastain is president of a textile company. While they travel in distinctively different circles, they have quite a bit in common.

Both are Republicans. Both were part of the Solid South vote that helped George W. Bush win the White House in 2000. And, now, both say they are angry enough about job losses in the region to vote for someone else in 2004.

"Something's got to give," said Ms. Mayson, a mother of three, as she left a state-run jobs center the other day. "I'm not going to vote for Bush unless things change. The economy has got to get better, and it's only going to do that if someone makes something happen."

I don't have a lot of faith in hardcore Bush supporters (which is what South Carolina gives us) to suddenly turn out a man in which they've invested so much.

If South Carolina is in play in the presidential race, our nominee has already won 40+ other states.

No, the significance of the alienated Southern voter is not in the presidential race, but in the congressional races that will decide control of Congress. We've got heavily contested open seats in both South Carolina and Georgia that we must retain in order to have any hope of retaking the Senate.

Danny Varat, an adjunct professor of history at the University of South Carolina in Spartanburg, said that if the economy was ailing a year from now and trade policies had not changed enough to help manufacturing in the state, Republicans could have a hard time winning both the Senate race and the Fourth Congressional District seat that Mr. DeMint is vacating.

What we need in South Carolina and Georgia is a version of Chandler's "Job Terminator". Let's take him national. Bush may be hard to defeat in most southern red states, but his underlings are far more vulnerable.

Posted August 18, 2003 09:29 AM | Comments (136)