A federal court ruling on June 8 that forces Mississippian voters to register by party could have the dire effect of returning the state of Mississippi to the days of racially polarized politics. In his ruling, that still can be appealed, Judge Pepper ordered the state Legislature to put a new registration and primary system in place by August 31, 2008 and that photo identification for voters should be instituted. As a result, many white Democrats will now probably opt definitively for the GOP. Possibly ending a persistent anomaly in a southern state that went twice by a large margin for Bush, and where 85 percent of white voters voted for Bush in 2004, but where hundreds of local officeholders still remain Democrats.
Republican-leaning voters in Mississippi have long been able to cross party lines in primaries, voting for moderate Democrats in state and local races while staying loyal to Republican candidates in national and some state wide races. By limiting these white voters to Republican primaries, the court ruling will push centrist Democratic candidates to the other party, simply in order to survive, and will turn of white voters from the party even more. And this time not only for the federal elections.
Most black voters in Mississippi are Democrats, and black political leaders have been aggressively pushing for years to prevent crossover voting in Democratic primaries in order to selfishly increase theitr own strength. Black leaders say they want to end a strong moderate-to-conservative voice in the Democratic Party and in the process pick up more posts.
Republicans have been apt to align with blacks to achieve an unspoken alliance of "common interests", for instance in the drawing of Congressional districts, where blacks are packed into majority-black districts, leaving little space for moderate white Democrats to be elected. The GOP counts on the fact that if forced to make a decision a plurality of Mississippi voters will identify themselves as Republican.
If this happens, the racial polarization of politics in Mississippi becomes complete AND the feeble hold of the Democratic party on the state Legislature will be lost. It will almost certainly also put an end to the alliance where for three decades blacks and centrist white Democrats have formed coalitions to finance public education or to prevent cuts in social programs.
Now given the lean of the state the process of holding control of the state Legislature was expected to become more and more difficult for the Democratic party but having to conclude that for "a few dollars more" (mandates and posts) the Black leadership let its own interests prevail over those of the party by means of a pact with the Devil (GOP), is especially bitter.
I wonder wither they’d still be happy for this result once the public education and social programs will see cuts or start to stumble...
An other result of the ruling and the efforts of the black leadership will be that any chance of success that Howard Dean could have in his strategy to fight the GOP in all 50 states will, what concerns Mississippi, probably come to nought. Instead of including more people in the party, you practically "evict" them and you’d cause your party to lose the last grip it still has in Mississippi politics... It might even cause to become the Mississippi Democratic party an almost solely black party. Now, if you’re seen as an exclusive and radical party, how could you ever dream of being competitive in this particular state again? It’s easy to destroy a construction, rebuilding it is far more difficult.
This ruling migth as well be... the end of the Democratic Party in the state of Mississippi...