Dems Fight to Retake the South

Democrats are mounting a full-scale assault on Southern congressional seats, the Wall Street Journal reports. By fielding socially moderate candidates, Democrats look like they might do the unthinkable: reverse the “Great Reversal,” the civil rights-era shift of the South from a Democratic stronghold to a Republican one. And a poll this month shows the South preferring a Democratic Congress 44%-40%.

Leading the way are candidates like Bobby Bright, a self-professed “Southern conservative” who looks like he could win in a deep-red southern Alabama district. Bright and his wave of Democrats hope to win on economic issues, which have mushroomed in importance. “Party means less today than it has in my lifetime in Alabama,” said one of Bright’s would-be challengers. “I tell you this: Bobby Bright is going to be the man to beat.” (More Election 2008 stories.)