It’s Southern-strategy time for Democrats. Democratic National Chairman Paul Kirk says “it would make sense” for the Democrats to put a Southerner on the ticket in 1988—no doubt in the back of the bus. . . . Democratic political analyst Richard Moe—formerly an influential Hill staffer—points out that the Sunbelt gained 17 electoral votes in the 1980 census, and there’s another census hard ahead. . . . Southern governors are pushing for a multistate regional primary in March 1988 (right after Iowa and New Hampshire) to give their region early and added clout in selection process; they’d also like to see the Democratic national convention in Atlanta. . . . Kevin Phillips points out that the only successful Democratic presidential candidates since JFK, a quarter of a century back, have been Southerners: Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. . . . The men they’re mentioning, particularly for No. 2 spot, are: Gov. Bruce Babbitt (Ariz.), former Gov. Charles Robb (Va.), Sen. Sam Nunn (Ga.), Rep. Richard Gephardt (Mo.). . . . But the steady drip-drip-drip erosion of party loyalties continues in the South. In past fortnight, former liberal Democratic Mayor Carole Keeton Rylander of Austin, Texas, has switched parties, will run for Rep. J. J. Pickle’s seat. She left party, she says, because it “was my feeling that there was no longer any place for the moderate-to-conservative viewpoint.” . . . And former Democrat Don McNiel will run against influential House Majority Leader Jim Wright in Texas’s 12th CD.
First poll taken after Teddy Kennedy took a walk in December was Field poll in California. It showed Gary Hart leading Democratic presidential field (40 per cent), with Mario Cuomo fairly close behind (27 per cent). Also-rans: Jesse Jackson, 7 per cent; Sen. Bill Bradley (N.J.), 6 per cent; Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.), 1 per cent. . . . Newark Star-Ledger reports that Bradley would be more interested in running for Senate Majority Leader if Democrats capture Senate in November than in running for Vice President in 1988. . . . On Republican side, there’s a boomlet for Sen. Bill Armstrong (Colo.) as possible presidential candidate. His biggest booster in Senate is Gordon Humphrey (N.H.), who adds that he is ready to mobilize his campaign apparatus in New Hampshire on Armstrong’s behalf. … At senatorial level there could be the first ever woman v. woman race in Maryland: liberal Democratic Rep. Barbara Mikulski v. conservative White House aide Linda Chavez, for Mac Mathias’s seat. … In California, latest entry in crowded Republican lists to wrest away Alan Cranston’s seat is Rep. Bobbi Fiedler. Also in race: a TV commentator (Bruce Herschensohn), an economist (Arthur Laffer), an actor (Fess Parker, a/k/a Davy Crockett), a conservative congressman (Rep. William Dannemeyer—ACU 94), and State Assembly Minority Leader Bob Naylor, a dark horse with a dedicated following, the only Northern Californian in the race.
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