Democrats gain ground in Southeast Missouri

The effort was unprecedented for Cape Girardeau County and Southeast Missouri. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign opened an office in May on Broadway, more than two months before he was officially named the Democratic Party nominee.

Office staff and volunteers were packing up Wednesday after organizing dozens of volunteer teams, signing up thousands of new voters and using every resource to make sure those newly registered voters went to the polls.

The result? Instead of the 30.6 percent share Cape Girardeau County voters gave to U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 2004, Obama scored 32.6 percent of the local vote.

Overall, 37,593 voters cast ballots Tuesday in Cape Girardeau County, an increase of almost 3,000 compared to 2004. Voter participation, while increasing to 72.9 percent of registered voters from 71.8 percent in 2004, fell far short of the 85 percent predicted by County Clerk Kara Clark.

Democrats and Republicans interviewed on Election Day and Wednesday gave varying reasons for the apparent fizzling of the effort. While there were some impressive gains in voter participation in Democrat-leaning precincts in Cape Girardeau, there were also large gains in turnout in precincts that went heavily for McCain.

For Cape Girardeau County Central Committee vice chairwoman Donna Lichtenegger, the result shows how solidly the county stands in the Republican column after years of working to convince conservative Democrats that their party does not represent them.

"We have gotten a lot of Democrats who have moved over to the Republican side in Cape Girardeau County, and they have stayed with us," Lichtenegger said.

Former Missouri secretary of state Bekki Cook of Cape Girardeau, who held office from 1994 to 2001, sees this week's result as the aftermath of the visit by the Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, during the final week of the campaign. The GOP thwarted Democratic momentum and identified dozens, if not hundreds, of volunteers willing to participate in door-to-door and telephone canvassing in the final 72 hours, she said.

The real victory of the effort, she said, was the increase in vote totals for Obama, more than the vote share. Obama received 1,440 more votes than Kerry, while McCain took 953 more votes than President Bush in 2004.

Before Palin's visit, Cook said, she would have guessed that Republicans would not have the surge in turnout the final results showed.

Cook said she never expected to win in Cape Girardeau County. "We are in an overwhelmingly Republican county, and we did what we could when there are not that many more Democratic votes out there."

Part of the appeal of Republicans in Southeast Missouri, Lichtenegger said, is the party's top-to-bottom fidelity to core beliefs, especially on socially conservative issues such as gun rights and abortion. While a Democrat may campaign as a pro-life, pro-gun candidate, having party leaders who are pro-choice and are willing to consider gun control measures blunts their appeal.

"It is not so much a Republican-Democratic split as a conservative-liberal issue," Lichtenegger said. "And we do have a lot of conservatives who vote Republican."

Cook, however, sees it differently. The effort to convince area voters to vote for Republicans from the top of the ticket to the lowest office on the ballot has paid off well for the GOP, she said, noting that in 1996, popular Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan lost in only three counties, with Perry and Cape Girardeau counties in that group.

That strong GOP tilt can create headaches when the party establishment doesn't like a candidate on the party's ticket, Cook noted. "Look at Purcell versus Finch. They couldn't even defeat themselves. They couldn't do it. Once you are on the Republican ticket, you are golden."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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