THAT CRAZY SWITCHCRAFT

This message brought to you by the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee: In the first months of the 104th Congress, three Democrats in the House — Greg Laughlin of Texas, Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, and Nathan Deal of Georgia — joined the Republican majority. Mississippi Democrat Mike Parker makes no bones that he’s the next to cross over: “It’s only a matter of time,” he says. Parker is waiting out November’s state elections in Mississippi. “The Democratic party structure has disintegrated in Mississippi, ” says Parker chief of staff Arthur Rhodes. “The party label hurts, not helps, and a lot of good local candidates are running as Mike Parker Democrats.” Once Parker switches, Rhodes says, “you can expect between 5 and 50 Democrats at the state and county level in Mississippi to switch parties.”

Democrats, especially those in the South, are defecting to the Republican party in unprecedented numbers. Now the question is, who might be next? Most of the recent poaching talk has focused on the 23 members (Parker’s one) of the Blue Dog Coalition, an informal caucus that meets for coffee and doughnuts every Wednesday morning at 8:30 in the office of California Democrat Gary Condit. “There’s a lot of frustration with the direction and leadership of the party, with its control by liberals,” Condit says. “I’ve been approached by both sides wanting me to switch. But there’s been no formal invite from the Republicans, and switching is not my priority, not my intention.” Condit and fellow prospect Pete Geren of Texas are a good measure of how far American politics has shifted.

Condit, the most conservative of the California Democrats, represents one- time House bigwig Tony Coelho’s district and thinks Republicans could win there. (“The middle 40 or 50 percent are independent voters and can swing any election.”) “Condit is a Democrat and wants to be,” says a senior GOP staffer. “But he’s concerned — we’ve got a good candidate we’re going to send against him.” Others have switched with similar motivations: Greg Laughlin was going to face a tough race against “94 Republican foe Jim Deats. Democrats threatened to allow a primary challenge to Nathan Deal next year, while Republicans pondered running ex-senator Mack Mattingly against him.

Geren, a Lone Star veteran of Lloyd Bentsen’s organization, voted aye on 13 of the 15 Contract with America measures. His district — where Jim Wright ruled for 34 years — has grown steadily more conservative. Geren’s staff says it’s “100 percent certain” he’ll still be a Democrat after the January 4 Texas filing deadline, but a switcher’s staffer says Geren met weeks ago in Fort Worth with his finance director and other advisers to discuss the viability of crossing over. Another puts Geren at “more than 50 percent to switch.”

Ralph Hall of Texas, whom many assumed more likely to retire than switch (like fellow Texas Dem Charlie Wilson), has lately come to the top of the switch list. Ohio Rep. John Boehner, chairman of the House Republican Conference, is the point man for the Hall recruitment effort. “There’s not a formal mating ritual,” says a source close to Boehner. But “over the years, they’ve developed a pretty good relationship.”

Foster’s stunning win in the Louisiana governor’s race shook up Louisiana’s Jimmy Hayes (also 13 of 15 on the Contract). He had to choose between Foster and fellow Rep. Cleo Fields; his staff did some research and discovered that Hayes and Fields vote the same way 3 percent of the time. He chose Foster. “I would have equal ease in switching parties,” he says, while adding that he has “no immediate plans.” Hayes has fed speculation that he might run as an independent or third-party candidate. Despite the coyness, Hayes has had serious conversations with Tauzin about switching.

Bill Brewster of Oklahoma, now the lone Democrat in what was previously a solidly Democratic state, is a little less likely to switch. He has a long Democratic pedigree and may find the decision more gut-wrenching. “He’s like Geren,” says one newly minted Republican. “He’d like to switch, but he’s looking for a way to do it.”

Collin Peterson of Minnesota is also sympathetic, but can’t come across. The consensus among switchers is that he would have a more diffcult time in his liberal state than the Southerners have; they are merely swearing allegiance to a flag they have been saluting for a while.

A top congressional staffer says that Jim Trailcant of Ohio — who is not, incidentally, a Coalition member-met with emissaries of the GOP leadership with the speaker’s blessing. Trailcant balked at their invitation, saying he would be more interested in running as an independent. Trailcant says the meetings concerned one of his favorite good-government measures, a “burden-of- proof provision to curb IRS abuses.” It doesn’t matter: He’s no fonder of the Republicans than of the Democrats.

Same for Mississippi’s Gene Taylor. He, too, has talked about the independent route. Ideologically, there’s little separating Taylor from Hayes or Parker, but he has made attacks on Republicans a campaign staple and has become an outright enemy of fellow Mississippian Sen. Trent Lott in the process. “Gene is not going to switch,” says a close Taylor friend. “He’d feel he was being welcomed by Trent, and he doesn’t want that.”

All the Democrats in the Coalition have been approached by individual Republicans, but the time of concerted leadership efforts to win converts through the promise of committee seats — Laughlin, for example, got Ways and Means — has passed. (Parker, described as “practically family,” has been assured royal treatment.) “It was a conscious decision, approved by the RNC and Newt, to drive the number of Democrats below 200,” says a leadership staffer. “Once that happened, an important psychological barrier would be breached. And Gephardt would find it harder to run roughshod with threats of what would happen when they got the House back.”

Now that Illinois Rep. Mel Reynolds has been jailed for statutory rape, the Democratic number is down to 199, and aggressive recruitment by Republicans is over. Democratic enlistment, however, is not.

by Christopher Caldwell