Two Southern politicians.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Despite Trent Lott's dismaying statement last week praising Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond's segregationist 1948 presidential campaign, the politics of the South in 2003 is decidedly different - and considerably more tolerant - than it was a half-century ago. Race still plays a role in Southern (or Northern or Western) politics. But it's a different role today, as proved by Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu's re-election to the U.S. Senate last Saturday.

Whether Lott's rhetorical blunder was just that, a blunder, or whether it reveals a racist view of the world is for the voters of Lott's native Mississippi to decide. But in saying that Mississippi endorsed Thurmond's candidacy in 1948 "and if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years," Lott - soon to be the Senate majority leader again - insulted African Americans and their long struggle for equality throughout the land.

Lott later apologized - twice - for his remarks, but the apologies are undermined by the senator's association in the 1990s with the Council of Conservative Citizens, a successor group to the segregationist White Citizens' Councils of the 1960s.

As Landrieu's win in neighboring Louisiana showed, race can make a difference in a tight political contest. And Lott's home state has the largest percentage of African American voters in the country, at about 36 percent. Louisiana is second with about 32 percent. Those Mississippi voters could bite Lott when he seeks re-election, and Louisiana's black voters probably made the difference for Landrieu.

In her primary election campaign, Landrieu played to the fact that President Bush carried Louisiana in the 2000 presidential contest, so she emphasized her record of siding with Bush 74 percent of the time. She finished first in the primary, but didn't get the majority she needed to avoid a runoff. Her primary campaign strategy didn't energize African American voters at all, and they stayed away from the polls in large numbers.

For the runoff campaign against Republican Suzanne Terrell, however, Landrieu scrapped her cautious primary approach and played up her centrist image, her incumbency, her independence and her moderate views on race and abortion. This time around, she got out the black vote - and won by 51 percent to 49 percent.

The lesson in all of this is that all voting blocs are important. Insulting one bloc as Lott did won't do him any favors with African Americans back home or on the national scene, and by courting that vote in her state, Landrieu won a race she was predicted to lose.