The massive voter turnout witnessed Tuesday in Mississippi can be interpreted in one of two ways – an anomaly inspired by Barack Obama’s charisma and reactionary fear of Obama’s charisma or a sign of growing voter disenchantment with the Republican political brand after decades of dominance in statewide politics.

The answer? Likely, it’s some of both. And with the realization of the latter, state Democrats are walking with a bit more swagger today than at any time over the last 30 years.

Democrats significantly moved the needle in presidential and congressional politics in Mississippi on Tuesday. The easy assessment would be to lay that success at Obama’s feet, but that misses the reality of a tattered economy, an unpopular war and a Republican Party that over the last eight years stepped away from basic conservative principles and practices.

The Mississippi Democratic Party has been struggling for more than two decades and the vast majority of the wounds plaguing them are self-inflicted.

The party’s problems have been mired in race and money. Black leaders – long shut out of wielding significant power by old prejudices and economic barriers – were at worst unwilling and at best mistrustful about sharing power with white Democrats. That practical political reality gave credence to the growing notion in the body politic in Mississippi in the 1970s that “Democrat” meant black and “Republican” meant white in modern Mississippi politics.

And despite a peppering of Republicans in the state’s growing black middle class, the state GOP didn’t do a lot to dispel that notion.

A monolithic Democratic Party controlled Mississippi politics from Reconstruction until 1978. Mississippians have voted Republican in presidential politics almost exclusively since 1964, despite giving fellow Southerner and prominent Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter the nod in 1976. Yet in state politics, Mississippi Democrats remained in control.

But Republican Thad Cochran’s 1978 election as the successor to longtime Democratic U.S. Sen. “Big Jim” Eastland marked the Democrats’ loss of absolute control. Republican Trent Lott would validate that sea change a decade later when he was elected to succeed retiring Senate legend John Stennis.

Democratic congressional icons like Jamie Whitten and Sonny Montgomery retired and were replaced by Republicans Roger Wicker and Chip Pickering. Now, Democrats are regaining control of the state’s House delegation.

White flight from the Democratic Party that began in the late 1970s became a full-blown stampede by the late 1980s and early 1990s. Former Gov. Kirk Fordice’s election in 1991 made party switching fashionable down to the courthouse and city hall level.

In this decade, Gov. Haley Barbour led the GOP to the apex of its power in state politics – gaining a stronghold in the state Senate and dominating the legislative agenda.

But the 2008 federal elections – from the primaries to the general election – have provided a resurgence of Democratic fortunes. State Democrats still struggle financially, but even those woes eased substantially this year.

Former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove’s U.S. Senate campaign against Wicker would not have been nearly as competitive without massive Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee infusions. With new leadership from state chairman Jamie Franks, state Democrats have a new attitude.

Most of all, Tuesday gave state Democrats a tangible example of what it’s like to be competitive again. The party’s dominant national fortunes may well spur a resurgence of the fortunes of statewide Democratic candidates – now locked out of seven of eight statewide offices by the GOP.

Tuesday’s election was a curtain call for state Democrats and likely a wake-up call for previously complacent Republicans.

(Contact Perspective Editor Sid Salter at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com. Visit his blog at clarionledger.com.)