The decision of Sam Nunn not to seek a fifth term in the U.S. Senate next year should send a pointed message to many of his fellow Democrats around the country.
So should the political circumstances that prompted the veteran lawmaker from Georgia to become the eighth Senate Democrat to announce retirement for next year and the fourth from the South.The message is for the party to shift toward the middle of the ideological spectrum or risk the continuing erosion of its once powerful hold on the hearts and minds of American voters.
Though Nunn is known to have become increasingly frustrated by partisan conflict in Congress, even more daunting was the prospect of having to serve indefinitely in the political minority.
The plight of Nunn and other Democrats is particularly acute in the South, where the party that once controlled all but a handful of Senate seats is now facing a future in which the situation could be reversed.
In the past two elections, Democrats have lost six Senate seats in the 11 states of the old Confederacy, leaving them with only nine of 22, a minority for the first time since Reconstruction.
In the past four presidential contests, Democrats have carried only one Southern state per election on average. Republicans now hold a majority of governors, senators and House members in the 11-state region that stretches from Virginia to Texas.
Three congressional Democrats from the South have switched to the Republican Party since President Clinton's election - as have more than 100 other elected officials in the region.
No wonder that eight of the 15 Democratic incumbents whose seats are at stake next year have said they are retiring, while only one of the 18 Republicans up for election has announced plans to leave.
That situation gives Republicans a good chance to add to their 53-46 majority in the Senate next year. One seat will be vacant due to the resignation of Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood.
The reaction of some Democratic strategists is to write off the once solid South and focus future efforts on the West and Midwest. But such strategists are misreading public sentiment if they seriously think these parts of the country are more receptive than the South to traditional liberal stances on abortion and homosexuality or to some Democrats' notion that more government is always the cure for whatever ails society.
The momentum is clearly in the direction of less federal spending and red tape and more reliance on grassroots government plus private initiative. To fight or even ignore this healthy trend is to risk either the demise of the party that refuses to change or the development of a multi-party system with all the turmoil and gridlock that usually comes with such splintering.