Zell Miller Blast Dems, Says Party Is in 'Breakdown'

Retiring Sen. Zell Miller blasted his fellow Democrats on Wednesday for pushing their party so far to the left that they've left it in a state of total "breakdown."

Using some of his harshest rhetoric yet, Miller told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity, "This party is a shrinking party."

He then slammed the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates for trying to appeal only to left-wingers and special interest groups.

"These nine candidates - the naive nine who are running for president - they're not really running for president," Miller complained. "They're running for the nomination. They're not trying to put together a consensus to win."

The Georgia Democrat continued, "They're just taking that shrinking Democratic base, that's about 32 percent right now, and they are appealing to the most shrill and the most active and the loudest - what they're doing is they're pulling this party further and further to the left."

Asked why he refers to his party's presidential field as "the naive nine," Miller told Hannity, "Because they're headed down the same road other people have gone down and we know exactly what the results were."

The Southern senator noted that in 1972, Democratic presidential standard-bearer George McGovern failed to win a single Southern state in his landslide loss to incumbent Richard Nixon.

"Mondale in '84 did just about the same thing," he added. "Dukakis in '88 didn't carry a single Southern state and neither did Al Gore in 2000."

Noting that no high-profile national Democrat came to the South to campaign in last year's midterm election, Miller said, "Isn't it an indication of the present Democratic Party's breakdown, that here these so-called national leaders can't even campaign in the South because they would do to whoever they were trying to help more harm than good."

Miller said that national Democrats have all but written off the South, a decision that means they're no longer a truly national party.

"If you're going to be a nationwide party you've got to have some nationwide appeal. And you can't totally ignore one-third of the country, especially the fastest-growing one-third, and still call yourself a nationwide party."

The leading Southern Democrat details his party's predicament in his new book, "A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat."

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