South Carolinian Donnie Fowler put it simply: “A Democratic Party without the South is a little bit like greens without the cornbread.”

He made the comment at a meeting of party officials who gathered last weekend in Atlanta to grill candidates for the party’s highest position — chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Fowler, 37, a political consultant and son of a prominent South Carolina Democrat, is one of seven candidates seeking the job.

“I did this out of frustration,” he said, after seeing the party commit the same mistakes of past defeats.

Divided and battered by the second bitter presidential defeat in a row, Democrats have been seeking answers to their predicament. Nowhere has the wrangling over the party’s direction been more prominent than in the search for a new party chairman.

Of primary concern is the party’s inability to connect with enough voters to recapture the White House.

Well, you certainly don’t do it by writing off the South, said Fowler, whose dad, Don Fowler, chaired the DNC from 1995 to 1997.

“The Democratic Party has conceded so much of this country that we don’t have a lot of voters to talk to,” he said.

In addition to the South, Fowler said the party has written off the Rocky Mountain states and “religious” voters.

“At some point, the national party is going to run out of people to talk to,” he warned.

Others seeking the DNC post are former U.S. Reps Tim Roemer of Indiana and Martin Frost of Texas, Democratic activist Simon Rosenberg, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, former Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Leland, and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate.

The next chairman, who will replace Terry McAuliffe, will be selected by the 431 members of the DNC at its February meeting in Washington.

At the Atlanta gathering, candidates assured party officials they have no intention of writing off the South.

That’s a familiar refrain. So, after John Kerry’s crushing defeat last year, party officials have been more pointed in asking candidates how they intend to back up the rhetoric.

“It’s not just what they say. It’s what they are going to do. I want to hear specifics,” said Joe Erwin, chairman of the S.C. Democratic Party.

In 2004, Democrats proved they could win at the state and local level but not nationally.

“That tells us that Democrats can compete and win when they are not encumbered with a national message that is confusing and offensive to a great many voters,” Erwin said.

Democrats face an awesome task in trying to gain a footing in the South, which has become an electoral fortress for the Republican Party.

Few Democrats believe the party can — or needs to — be competitive at the presidential level anytime in deep South states such as South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi.

Waring Howe, a DNC member from Charleston, said there’s no way the Democrats can win the solid South, but he stressed it can capture enough states to win the presidency.

In 1992, with Bill Clinton heading the ticket, Democrats were competitive in the South. Running a centrist campaign, Clinton won five Southern states.

“Their best hope is to split the South and deny Republicans a total sweep of the region,” said Emory University political science professor Merle Black.

The South is home to 168 electoral votes — almost two-thirds of the 270 required for election.

The key for Democrats is to pick a candidate who can seriously contest a handful of Southern states.