By Annie Johnson and Bob Benenson, CQ Staff

The political problems faced by the Republican Party have become national in nature, even in the conservative South, where the GOP’s long ascendancy has recently been blunted. This trend can be seen in microcosm in the two open-seat House races this year in Alabama — a state that bills itself as “The Heart of Dixie” — where the candidate matchups for this fall’s contest will be set in a primary to be held next Tuesday.

Had the retiring House incumbents, 5th District Democrat Robert E. “Bud” Cramer and 2nd District Republican Terry Everett , decided not to seek re-election as recently as 2004, the Republicans likely would have been favored to win both of their seats. Republican strategists have long argued that the popular and conservative-leaning Cramer was all that stood between them and a takeover in northern Alabama’s 5th, where 60 percent of voters favored President Bush in 2004. And the Republicans appeared to have a near-lock on southeastern 2nd District, where Everett first won in 1992 and where Bush took 66 percent as he won re-election.

But the 5th and 2nd District seats were instead thrown open this year, when GOP certainty has been shaken even in many districts that have strongly supported the party. Republican-held seats in conservative districts flipped to the Democrats in back-to-back special election victories in early May, with Democrats Don Cazayoux winning in Louisiana’s 6th and Travis W. Childers taking over in Mississippi’s 1st. These upsets, which came on the heels of a six-seat Democratic gain in the region’s 2006 elections, trimmed the Republicans’ Southern advantage to 84 House seats to the Democrats’ 61.

“You wonder if the dissatisfaction with the national Republican Party hasn’t now reached into the reddest of the red states,” said David J. Lanoue, professor and chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama, referring to the color typically accorded on electoral maps to states and districts dominated by the Republican Party.

This hardly means that the Republicans don’t have a strong chance to win one or both of the open seats in play in Alabama this year. Cramer’s retirement decision gives the Republicans an opportunity in the 5th District that wouldn’t have existed had he sought another term. And the crowded Republican primary field in the 2nd District appears certain to produce a nominee who will be a solid contender to hold the seat for the party this November.

But strong candidate recruitment by the Democrats and uncertainties in the Republican fields in both districts have created a dynamic that is less favorable to GOP prospects than would have been expected in the party’s rosier days.

Part of the scenario is a matter of timing. Everett opted out fairly early, announcing last September that he planned to retire. This spurred a pileup of seven Republican primary candidates, with the outcome uncertain. It also gave the Democrats time to draw in a strong candidate of their own, Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright, who is favored over his two primary opponents.

Cramer, on the other hand, sprung his surprise 5th District retirement announcement in March, just three weeks before the April 4 candidate filing deadline. Democrats quickly landed on their feet by rallying around state Sen. Parker Griffith, whose center-right profile is similar to that of Cramer and who shares the congressman’s base in Huntsville, the district’s largest city. Republicans, though, saw several prominent figures test the waters and decide not to run, leaving them with a somewhat lower-profile field of primary contenders.

5th District — Parker House?

Wayne Parker, an insurance executive, emerged as the front-runner in the Republican primary field when the campaign began, largely because he nearly unseated Cramer as the party’s nominee in a past 5th District race. The problem for Parker and his party is that his strong showing was in the distant past — in 1994 — and he did much less well in a 1996 rematch.

Cheryl Baswell Guthrie also has stood out as a contender for the Republican nomination. A Huntsville businesswoman, Guthrie notes in her bio that she is a granddaughter of the late Edward deGraffenried, a traditional Southern Democrat who held a U.S. House seat in Alabama from 1949 to 1953. Rounding out the Republican field are Angelo Mancuso, a former state representative; Ray McKee Jr., a lawyer who entered the race in 2007 to challenge Cramer; Mark Huff, a musician from Huntsville; and George Barry, a manufacturing supply salesman from Madison.

Pre-primary campaign finance reports to the Federal Election Commission, for activity through May 14, showed Guthrie leading all candidates in total receipts with $319,000. Democrat Griffith, who faces nominal primary opposition from physicist David Maker, was second with $306,000, while Republican Parker was third with $289,000.

But Guthrie also engaged in heavy upfront spending, which left her with just $11,000 cash on hand as of that date. This compared to $131,000 held in reserve by Parker — and $280,000 on hand for Griffith, who has had to spend little on his primary campaign.