The Race To Watch Is Mississippi, Not West Virginia
Posted 5/13/2008 6:00 AM CDT
The contest to watch tonight is not the West Virginia presidential primary. Pay little or no attention to those results. The race to watch, and one that could be a barometer of things to come in November, is the special congressional election in the 1st District in Mississippi where Republican Greg Davis and Democrat Travis Childers face off in what could be another nail in the coffin of the Republican Party’s stranglehold on the South.
A word on West Virginia. It is a state tailor-made for Hillary Clinton. The population is 97% white with the lowest percentage of college graduates of any state in the country. If Hillary can’t win big there, she can’t win anywhere. She will certainly boast about her victory, but taken as part of the big picture it is virtually meaningless.
In Mississippi however, a victory for the Democrats in a district where George Bush won 62% of the vote in 2004, and has been held by a Republican since 1994, would be the third win in three tries this year for Democrats taking long-held Republican seats. It would be another sign that 2008 is going to be the Democratic equivalent of 1994 when it comes to congressional elections.
The Republicans, proving they have learned nothing from the 2 previous losses, have tried to paint Childers with the "liberal" tag, and emphasized his association with Barack Obama. This same tactic failed in Louisiana last month where another conservative, pro-life, pro-gun, Democrat won a seat that was thought to be one of the safest in the country for Republicans.
Those tried and true Republican methods which have worked so well in the past aren’t flying this year, in what some have called the year of the centrist. Even Newt Gingrich has warned Republicans that if they don’t change their tactics they face a catastrophic defeat in November. But old habits die hard.
Childers has taken a page from Tip O’Neill’s playbook that all politics is local, and has focused his efforts on issues that affect the mostly rural district of northern Mississippi. Childers won 49% of the vote in the first round of voting and missed an outright victory by a little over 400 votes, so his strategy is apparently working. Davis, on the other hand, turned off many voters with his harshly negative primary campaign against another Republican.
So as you watch the returns tonight keep an eye on Mississippi. It will be more telling about what to expect in November than West Virginia, and could signal the continued re-emergence of a species of politician once thought extinct, the Southern, conservative Democrat. At the same time it could be the beginning of the end for the solid Republican South. Both of which I see as a positive sign for the country as a whole. |
