The Enchanted Porkfist

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May 13, 2008

Mississippi confounds expectations.

The national Republican party has been not-so-discreetly freaking out in the last couple of weeks that it might lose Mississippi's 1st Congressional District, which is about as conservative as conservative gets—Bush won 62 percent of the vote there in 2004.

Leading up to today's runoff election, the Republicans so feared a Democratic victory that they sent a certain Mr. D. Cheney to campaign for Greg Davis, the handsome and well-coiffed mayor of Southaven, pictured above in an attempt to simulate the Vice President's conjoined sibling. The party feared that a loss in über-reliable Mississippi could portend a serious rout this November.

Well, let the pants-soiling begin: Democrat Travis Childers has won the seat, despite a last-minute attempt by Republicans to tie his image to Barack Obama:

In advertisements and speeches, Republicans have repeatedly associated Travis Childers, the white Democrat threatening to take the seat away from the Republican Party, with Mr. Obama. Republicans say Mr. Obama’s liberal values are out of place in the district. But for many Democratic veterans here, the tactic is a throwback to the old and unwelcome politics of race, a standby in Mississippi campaigning.

Former Gov. William Winter, a Democrat, expressed shock at the current campaign.

“I am appalled that this blatant appeal to racial prejudice is still being employed,” said Mr. Winter, who lost the 1967 governor’s race after his segregationist opponent circulated handbills showing blacks listening to one of his speeches. Mr. Winter went on to win the governor’s office 12 years later.

“I had thought we had gotten past that,” Mr. Winter said. “That was a tactic that was used against me in the 1960s.”

That it didn't work in Mississippi in 2008 is a hopeful sign indeed.

MORE: Gloating a bit is one thing; Democratic congressmen should leave lines like this to Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert:

Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, noted that Vice President Dick Cheney made a Monday visit to the district in a failed effort to boost Republican Greg Davis.

“They put everything into this race in Mississippi,” he said. “And I think one of the things they learned was that Dick Cheney was as dangerous to Republican candidates as he is to his hunting partners.”