Tonight we all watched as Don Cazayoux defeated Woody Jenkins to become the first Democrat to be elected in LA-06 in over 30 years. Repeat that a few times.
Don't forget about sending the former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert packing in IL-14 a month or two ago.
On May 13 comes the third and final special election contest. In MS-01 the Democrats find themselves with a stunning opportunity to pull the three game sweep (it is baseball season). Economic populist Travis Childers came a few hundred votes short of winning this thing on April 22. He finished with 49.6% of the vote, tantalizingly close.
We can repeat this joyous occasion in little more than a week when MS-01 voters have a chance to vote for change. The good people of Mississippi need to follow the lead of LA-06 and send Travis Childers to Washington.
The rethugs tried their anti-Obama strategy in MS-01 as well. The national media has gotten the story all wrong from the get go. Obama never did endorse Childers. The Obama campaign, being the smart guys they are, sent out an email to all the MS people on the list asking them to make sure they go vote for Childers against the Republican in the special election and gave links to the Obama phonebanking tool. This email was sent THE DAY OF THE ELECTION. Travis had no idea, or if he did it was because he found it about it after the fact. The national media has accused him of "distancing himself from Obama". Maybe to a slight degree, but he was telling the God's honest truth when he said he had never met nor talked to Obama. Remember this district voted 62% for Bush in 2004.
The battle lines are different down here. He, like Cazayoux, is socially conservative but does not stress it. He is an economic populist for fair trade, childrens health care, ending the war, etc, and will not take money from the oil lobby. The unconfirmed word I got from someone close to the campaign is that Dick Cheney will be here next week sometime. we have already been grace by Huckabee.
We are now in a street-fight down here. The Republican has run nothing but slanderous negative ads. One made by Freedom Watch was rejected by a Memphis TV station for being completely false. The DCCC has spent a lot of cash on ads, but we need money for the GOTV and ground effort. This is going to be close, but with your help and the good Lord willing we just might be dancing again Tuesday week.
If you have an extra dollar or two, please help us, thanks.
We are blogging at Cotton Mouth. Stop by some time and chat a little Mississippi politics with us.
Childers for Congress