Greetings form the great state of Mississippi and Cotton Mouth blog. We are hard at it down here, doing everything we can to see Travis Childers get to Washington. The special election is Tuesday. As of tomorrow morning we will hit the 72 hour countdown until we turn MS-01 blue. Mississippi has four congressional districts. Two are represented by Republicans, Chip Pickering (MS-03) and the now vacated seat of Roger Wicker (MS-01). Two districts are blue with Gene Taylor and Bennie Thompson. From just a home-state perspective, regardless of the national implications of this race, I want to proudly say Mississippi has 3 Dems and 1 Repug in congress.
We have already won two big special elections this season. We won IL-14 and LA-06, two runby red districts. The panic mode has set in big for the GOP. They have sent Mike Huckabee and now Dick Cheney down to help the GOP candidate Greg Davis campaign. The NRCC knows how serious this is. They have already spent close to 20% of their cash on hand in defending MS-01.
Dick Cheney was on a local radio show today being interviewed about his upcoming visit to the district and the MS-01 race. He spends half of the interview praising the Bush tax cuts and calling for more tax cuts. He must not have read the news that the Bush, Cheney economic policy has been an abysmal failure. According to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Greg Davis, that's just what this country needs more of. Never mind the deficit soaring out of control that have to be paid off by our children. Our debt now closes in on $10,000,000,000,000, or more than $30,000 per American citizen.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, there are. The way I like to explain it, Paul, is to talk about the '03 tax cut. You may remember the President and I inherited a recession, the front end of a recession, and then after 9/11, we lost a million jobs. And what turned the economy around and got us started on a 52-month expansion was the tax package that we passed in the Spring of '03. And that tax package passed the Senate by one vote -- happened to be my vote; I had to cast the tie-breaking vote that time as Vice President. But I don't deserve any great credit for it. I knew what I was supposed to do that day; it wasn't like I had options when I went up there.
This one is real good...
Q: Monday you are going to be here -- on Monday -- in the state of Mississippi, and Greg Davis will be there, and you'll be in Senatobia, Hernando, and that area?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think we are going to be. I'm not sure exactly. It's going to be someplace in the First District. I'm not sure exactly what part of it. South Memphis or --
Q: Don't worry about it.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Southaven, in Southaven.
I wonder if anyone can give him directions from the Death Star to South Memphis? Dick does not even know the name of the city he is coming to, where his candidate Greg Davis happens to be mayor.
As the boys at Swing State Project noted a while back, this is a very winnable race. So winnable and for such a good candidate, that they went as far as to endorse Travis Childers. This was their first endorsement since the Tester race in 2006.
Freedom's Watch has been very active down here spending close to a half million on negative ads against Childers. I have posted these before, but for those who have not seen them, here they are:
and one more:
The NRCC have run polling now eight times according to Swing State Project. We have an oppurtunity to bring this thing home. With Obama on the ticket in November, I feel very good about defending the seat.
What can you do to help Travis Childers?
- Donate to Travis before tomorrow. The Childers campaign said they would be able to use every dollar contributed up until 72 hours before the election. This is your last chance to make a difference before next Tuesday.
- Phonebank for Travis using this virtual phonebanking center set up by the DCCC. One of our readers gave himself hand cramps from dialing the phone a couple of weeks ago in a phonebanking effort for Travis. Phonebanking is an easy way to help the GOTV effort. If you are a regular blogger, you are probably in your Mom's basement in your pajamas, so don't worry you won't have to change. If you are little nervous about calling strangers, read this diary from Daily Kos - 5 MYTHS about phonebanking.
Update: Tenn Wisc Dem made a point that those of you with heavy yankee accents might do more harm than good. Tenn Wisc Dem is a transplant who has first hand knowledge of these matters. I don't know if it would hurt, but lets play it safe and take the advice.
