Third straight "Solid Red" Congressional seat falls in Mississippi

WASHINGTON - Stunning? Only if you haven’t been paying attention in recent weeks.

Sickening? Yes, if you are a Republican.

That about sums up Tuesday night in Mississippi’s First Congressional district.

In a special election, Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in a district which had long been a GOP stronghold and where only three years ago, George W. Bush had won 62 percent of the vote.

Republicans ran ads linking Childers to Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Obama gloated a bit on the campaign trail in Michigan Wednesday. “Look, they (the Republicans) just lost yesterday in the heart of Mississippi…. this is a hardcore Republican seat. And they lost it by eight points."

The Republicans, he said, "did everything they could, you know they ran ads with my face on it, and they said, 'look at this former liberal,' his former pastor said offensive things, I mean they were trying to do every trick in the book to try to scare folks in Mississippi. And it didn't work.

- MSNBC

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Repub national threw lots of money -- 20% of their cash on hand -- at this contest, and wheeled out their big guns up to and including Cheney to campaign in the district. They ran their patented guilt-by-association TV campaign juxtaposing Childers and Obama in what the GOP regards as the minds of the rubes.

None of it worked anymore.

Along with the GOP suicide watch, the Dem superdelegates have got to be noticing that Obama is not poison on the ticket, despite a lot of noise to the contrary.

- Eddy Kilowatt, FARK

middleoftheday: Ever get the impression that McCain ended up where he did because nobody on the red side gives a shiat? It seems like the chances of a Republican being the next president would be pretty damn pretty low.

Yeah, he's the fall guy for the Republicans this year. They can say they gave the "maverick" a shot, even if it's in a year where Zombie Reagan would have a better chance than any other Repub.

- Jubeebee, FARK