The Old Eighteen

Travis Childers scores huge victory in Mississippi special election

With 100% of precincts reporting, Travis Childers has scored an upset victory over Republican Greg Davis in a special election in Mississippi to fill the congressional seat of Roger Wicker, who left to replaced Trent Lott in the Senate after he retired last December.  Childers won by a substantial margin, 54%-46%, in a district that Republicans have held since 1994, and that Bush won with more than 60% of the vote in 2004 - this despite efforts by the GOP to hurt Childers by tying him to Barack Obama and John Kerry.  Hopefully this snuffs out whatever life was left in the meme that Obama is going to be a liability for Democrats in down-ticket races.

Childers' victory is another harbinger of doom for Republicans.  Democrats have now won three consecutive special elections over the last three months, all in strongly Republican districts that hadn't been represented by a Democrat for years.  2008 is shaping up to be a big year for the Democratic party - now, if we could just get Hillary Clinton to face reality and line up behind our presidential nominee, we might be able to steamroll the Republicans in November.

Well, at least they've stopped burning crosses in people's yards

A new attack ad being run by Greg Davis, the Republican candidate for Trent Lott's old congressional seat in Mississippi, shows that the race-baiting GOP ad being run in North Carolina is no fluke.  The Republicans are making it clear that any white Democrat living in a southern state who endorses Barack Obama or has any relationship whatsoever with him will get the Willie Horton treatment.  Because this is all the Republicans have left to motivate their base: fear and hate.  Here's the ad: