Jonathan followed the results of that other race Tuesday night, the special election to fill the MS-01 congressional seat vacated by now Senator Roger Wicker. The result was fairly stunning: in an R+10 district, the Democrat Travis Childers almost defeated outright the Republican Greg Davis, winning 49% to 46%, leading to a run-off on May 13.
No matter what happens in 3 weeks, this result should be a wake up call to national Republicans and specifically John McCain for a few reasons. Not only was this a red district (it went for Bush with 62% of the vote against Kerry in 2004) but it's in the heart of the south, the GOP's last remaining stronghold, and their playbook didn't work there.
"Liberals are on the march," the narrator warned in one Davis advertisement, which described the Republican as a "pro-life conservative" and urged voters to "send a message to Washington liberals." [...]At least in part, Mr. Childers was able to deflect Republican efforts to tie him to national Democratic figures held in deep suspicion here, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. A nursing home owner as well as the chancery clerk, or county financial administrator, Mr. Childers, 50, styled himself a Mississippi Democrat, marking a distinction with the national party, which he said he disagreed with on some issues.
But while Childers effectively blurred the distinctions between himself and his Republican challenger, the issues on which he did distinguish himself, the issues that won him a plurality in a bright red southern district, should send shivers down John McCain's spine.
But the Republicans' hold is being unexpectedly tested by a self-described "Mississippi Democrat," a gregarious local courthouse official whose positions on social issues -- guns, abortion, same-sex marriage -- are indistinguishable from those of the other party. Democrats are hoping to add the candidate, Travis Childers, 50, to the raft of conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats elected in the 2006 midterm elections, due partly to economic appeals and doubts about the war. [...]Up and down the rolling hills, black-soil prairies and small towns of this upstate district stretching north to Tennessee, Mr. Childers makes frequent appeals to what he calls "working folks" struggling in a weak economy, and expresses his opposition to a war policy he says is "not working."
So not only is this a reminder that, as Matt Stoller writes:
The public hates Republicans, and larger macro factors are at play...the economy and Iraq. No one likes Republicans, even in R+10 districts.
But as Eric Kleefeld puts it, the result Shows Unpopularity Of Iraq War In Deep Red States.
So, John McCain and Republicans nationally who are continuing to run on the war, should be on notice; and as for any cautious Democratic challengers who still wonder if running against the war is politically perilous just because it's off the front page, they should take a lesson from the MS-01 race.
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