There was a special election held in Mississippi last night to fill a seat in Congress. This seat is one that is in deeply conservative territory; it voted for George Bush to be president by a margin of 2-1 in 2004. In this particular campaign, the Republicans tried to tar the Democratic candidate here with being a Barack Obama supporter, and more importantly, played up Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his remarks and tried to use that against him.
The result? Not good - for the Republicans that is. They lost by an 8 point margin:
For Republicans, Davis’ defeat is viewed as a possible preview for a widespread GOP thrashing in November, and it shows that trying to link local Democrats in conservative districts to Sen. Barack Obama and his former pastor was not a winning strategy.
Now, some people seem to think that Obama will not be able to stand up to the Republican slime machine when it gets into gear, but recent polls show the Republicans face long odds at making that strategy work:
The party’s fundamental situation is terrible: Republicans are saddled with an enormously unpopular president, a war, a troubled economy and a Democratic opposition that’s being energized by important constituent groups.
An analysis of the recent ABC/Washington Post poll shows signs of the Republican’s being in deep trouble. Obama leads McCain in 3 of the 4 regions of the US and even is competitive with McCain in the South - a traditional Republican stronghold. It also shows Dems are more trusted then Republicans to deal with the US’s problems - by wide margins. Another new poll out this morning shows Obama again beating McCain nationally.
Combine that with the fact that McCain will be under what I think will be a very effective attack - calling him “McSame” - as in the same as Bush and his failed policies and the Republicans in general, as well as exposing him to the public that he’s not as much of a “maverick” Republican as he’s tried to project, and I think you’re going to see a Republican bloodbath at the polls.
It is not a good year to be a Republican, and I can’t say I feel sorry for them. It can’t happen to a worse bunch (except perhaps Stephen Harper and his lot up here).
n top of prior by-elections in the suburbs of Chicago and then in Louisiana, the Democrats have set themselves up for what could be a revolution come November. And this win is a huge one in a district rated R+10 (i.e. likely voters vote Republican across the ballot lines, 10% above the national average).
Whatever losses Obama may have had in Appalachia could more than be made up for in the Deep South (putting states like Louisiana, Mississippi and maybe even Texas) into play; that plus some more marginal states such as Colorado, Arizona and Nevada could create a whole new electoral map — one that neither Hillary Clinton nor Karl Rove want to contemplate, but should.