HOUSE RACE HOTLINE EXTRA

Delta Blues

Thu. May 15, 2008


Just because Tuesday's Democratic win in Mississippi's 1st District was expected doesn't mean it wasn't a shock. This loss was huge for Republicans and they know it.

How significant was the Democratic win? Republicans lost 30 seats in 2006, but only one of them was as Republican as the seat of Rep.-elect Travis Childers, D-Miss. And that was the seat of former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas. In other words, it took a scandal and a write-in disaster of a GOP candidate with a difficult name to spell, former Rep. Shelley Sekula Gibbs, for Democrats to take a seat in 2006 as Republican as the Mississippi 1st.

All of which means that 18 months after Democrats had their biggest year since 1974 their wave continues to build. How else does one explain Childers' 54 percent total in a district that gave President Bush 62 percent in 2004?

And it's not like we just have this flip as proof of continuing Democratic momentum. In March, when Democrats captured the seat of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Republicans wrote off the loss to a terrible candidate. Ditto for the loss of former GOP Rep. Richard Baker's seat in Louisiana's 6th District, based in Baton Rouge.

No such excuses will work in this defeat. While not the best possible candidate by any means, Southaven Mayor Greg Davis was no Woody Jenkins or Jim Oberweis, the two Republican candidates in Louisiana and Illinois, respectively. The party pulled out all the stops for Davis, including parachuting Vice President Cheney into the district for an election-eve rally. And most of the state's Republican hierarchy campaigned with Davis.

Because of all this activity, there's no other way than to call this a referendum against Republicans. Buttressing these three losses is polling that shows voters prefer Democrats over Republicans in congressional races by the same or wider margins than they did in 2006. The wave, by all measures, continues to build.

Two excuses will be bandied about by those who choose to still ignore the reality of the Republican situation. While they might be valid points, they're still not enough to explain the massive loss Republicans suffered Tuesday.

First, they'll argue that the nonpartisan ballot aided Childers, since most of the time he talked like a Republican with his anti-abortion rights, pro-gun stances. But since this is the fourth time in two months that voters have gone to the polls for this race, they know who the candidates are and the parties they represent.

And in that time, various factions spent nearly $5 million on the race, with a good percentage of that being Republican ads linking Childers to the Democratic presidential frontrunner, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. You'd have to be living under a rock to not know Childers was a Democrat.

Another excuse will be the geographical split that put Davis at a disadvantage. He was from the Memphis, Tenn., suburbs, but the traditional base of the district was in Tupelo, on the eastern side. The tug of war between these two was won in all four elections by Tupelo, even though Davis' home, DeSoto County, was the largest county in the district.

But that really doesn't pan out, either. In a district this Republican, Davis could be from Mars and still be expected to win.

But don't count the National Republican Congressional Committee among those looking for excuses. Immediately after the loss, NRCC Chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma e-mailed a statement saying the environment is such that voters "remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general." He then urged the party to "undertake bold efforts to define a forward looking agenda" that offers the change voters are looking for.

Contrast this sobering message to what the committee released after the loss of Baker's seat. Then, it called Jenkins' narrow loss to now-Rep. Don Cazayoux, D-La., a "warning shot" to Democrats because Cazayoux's poll numbers suffered after Republicans aired TV ads linking him to Obama. That warning shot must've gone over the Democrats' heads in Mississippi.

But the NRCC is correct in finally and publicly admitting it has a problem. The committee has a tough task: This fall, it'll be forced to defend nearly 20 competitive open seats with little cash to do so.

Mississippi's 1st District was the last big chance for Republicans to change the momentum and prove that the other two losses were flukes. It didn't happen, and now they head into the fall running on fumes.

How do Republicans change this script? They no longer have a major event, like an election, to regain momentum, so they'll have to create a game changer.

And the Republicans look to do just that by rolling out a new program, "The Change You Deserve." It'll focus on economic issues, like the rising costs of fuel. They've also announce an "American Family Agenda" that seeks to help the party among suburban voters.

While it's a good first step, it won't be a cure-all for what ails them. No Republican won solely because of the "Contract With America" in 1994, and no Democrat can claim that the "New Direction For America" campaign launched them over Republican foes in 2006.

No, the "change" Republicans needed was a Mississippi win. But it didn't happen, and Republicans head into the summer without the momentum they needed to kick-start their lackluster 2008. Instead, they got the unwanted news that they still haven't woken up from their 2006 nightmare.

by Tim Sahd

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