Roger Wicker has a nice edge in fundraising over Democratic challenger, former Governor Ronnie Musgrove. The race is tied according to last two polls. Musgrove is not going to be the most progressive Senate candidate  ever, but he is a H*LL of a lot better than Rubber Stamp Roger Wicker.

We have blogged about Roger Wicker's abysmal voting record to the point we are blue in the face at Cotton Mouth. Today we find out that his fundraising is not only backed by special interests (Wicker is a king of pork, with a revolving door), but that Wicker is playing dirty pool.

Great news from the state that brought you the latest big Democratic celebration in the MS-01 Travis Childers win.  Former Governor Ronnie Musgrove is ahead of Roger Wicker in several of the latest polls.  Barack Obama leading the ticket has brought a new level of enthusiasm among Mississippi Democrats.  

At my home blog Cotton Mouth, we covered the MS-01 race like none other.  We told y'all then, yes we can win in north Mississippi, and we did.  Now we are back, this time bringing news of a very possible Senate pickup in Mississippi.  

We are now less than 72 hours away from the special election for the MS-01 congressional seat.  There have been no public polls run, but recent insider polling from both camps have Democrat Travis Childers marginally ahead.  The GOTV effort is going to be crucial and is already underway.  A lot of this diary is going to be information I have posted on our blog Cotton Mouth.  

Greetings form the great state of Mississippi and Cotton Mouth blog.  We are hard at it down here, doing everything we can to see Travis Childers get to Washington.  The special election is Tuesday. As of tomorrow morning we will hit the 72 hour countdown until we turn MS-01 blue.  Mississippi has four congressional districts.  Two are represented by Republicans, Chip Pickering (MS-03) and the now vacated seat of Roger Wicker (MS-01).  Two districts are blue with Gene Taylor and Bennie Thompson.  From just a home-state perspective, regardless of the national implications of this race, I want to proudly say Mississippi has 3 Dems and 1 Repug in congress.

We have already won two big special elections this season.  We won IL-14 and LA-06, two runby red districts.  The panic mode has set in big for the GOP.  They have sent Mike Huckabee and now Dick Cheney down to help the GOP candidate Greg Davis campaign.  The NRCC knows how serious this is.  They have already spent close to 20% of their cash on hand in defending MS-01.

Economic populist Travis Childers is ready to serve for the good people of Mississippi's first congressional district.  Recent polls show Travis with a four point lead over Republican Greg Davis.  Davis has resorted to vicious attack ads.

Today we get an email from the DCCC, sayig that to help in this race they need all donations by midnight tonight.

Here is a link to the DCCC website with details.

Below is a copy of the email

We are in a street fight down here.  In the special election on May 13, Travis Childers has an oppurtunity to lay claim for the Democratic Party a congresssional district that voted 62% for Bush in 2004.  He is up against Republican Greg Davis who has offered nothing but vicious attack ads.  

Childers came within less than 400 votes of closing the deal in the special election, drawing 49.6% of the vote.  The seat was vacated by Roger Wicker, a typical Republican empty suit, when he was hand picked by Governor Haley Barbour to take over Trent Lott's seat.  Trent Lott retired just days before the new lobby laws took effect that would have barred him from the industry for two years.

Tonight we all watched as Don Cazayoux defeated Woody Jenkins to become the first Democrat to be elected in LA-06 in over 30 years.  Repeat that a few times.  

Don't forget about sending the former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert packing in IL-14 a month or two ago.

On May 13 comes the third and final special election contest.  In MS-01 the Democrats find themselves with a stunning opportunity to pull the three game sweep (it is baseball season).  Economic populist Travis Childers came a few hundred votes short of winning this thing on April 22.  He finished with 49.6% of the vote, tantalizingly close.

OK, I have watched the supposed rebuke of Obama by Childers today about 10 times. There is one central fact that has been misunderstood by the majority.

We are in a dogfight down here in Mississippi for a congressional seat that is supposed to be "safe republican".  MS-01, an R+10 district is down to a runoff on May 13 between Democrat Travis Childers and Republican Greg Davis.  Childers won a plurality of 49.6 percent in the special election, just a few hundred short of victory.

Barack Obama unleashed his powerful phonebanking tools in support of Democrat Travis Childers in his quest to win the MS-01 congressional seat.  This seat has been in safe GOP hands for years.  This is by far the best chance we have had in years to wrest this seat away from the Republicans.

We are following the news and happening surrounding the race on our Mississippi blog Cotton Mouth.

Today's New York Times ran a full article on the race.

In a Red State, a Blue Dog has Republicans Worried:  New York Times

If you have any time today, help us phone bank for Childers.  We can win this race!!  This diary is breif so I can get back to it, thanks.

crossposted on Cotton Mouth

Travis Childers is a Democrat who can win in Mississippi.  Polls show this race is close and the NRCC is spending money here, when they have very little.  Please donated to Travis Childers, anything helps.  If he can win this race we will have 3 of 4 congressional districts BLUE.

donate here

I wanted to revise and repost this diary from yesterday for folks who will be watching the election returns.  There were Obama supporters at a lot of the main intersections in Jackson today.  The excitement was still in the air after the Obama speech last night at JSU.  We had an overflow estimated crowd of 10,000 folks of all ages, races and economic status.  One of the many media people I talked to noted that he had not seen a crowd as "stoked" as this one on the whole tour.  Songs were sang and chants were cheered.  You would have thought a football game was about to occur.  It was deafening at times before Obama even entered the building.  Below is the diary from yesterday with plenty of edits and additions and subtractions to make it more useful.

My homestate is on the map!  While it may pass to be a short-lived week in the bright lights of the national scene, it has added an extra layer of intrigue to the already engaging Democratic nominee race.  What I have laid out below is an explanation of how the delegates are awarded in Mississippi, a layout of the electoral terrain in each district, and a poor man's pundit's predictions.  Enjoy and GOTV.

My homestate is on the map!  While it may pass to be a short-lived week in the bright lights of the national scene, it has added an extra layer of intrigue to the already engaging Democratic nominee race.  What I have laid out below is an explanation of how the delegates are awarded in Mississippi, a layout of the electoral terrain in each district, and a poor man's pundit's predictions.  Enjoy and GOTV.

Ediited to reflect the way the 35% are actually divided.  I made a minor mistake in the original, in relation to the way the statewide delegates are proportioned.  The difference is minor but could play a difference, so I edited the post

There is a great article in Friday's New York Times about the Democratic Party's push to achieve a super-majority in the Senate. Currently the Dem's have a 51-49 advantage in large part to two Independents who caucus with them. We all know one of them is a Republican in waiting with our own Benedict Arnold, Joe Lieberman. If the Democrats can achieve a gain of 10 seats at the minimum, they can reach the magic number of 61, filibuster proof and Lieberman proof.

A new radio ad from the Obama campaign hit the airwaves in Mississippi. The ad starts with Obama speaking on his Christian faith, in an obvious attempt to thwart the effects of the venomous email about Obama being a secret Muslim, that has been making the rounds. Unfortunately, those emails can be effective in a state where the electorate suffer from poverty and ignorance. Email is the last unregulated means of mass spreading of lies left available. No one wants regulation on email, but we must have common sense when reading these things or better yet just delete them. If it were really true it would be in the news, on the blogs, on CNN, or something.

Edit:  After second thought, maybe I should have titled this diary, "The Insult 37 State Strategy Comes to Canton, Mississippi"

Wow, what an exciting week we are having in my home state.  Democrats here are outorganized, outfinanced and outnumbered.  Starving for relevance, we have found it in the Democratic Primary here on Tuesday.  There is real palpable excitement in the air.  I am not sure if we are even outnumbered anymore, by worst measures we are at least in the fight.  

Tonight, Thursday the 6th, we had Hillary speaking at the Jefferson Jackson Hamer Dinner in Canton, Mississippi at 7:30.  At 5:30 I attended a Barack Obama visiblity rally at the front entrance of the building where the Clinton event occured.  Tommorow night I am driving 3 hours north to my real hometown to see the Big Dog speak at a fish fry.  Monday my man Barack Obama brings his message of change and hope to the Magnolia State.  What a week for a Dem political junkie...

Just when you think it can't get any dumber in Jackson, especially in light of the blockheads opposed to a reduction in sentence time for nonviolent criminals, here comes another fine piece of Republican legislation down the pipe. The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to ban adoptions by lesbian and gay couples. The ACLU provided the proper response.

Cross-Posted at Cotton Mouth

The Republicans in the House are playing political games and using the teacher pay raise as their political football as explained in the editorial of Monday’s Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. It is no secret to those who follow the politics of public education that Haley and his minions will do anything to thwart investing in the human capital of our state. Whether it be by a coup attempt for the Speaker of the House, concentrated support in races to remove public education supporters (see Rep. Cecil Brown), or by hyper-partisan politics in both chambers, the GOP in Mississippi has been a persistent and toxic foe of education. If you don’t believe that ask Hank Bounds (State Superintendant, Cecil Brown (House Education Committee Chair) or Claude Hartley (State Board of Education Chairman) what they think of Republican politics related to education.