That’s unfortunate to hear. I don’t want to scream racism, although that has to play a factor, however small. The racial polarization in MS is quite extreme, and many Whites in GOP districts tend to think almost any Black pol running is going to be a race-baiting Black Bilbo Bennie Thompson type (only Mike Espy broke through, but when he got into trouble, he fell back into playing the race card bit, despite enormous White support).
It’s truly a shame, as MS has a rich history of Black Republicanism. The first state to send a Black Senator, first to elect one to serve a full 6-year term. As the author stated, current GOPers include James Meredith and former Fayette Mayor Charles Evers (whom is quite elderly now, and is one of the few who remembers the vicious and crooked racist New Dealer liberal Theodore Bilbo — and he and his kid brother Medgar were on the receiving end of one of Bilbo’s diatribes while out on the stump, when he thundered and gestured at the two kids, “One day, those two ni**er children will be running this state ! Do YOU want that ?!”). When Bilbo was born, Blanche Kelso Bruce was his Senior Senator.
Black Democrats in MS is a very recent occurance, and it was a very brutal and very ugly forced integration into a party that didn’t want them. If you take a look, that even up until the ‘80s, Black Democrats were forced to run separate candidates for office (Charles Evers was once one of those candidates, because he didn’t feel comfortable with the White Dem party, although he also didn’t feel particularly comfortable with the National Dems, either, because he wasn’t a rabid left-winger — he ran for Governor as long ago as 1971 and deprived Maurice Dantin in 1978 from winning the Senate race against Thad Cochran, who became the first MS GOP Senator since, yup, Blanche K. Bruce), and the result was the elections of many Republicans.
One would hope that we could make some inroads with running candidates in the Black community, as opposed to just winning in White districts, as with Mr. Lott. Once the GOP solidifies its majority in the legislature, it will certainly behoove Blacks in these districts to ask themselves whether keeping all their eggs in one minority party basket is wise. As it stands, a lot of White Republicans could then say, “We don’t have to even give you crumbs, since you won’t vote for us.” The very ugly downside to racially polarized parties.
***As an addendum, if Cochran decides to retire next year, I think it would be a classy act for him to resign early by maybe a few months and allow Gov. Barbour to appoint Mayor Evers to fill the vacancy out of respect.
Nic Lott was running in a district that is around 40% black, so it’s not a lily-white district. We need black Republicans to win in such districts (and in even whiter districts) in order for black voters to see black Republicans in action, which could eventually lead to the GOP getting 30% of the black vote, which in turn would lead to black Republicans being able to win in black-majority districts. A Nic Lott victory would have moved the ball well down the field for us; I hope his defeat does not mean that we’re back to trying a Hail Mary with Clinton LeSueur or Yvonne Brown in the black-majority, heavily Democrat 2nd CD.