Free Republic

Conservatives rationalized on May 13 when Republicans lost their third consecutive special Congressional election, in the supposedly safe 1st District of Mississippi. After all, they said, the victorious Democratic candidate Travis Childers, sounded more conservative during the campaign than his losing Republican candidate. He was a county official, a good old boy who the voters figured would be an independent conservative vote in the House as one of the Blue Dog Democrats. But once in Washington, he drank the Democratic leadership’s Kool Aid. In the first 13 House roll calls contested along partisan lines after Childers took his seat in...

I am not an expert on campaign strategy, but I know a losing game plan when I see one. The Republican Party’s strategy in a series of special House elections this year has been to tie Democratic candidates to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. How’s that working? Three straight losses, all in congressional districts President Bush carried easily in 2004. Some strategy. John McCain may well win the presidential election, but at the congressional and grassroots level, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the GOP in a more severe state of disarray. The worst result yet has come from the...

2008-05-14) — An ebullient Sen. John McCain told a crowd of supporters today that the Republican loss of a Mississippi Congressional seat Tuesday bodes well for his presidential hopes in November. “Travis Childers, who beat the Republican in Mississippi, ran as a conservative Democrat and will now join the liberal Democrat coalition in the House,” said the presumptive Republican nominee. “What does that signal if not the triumph of the McCain strategy?”

In a major blow to national Republicans, a Mississippi congressional seat that once voted for President Bush by a twenty-five point margin elected a Democrat on Tuesday. Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers beat out Republican candidate Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, by a 54%-46% margin, a spread that several Republican strategists on Capitol Hill characterized as a startling wake-up call for a party in dire straits. Voters cast ballots for the fourth time in three months for the seat, vacated when Republican Roger Wicker was appointed to fill the remainder of Senator Trent Lott's term. After winning the...

Travis Childers, elected U.S. House, District 1, Mississippi. [Note: This is an AP bulletin - nothing follows]