Tomorrow newspapers will have the wrong politics headline. They'll run something totally false about Hillary still being a viable candidate even though she trails by around 160 delegates (including a reasonable forecast of a ten-delegate lead in Pennsylvania) and there are only 408 lest, requiring a split of around 289 to 119 (71%, a 32-point edge) to win. There are those who think she can win with superdelegates, but I suspect the prospect of Hillary being chased around the country before the convention by angry crowds of leftist, black, and antiwar Obama supporters accusing her of trying to steal the election like her fellow corporatist honky warmonger Bush will cause the superdelegates to decide that they don't want the party to commit suicide in the general election.
Somewhere buried in the politics coverage in a minor item, if mentioned at all, may be the news that there was also voting in Mississippi for an election to the House of Representatives. This is because of one of a long series of elections -the Trent Lott Resignation Saga. Trent Lott resigned from the Senate. The governor, Haley Barbour, appointed Roger Wicker to Lott's seat. Lott was re-elected in 2006, but Wicker doesn't get to be in the Senate for the full time- he faces a special Senate election in November to see who will serve until 2012. Thad Cochran, Mississippi's other senator, is also up for re-election this year.
Roger Wicker was the member of the House of Representatives from Mississippi's 1st District, which is a large, mostly rural area in the nothern part of the state whose most famous former resident is Elvis, who was born in Tupelo, Wicker's hometown, in 1935, shortly after the town was the first to receive electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The 1st District House seat was therefore vacant and a special election for the House seat was triggered. In 2004, George W. Bush won the 1st District by 25 points. It seems like it would be easy for the Republicans to win. Primaries were set for March 11, the date of the Mississippi presidential primary. Both Republican and Democratic primaries resulted in runoffs, held April 1. Then the general election, which is nonpartisan, has all of the primary candidates on the ballot (WTF?) and the top votegetter wins if he or she gets 50%.
The general election was held today, and the results are what should be the headline tomorrow:
| Travis Childers | (D) | 33,138 | 49% |
| Greg Davis | (R) | 31,066 | 46% |
| Steve Holland | (D) | 782 | 1% |
| Glenn McCullough | (R) | 957 | 1% |
| Wally Pang | (I) | 724 | 1% |
| John Wages | (G) | 397 | 1% |
A Democrat won the Land of Elvis by 3 points. The exact percentage was 49.41% to 46.32%, with the 50% threshold missed by 394 votes. This is going to go to a runoff, the fourth election in two months, on May 13 with Childers and Davis only on the ballot. Those damn Greens!
And there's more! In the 2007 general election in Louisiana, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal was elected governor, freeing up his House seat, the 1st District, and then another House member, Richard Baker, in the 6th District, unexpectedly resigned in midterm to take a lobbying job with the Managed Funds Association, which is a trade group for the hedge funds industry. These seats are the subjects of a special election on May 3.
Bush won Louisiana's 6th District, which is the Baton Rouge area, by 19 points in 2004, and the 1st District, in the New Orleans upriver suburbs and the area across the 24-mile long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, the longest bridge over a lake in the world, was one of the most heavily pro-Bush districts in 2004 with a vote of 70% to 29% for Kerry. However, many Katrina evacuees have moved into these districts and the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in the 1st District was devastated by the influx of seawater into the lake. The causeway was out for three weeks, adding to the difficulties of north shore residents.
The two (!) votes for the primary have been held on March 8 and April 11, yielding candidates who will run in a general election with independents to be held May 3. Fortunately for Louisianans, their rules have eliminated the possibility of a second (fourth?) round of voting because the top votegetter wins in the general election (but not in the primaries). There are claims that the Democrat, Don Cazayoux, is leading in the 6th District. More embarrassment may be in store for the Republican Party.
The Trent Lott Resignation Saga will conclude in November, when all House seats and both Mississippi Senate seats will be up for re-election. By my count, there will have been five votes in Mississippi's 1st District in 2008. Former governor Ronnie Musgrove, who lost to Haley Barbour in 2004, is running against Wicker for Trent Lott's Senate seat. There will be opportunity for more Republican embarrassment.
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