Whither Travis Childers?

Speaking of Greg Davis' invisibility, what about his opponent? Well, Rep. Childers is back from Washington and using the five-week break to hear from his constiuents. According to the D-J, Childers will be visiting each of his district's 24 counties during the recess:

Childers' first stops included Itawamba and Lee counties, where the newly elected congressman visited with officials and introduced some of his staff.

"I want to work with you folks," Childers told the Lee County Board of Supervisors on Monday morning. "I want to help Lee County and Tupelo and the other municipalities here."

Childers said he wants to reach out to each county and let both leaders and residents know that he and his staff are available to hear comments and answer questions.

When asked about the biggest concern voiced so far by constituents in his north Mississippi district, Childers said "fuel prices." The Booneville native vowed to continue fighting for lower prices at the pump but said a negative campaign run by conservative-aligned independent group Freedoms Watch has been claiming the opposite.

The nonprofit, lobbying organization last month ran TV ads and made phone calls accusing Childers and other Democrats of doing nothing to lower oil prices.

"It was petty politics," Childers said. "And I'm offended they'd insult north Mississipipians with that."

I was talking with someone the other day, and the ridiculously annoying Freedom's Watch robocalls came up. I commented that it seemed like they started before the special election in May and never stopped.

There has been a lull in the last few weeks, though, and I saw recently that Freedom's Watch has plunked a good bit of change into House races across the country:

Freedom’s Watch, the conservative advocacy organization heavily funded by Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, is hitting the airwaves with a television and radio ad buy targeting Democratic House candidates across the country.

It is Freedom Watch’s single largest advertising purchase since the organization aired ads earlier this year in a Mississippi special election, according to a source familiar with the buy. The size of the buy is in the mid-six figures.

The ads take aim at Democratic incumbents, challengers, and open seat candidates. Ads airing on broadcast television are targeting U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.) while ads on cable stations are taking aim at U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas).

Radio ads, meanwhile, are targeting Michigan 7th Congressional District candidate Mark Schauer, Ohio 15th Congressional District candidate Mary Jo Kilroy, Idaho 1st Congressional District Candidate Walt Minnick, Missouri 6th Congressional District candidate Kay Barnes, New York 29th Congressional District candidate Eric Massa, New Mexico 1st Congressional District candidate Martin Heinrich, Ohio 16th Congressional District candidate John Boccieri, U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.), U.S. Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.) and U.S. Rep. Don Cazayoux (D-La.).

Hmmm. I notice there's a race missing from that buy. Could it be that Freedom's Watch has decided there's little to gain in MS-01 this cycle? My guess is the calls will heat back up again, regardless. And probably ads, closer to the election. They're funded out the wazoo, you know:

Democrats fired back against the ads.

“National Republicans have spent years stuffing their pockets with Big Oil money and then thanking Big Oil by blocking Democratic efforts to lower gas prices and make America energy independent. So it’s not surprising that Republicans are outsourcing their false attacks to a shadowy soft money group like Freedom's Watch which won't even reveal whether Big Oil has joined casino magnate Sheldon Adelson in funding them," said Doug Thornell, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

That Freedom’s Watch is investing in House races is surely welcome news for the National Republican Congressional Committee. The beleaguered GOP House campaign arm trails its Democratic counterpart in fundraising by a steep seven-to-one ratio.

And you know, speaking of Freedom's Watch, I wonder how Mr. Campaign Finance Reform himself feels about such "shadowy soft money groups" working so hard to influence the democratic process. I remember a time when this (campaign finance reform) was John McCain's issue (having been clubbed in the alley by the Bush team and its own shadowy groups in South Carolina back in 2000). Of course, he's a changed man now.

Question for the Morning

Whither Greg Davis? Is his new campaign strategy to remain invisible until the last weeks of the election?

Back to Mississippi

Things are looking good for former governor Ronnie Musgrove in his race to take Trent Lott's old seat down here. For the last couple of weeks we've seen a variety of polls; one, an internal poll for the Dems showed Ronnie up 8 points, but a little later a Kos sponsored poll showed him down, but within 4 points.

Today, a new poll out from Rasmussen has the race essentially tied, with Musgrove up by one.

Mississippi’s appointed U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R) finds himself in a very tight election battle to win the job on his own. University of Virginia’s Larry Sabato has noted that this will be a “real political battle” which is “a rarity in a state that’s usually red as red can be.”

The first Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the race finds a pure toss-up--former Governor Ronnie Musgrove (D) attracts 47% of the vote while Wicker earns 46%.

Musgrove leads by ten points among women but trails by eight among men. The Democratic challenger leads among voters under 50 while the GOP incumbent leads among those who have passed the half-century mark. Musgrove is supported by 81% of Democrats, Wicker by 76% of Republicans, and Wicker holds a very modest 44% to 40% lead among the
state’s unaffiliated voters.

That a Democrat is even running neck and neck with Haley Barbour's handpicked successor to Lott - in Mississippi - is pretty inspiring. That the news comes on the heels of Travis Childers win a few weeks back makes it even more so. If, as we can expect, having Obama at the top of the ticket results in a historically high African-American turnout, Musgrove's advantage increases significantly.

Yes, all the usual caveats apply: Musgrove's lead is well within the margin of error, polls this far out can be misleading, and anything can happen between now and the election, but even so, that we're this close is really wonderful news.

Of course, Ronnie's going to need as much help as he can get, and Wicker is out raising him by a wide margin at this point. So, if you can and want to help us continue the Democratic reclamation of the Great State of Mississippi, head on over to Musgrove's ActBlue page and drop some coin in the bucket. Every little bit helps.

Forked Tongue

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.

Disappear for well over a year, come back with a flurry of posts and a promise to stick around for the foreseeable future and then, immediately following a truly historic win for Democrats in Mississippi, promptly fall right back off the face of the earth again.

Apologies. Immediately following Childers' win I was struck down with a particularly nasty bout of near-pneumonia, an insane couple of weeks with the day job and a visit from close family I hadn't seen in fourteen months.

But I'm back. Or will be, shortly, with a post that's worth a damn. Thanks for the concern.

That's Better

Itawamba's in, and with but one precinct in Childers' home county left to report, the Democratic Congressman from North Mississippi (man, it feels good to type that) won this race by an eight point margin.

Booya.

So much credit is due to the folks on the ground who gave of themselves to help make this happen. It was awesome to see a ground game in action - people powered piece by piece across the district - accomplish some serious mobilization of voters. Kudos, y'all.

Meet Your New Congressman, MS-01

According to the AP, it's our boy Travis Childers!

How cool is that? Huh? See what some people power can get ya?

Thanks to all y'all who kicked in to make this happen, especially the volunteers who spent hours on the phone contacting voters and walking the door-to-door.

This is phenomenal. Phenomenally bad for the GOP, too, which only serves to make the phenomenon so much more phenomenal.

Wow.

Childers Gaining Ground

Up by eight, and making inroads from April's results. 237/462 precincts reporting so far.

Still the bulk of votes from De Soto, but he's keeping Davis down there, so far too.

Update (8:58 PM): Okay. The majority of De Soto is in now, and it brought the race dead even. But Prentiss (Childer's home county) has yet to report.

Why, if I was a betting man....

Results (Or Lack Thereof)

Half an hour after polls closed, and still no results at all (by way of the Clarion-Ledger's county-by-county breakdown page). Odd.

I'll pop in now and again, but for your Mississippi flavored live-blogging coverage, Will Bardwell and Cotton Mouth are on point. And the good fellas of Swing State Project are on as always.

Update (7:57 PM): Childers 59%, Davis 41%. No reports in yet from South Memphis though. This will tighten considerably, I'd imagine.

Win-Win

Re: MS-01 today, from the First Read blog over at Chuck Todd's shop:

That said, the match-up appears to be a win-win situation for the Democrats. A Childers victory would be yet another win in an overwhelmingly GOP district and it would come even as Republicans tried to make Obama a boogeyman in the race. A Davis victory, meanwhile, would come after the GOP devoted precious resources and time to a district that Bush won by 62% four years ago.

It bears repeating: no matter what the outcome tonight, this is a win.

This Day in History

May 13, 2008, the day the Democrats took back the MS-01 congressional seat for the people.

Today is the day. If you're a MS-01 voter, make sure you get yourself to the polls. If you're working for the Childers campaign today, do your thing, ring the phones, knock the doors, bring those voters to the poll.

And whoever you are, if you know folks in the district, drop an email, give a call, stop by for a cup of coffee and make sure we get out people to the polling places.

It's going to be an exciting night; let's do everything we can to make sure it's the good kind of excitement.

Remember: Whether you're in or out of state, you can help Childers out by using the DCCC's virtual phone banking center. It's all about GOTV, people, and that will decide this race. Folks are on the ground today, but every bit helps.

Onward, to victory.

Time for Change

Offered from the NE MS Daily Journal without comment:

Cheney said Davis, who faces Democrat Travis Childers in today's voting, would support President Bush on his policies in Iraq and would vote to maintain Republican tax cuts....

...Politics is a team sport, "and we need a congressman in the 1st District who will vote like Thad and Roger, not against them," Barbour noted. He was referring to Republican Sens. Cochran and Wicker. "We also need him on the same team with John McCain," the presumptive GOP presidential nominee from Arizona.

Um. Yeah. That's what America wants. More Republican policies to laissez le bon temps roulet.

Because, as we all know, the temps have been so doggone bon lately. Four more years of the brilliant bush policies, driven by McCain and supported with unwavering, unquestioning, lockstep precision by people like Davis.



Yeah.

Okay. So I lied. The preceding was offered with just a tiny comment....

Eve of Destruction

Thanks to the work of the good folks over at the Swing State Project, we've all been watching the DCCC & RCCC expenditures in MS-01, and we've seen that, while the Democrats have been laying out a good chunk of change on field organization and GOTV efforts in the days leading up to the vote, the Republicans have been dropping thousands on poll after poll after poll (and tons of annoying prozac-voiced robocalls, if we can judge by my own personal experience).

And we all know damn well that if there was something they wanted to report from those polls, we'd have heard about it by now. But there's been a deafening silence.

Well, now we know why. A little bird just informed me that the Republicans' own internal polls are showing Childers up five.

Let's do this, people.

Operation Meltdown

"House GOP Shifts Into Panic Mode"

That's the headline of Reid Wilson's illuminating story over at Real Clear Politics, and it's not only true, it's music to the ears. Here's the lede (emphasis added):

After losing two previously Republican-held seats in special elections earlier this year, House GOP aides worry their party is on the brink of an election year catastrophe, and as a key test looms on Tuesday, the party is already pulling out all the stops.

This is the real deal. The GOP is in a tailspin nationwide, but the very fact that they're on the brink of losing a seat here in MS-01 is a bellwether of what's to come in November. The NRCC is hemorrhaging cash, and is having a hell of a time rounding up new donors. And no wonder, as Hillary Clinton is realizing, people are just not inclined to fund a loser.

Even mo' better, the disarray is sowing friction and dissent amongst the GOP:

The fallout has encouraged a brewing feud between House Majority Leader John Boehner and National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Cole, two top Republicans who have spent much of the past year fighting. And while other Capitol Hill Republicans are almost unanimous in agreeing the trouble is not all Cole's fault, someone has to take the hit. "The two offices are positioning themselves to avoid blame or to lay blame," the aide said.

Man, that's gotta suck.

It's so clear that even Newt Gingrich, Mr. Movement himself, sees the writing on the wall:

"Without change we could face a catastrophic election this fall," Gingrich warned. "Without change the Republican Party in the House could revert to the permanent minority status it had from 1930 to 1994."

I'd go so far as to say that, change or not, they're doomed in the fall, and maybe for quite some time to come. The American public saw very clearly - and has suffered the ramifications - of full-tilt Republican rule. A maniacal and criminal executive branch with a compliant GOP majority in the house, senate and on the Supreme Court have pushed America to the brink.

Not that it matters. Change isn't on the Republican menu. They've still only got the one page play book, and can't come to grips with the fact that the play's been played out. Americans aren't buying it anymore. That includes the good people of Mississippi.

While the GOP likes to think they're mindless sheep who can be manipulated with culturally divisive issues and meaningless scare tactics, they're actually fully functioning human beings with minds of their own, and who will base their vote on their own decisions and not stale Republican dark side Jedi mind tricks.

So this stuff?

"Republicans are committed to winning in Mississippi and we believe the momentum is on our side," NRCC spokesman Ken Spain said. "Voters will have a clear choice on Tuesday between Greg Davis who will represent Mississippi values in Congress, and Travis Childers who will say one thing on the campaign trail, but will undoubtedly do the bidding of liberal Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

Ain't gonna work. Not today. Not anymore.

The most recent national poll showed Republicans trailing Democrats in a generic ballot matchup by eighteen points, the same margin by which Democrats led the week before the 2006 election.

And, it's not just generic ballots....they're losing in some very specific, and unlikely, races. Here's to one more come Tuesday.

Dialing for Democracy

Quick note to let y'all know that the DCCC - who have been pouring serious dollars and resources into Travis Childers winning the MS-01 special election on Tuesday (and bankrupting their GOP counterparts in the process) - have set up a virtual phone banking center to help support the cause.

So, all y'all, no matter where you may be in the country, if you've got a little time and a few cell minutes to spare, can help us make history, take back this seat we held for 53 years, and turn Mississippi blue...again.

Saving a Seat for You, Travis

No scoop here, this was already posted over on both Swing State Project and Cotton Mouth, but I wanted to take a minute to chime in too.

According to The Politico, the Democratic House leadership have a seat waiting for Travis Childers on the Agriculture Committee when he wins the MS-01 seat this coming Tuesday. That's great news for Mississippians - who most definitely need a voice in that Committee - and for Childers, of course.

On the other side of that coin, not so much. It's just more bad news for Greg Davis.

Should Davis somehow overcome his soaring negatives (and from what I can tell, there's a whole lot of folks who are just sick to death of him at this point...even more than than there were before Travis beat him the last time, in fact) and pull out a win on Tuesday, he'll be at the bottom of the seniority ladder of a minority party.

That means no committee seats for him.

Or for us. Which would suck.

If anyone needed another reason to choose the good guy over the puppet, I'd say this should seal the deal. Especially the many rural Mississippians who are directly impacted by the Ag Comm.

But then again, there's not a whole of them in the Memphis suburbs, are there?

Donate Today

Today is the last day to contribute funds to the Childers campaign that can be used towards Tuesday's special election run-off. The following came from DCCC Executive Director Brian Wolff:

Dear Friend,

Midnight tonight is the deadline to help Democrat Travis Childers in his bid to win our third straight Republican pick up in a special election. His special election is less than a week away and tonight is the last time to get contributions in enough time to still purchase more ad time, tanks of gas to drive voters to the polls, and help get canvassers on the ground. Please give to Travis at https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/childers.

This November we will be playing in races like this nationwide, but next week with this special election we can set the tone by winning in a ruby-red district in Mississippi. Let's help put Travis Childers over the top and go three-for-three in special elections. We already won both the former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's seat and another red seat this past Saturday in Louisiana -- let's finish the deal. Give generously and give now at https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/childers

We are just a few thousand dollars away of meeting our goal and there are just hours left before our midnight deadline. And, we are all counting on you.

https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/childers

On to victory,

Brian Wolff
DCCC Executive Director

Do it to it.

NRCC - Bummin' in MS

Seems as though the cash-strapped NRCC just isn't getting the love that they used to. From The Hill:

Rep. Tom Cole on Tuesday told the many Republican members who haven’t given to the GOP candidate in next week’s Mississippi special election that they “ought to be ashamed of themselves,” GOP sources said.

The Mississippi race is shaping up as an increasingly crucial psychological battle for a GOP conference that has already lost two seats this cycle after dropping 30 in the 2006 election, and the harsh admonition was the latest rallying cry from a GOP campaign arm that has repeatedly cited a lack of member enthusiasm and giving.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his colleagues earlier this year that they needed to get off their “dead asses” and raise money for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and Senate GOP campaign chief John Ensign (Nev.) has also been critical.

Boehner and Cole (R-Okla.), the NRCC’s chairman, continued in that vein Tuesday at a closed-door House GOP meeting, asking members to focus on the Mississippi race just days after they suffered a big loss in former Rep. Richard Baker’s (R) conservative Louisiana district.

In another conservative district in Mississippi, the vast majority of members haven’t given to Southaven Mayor Greg Davis (R), even after he nearly lost to Democrat Travis Childers late last month.

The two will meet head-to-head in a runoff Tuesday, three weeks after Childers came within a few hundred votes of winning the race outright.

“Well, we lost [Louisiana], and it’s clear this election is about change,” Boehner told reporters after Tuesday’s meeting. “I wish we would have won, but we didn’t.”

No, you didn't. Get used to it. Even the conservatives don't want Davis:

In Mississippi, Democrats have given a similar amount to Childers, the Prentiss County Chancery Clerk. That’s about twice as much as their GOP colleagues have given to Davis.

GOP members have rallied a bit in recent days but have still only given about $80,000 to Davis’s campaign, according to Federal Election Commission reports. About half of that total came just from Boehner, Cole and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), a regular contributor to his colleagues.

Only about two dozen rank-and-file GOPers have given, and most of them have given $1,000 or less.

All ABout the GOTV

We all know that the DCCC has dumped an unprecedented amount of money into the MS-01 race, and Travis Childers has been doing good fund raising too. But, success in this endeavor is going to depend on one thing and one thing only: our ability to get out the vote.

Particularly after three previous elections for this same seat in the last two months or so, there's a degree of voter fatigue. There will be people on the ground, though, and on the phones, working to GOTV. That, like everything else in a campaign, takes money.

If you feel like you'd be willing to throw in to help, and want to drop a couple/few/many bucks into the Childers Jar, Swing State Project and Cotton Mouth are both raising money on ActBlue.

Please do drop whatever bit you can spare into one of the two. That's the money that will get our people to the polls on Tuesday.

And Again....

As promised, here is the second of the two DCCC ads I was able to get uploaded. I think this is the more effective of the two, and while technically an anti-Davis ad as opposed to a pro-Childers ad, I think the faces and voices of regular Mississippi folks carry a lot of impact. And for what it's worth, the opinions of these people do reflect what I've been hearing on the ground.

There's a reason we're being bombarded with the Huckster, the George Bush robo-calls and a (shudder) in-person Cheney visit on Monday. The GOP knows this seat is - and in fact, their hopes across the entire country - slipping through their fingers. And it's a beautiful thing.

Anyway, on to our feature presentation:

More DCCC Fruit in MS-01

I've been meaning to get these two DCCC-funded ads for Travis Childers up for days now, but what with all the excitement of last night (and, you know, life), it took longer than expected. In any case, here's the first of two DCCC-Childers ads, this one setting the record straight on the lies being peddled by once and future Bushie Ari Fleischer and his Freedom's Watch gang:



I'll have the other one up in a bit. It's the better of the two, in my opinion.