Mississippi!

Hot on the heels of the Democratic Party's House election successes in Republican strongholds in Louisiana and Illinois comes the news that in Mississippi one more Dem has taken a formerly Republican seat. Travis Childers will be filling the seat left open by Roger Wicker, who was appointed to replace Trent Lott when he quit. So, in effect, we traded Lott in for a Democrat! (Yes, I know the difference between the House and the Senate, but give me a break--this is exciting stuff!)
While Childers only sits until November, when he has to run again, the trend is clear, and so were the results--he blew a strong Republican scumbag away by 8% points. Congrats to Mississippians and Representative Childers!

In Mississippi?!

While I pay attention to Congressional races all over the country, I usually don't blog about them, but this one portends ridiculously good news. In the race to replace MS Sen. Roger Wicker (who replaced Trent Lott on 12/31/07), the Democratic candidate is poised to take this House seat. That's right, in Mississippi, in a district that Smirky carried by 19 in 2000 and by 25 in 2004, Travis Childers (D), delivered a stunning blow to the Republican hopes for any chance in November. Even though Childers did not win the election outright--he only missed hitting the required 50%+ 1 by about 400 votes!--he did outpace both the Republican candidates combined, forcing a runoff to be held in a couple of weeks, which he could win just be reproducing these results. Not only that, but Childers was outspent 2-1 by the Republicans, who can ill afford any such expenditures, especially in a district as formerly "red" as this one.
Go Team!

Republican resignations are usually such good news, too

Former Senate Majority Leader--and current douchebag (with all due apologies to douchebags everywhere!)--Trent Lott is resigning by the end of the year. Wasn't he just re-elected, you ask? Why yes; yes he was. So why resign now? I mean, it's not like the unregenerate racist and corrupt scumbag feels any shame for being caught in scandals--that happened before his 2006 decision to ignore them and run again.
Apparently, though, being in the minority is less fun than running the country into the ditch--the ditch of Hell, that is--even though the Republicans in the Senate have no problems stopping any and all legislation they dislike. The major reasons, then, for the timing of his resignation must be 1) selfish; and 2) political.
The selfish reason is that there is new legislation coming down the pike that will increase the time a public servant has to wait before becoming a lobbyist. The new ethics rule, which goes into effect on Jan. 1 (gee, what a shocker ol' Trent will be gone by 12/31!), will delay the transformation of corrupt pols to those doing the corrupting for 2 years; there is currently a 1 year waiting period. Trent apparently can't put off the inevitable and massive income raise he'll be getting from his right wing masters those extra 365 days. Such a financial hardship, I know.
The political reason, and given Trent's history of a lack of any kind of ethical behavior in his pursuit of Republican power, we know that there is one, is that this will give his successor the time it takes to achieve the veneer (and real world advantages, too, of course) of incumbency for the November 2008 election he will then face to complete Lott's term.
In Mississippi, the governor gets to appoint a replacement to any Senate openings, and since Haley Barbour is an old-school Republican hack, we know he's been in on this since Lott decided to run again. Expect a cleaner version of Lott to fill that seat for the next 4+ years, not that that says much . . .
Mississippi. Once again reclaiming the title of the only state Alabama can look down upon!