Learning from Childers and Davis
Continuing to look at the victory of Democrat Travis Childers over Republican Greg Davis in Mississippi’s 1st House District… and considering what implications, if any, it has for Alabama’s House races.
Stuart Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report has an interesting article, “Mississippi Special: Why Childers Won and Why Davis Lost.”
Rothenberg has re-thought some of his initial assessments of the race. I found it all interesting, but I’ll mention only a couple of points.
Hypothesis No. 2: Any Republican with a pulse should have won this district, so Davis’ defeat is a sign of the deep, deep national problems in the Republican Party.
This seems logical. The only problem is that it is wrong. […]
Polling in the district showed Bush’s “favorables” well above 50 percent, and Democratic pollster Anzalone minced no words when he told me, Louisiana’s 6th and Mississippi’s 1st “are not referenda on Bush and Republicans in Congress.”
Rothenberg also agreed with the observation of our Mississippi GOP insider who believed the “message was wrong.”
Republican attempts — both by the Davis campaign and by the National Republican Congressional Committee’s independent expenditure — to polarize the race merely by calling Childers a liberal and linking him to Obama and Pelosi simply didn’t work. That approach was sufficient to produce a victory at one time, and it may have resonated with GOP voters in this race. But they weren’t the swing group in the contest, and those sort of generic messages seem less effective now.
Maybe invoking liberals works in a Republican primary.
There is more, and if this is your kind of thing, you’ll probably enjoy it.
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Hey Danny are you blogging for Mississippi Dems now? ha
Comment by Anonymous — May 16, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
Thanks for the steer, practical sociology is always interesting.
Comment by walt moffett — May 16, 2008 @ 9:36 pm
OK, the republican lost because of the wrong message. What kind of message are they going to run on? Tax cuts for the rich? A war based on lies? Capturing Bin Laden? Balanced budget? Mission accomplished? A less invasive government? Gas prices? Food security? Home ownership? As we can see from todays exchanges, all the republicans have to work with is that most Southerners are so illiterate that they don’t know appeasement does not mean negotiating and liberal means [Edit: racial epithet deleted].
Comment by Pecan Jim — May 16, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
Prediction: The Republicans will NOT learn from this. The Democrats WILL. The Republican party still hasn’t “hit bottom” and engaged in serious reflection and soul searching. Think of it as a roller coaster. The Republicans have crested the top and are beginning a precipitous fall. They can see it. They are scared. But all they’re going to do is wave their arms and scream - and it won’t change a thing about where they’re heading.
Pecan Jim, despite your failed attempt to spell a racial epithet, I think you are on to something. The Republican party seems to have taken the Southern vote for granted they way Democrats have taken the black vote for granted. The national party thinks they can simply run on a platform of calling the other guy a liberal because Southerners hate liberals. It has made them lazy. In this particular race they seem to have failed to engage Childers substantively, choosing instead to call him a liberal (and absurdly linking him to Obama) and leaving it at that.
Comment by Brian — May 17, 2008 @ 5:48 am
errrr…
“…for granted the way Democrats…”
Comment by Brian — May 17, 2008 @ 5:50 am