Last weekend, I traveled to Mississippi's first congressional district, a bastion of Republican power that has been home to William Faulkner, Elvis Presley, and the scene of massive riots on the night James Meredith attempted to integrate the University of Mississippi. With the district in the midst of a hotly contested special election campaign, I probed the impact of a million-dollar Republican strategy to attack the insurgent Democratic candidate, Travis Childers, by linking him to Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

(See one of the GOP ads here).

See my Al Jazeera English report on Mississippi's special election

After following Childers on the campaign trail, then attending a rally of his Republican opponent, Greg Davis, it became apparent to me that the GOP's strategy would fail miserably. On Tuesday, the Republicans' worst nightmare came true: Childers defeated Davis by a stunning 8 point margin.

Mississippi's First encompasses a working-class region reeling from the country's economic downturn. Voters there from both parties told me they were more concerned with bread and butter issues like gas and food prices than with whether Obama's supporters fundraised online for Childers, the issue exploited by the national GOP. Childers was the perfect candidate in this environment, running as a pro-life, pro-gun economic populist who opposed free trade and promised to take on big oil. I followed the candidate around a Piggly Wiggly supermarket, watching as he pointed shoppers to the whopping prices of milk and eggs, then indignantly blamed the White House for the price spike.

While the more than a dozen Republican voters I interviewed outside the Greg Davis rally insisted to me that their candidate represented "Mississippi Values" far better than his opponent, a key theme of the Republican attack ads, several complained that the ads had poisoned the campaign, and said they resented the GOP's nationalization of the election. However, Davis was to blame for this negative tone. Though he was a successful mayor of Southaven, a white flight suburb just south of Memphis, and was widely credited for the town's economic revitalization, he allowed Washington Republican groups like Freedom's Watch and the National Republican Campaign Committee to define his campaign, thereby distracting voters from his accomplishments.

Not only did Davis err by echoing the demagogic attacks in his stump speeches, he invited Dick Cheney to speak at his last campaign rally, a terrible reminder that he would be a tool of the Bush White House if sent to Washington. The failure of Cheney's last-minute GOTV appearance reflects just how tainted the national Republican brand has become.

At the same time, the Republican attack ads provoked a backlash among African-Americans who make up nearly one-quarter of Northern Mississippi's population. When I asked one African-American voter who she planned to vote for, she simply said, "Barack Obama." I asked her to clarify, and she explained that by linking Childers to Obama, the Republicans had made her even more enthusiastic about voting for Childers. To harness this backlash, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee distributed thousands of leaflets to black voters in Mississippi's first attacking Davis for his role in bringing a statue to Southaven of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Civil War hero who happened to found the Ku Klux Klan.

When I returned from Mississippi, I went straight to Capitol Hill, to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the nerve center of the attacks on Childers. The NRCC spent $1.27 million to destroy Childers -- 20% of its entire budget. After spending almost $3 million in its failed bid to hold three congressional seats in special elections this season, the NRCC is poorly positioned to make any impact this November. But the group's spokesman, Ken Spain, suggested that with little else in its arsenal, his group would stick with its ill-fated strategy.

The Lost Cause lives on.

Comments (18)

1. What a B-O-R-I-N-G piece!!!

   Posted by ACook at 05/16/2008 @ 10:34pm

2. What is that old saying about if your homophobic, most likely you're a closeted flamer.....

   I bet that with the help of a search warrant, one might find a McCain '08 sticker somewhere near to old Max.

   hehe

   Posted by Sliver at 05/16/2008 @ 10:42pm

3. The Republicans are sooooooooo screwed this year.

   Posted by Mask at 05/16/2008 @ 10:43pm

4. I think you will be able to follow GOP candidates all over this country during this election cycle who are going to run into the same problem. The tired, faded, out of touch propaganda machine of the Republican Party has finally found its way to the bottom of the barrel.

   If you look back at the days of Herbert Hoover, a business man President like Bush, you will find that what we have had for the last 7 years has already been used before. It was a failure then, and it is a failure now.

   "You can fool all of the people part of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time".

   The American People are tired of this nation not living up to its potential. This year they will not be fooled.

   Posted by ronmurraysr63 at 05/16/2008 @ 10:51pm

5. This year they will not be fooled.

   Posted by ronmurraysr63

   well, not as badly.

   Friday, May 16, 2008 11:46:00 PM

   Posted by frosty zoom at 05/16/2008 @ 11:40pm

6. grasping, hap.

   grasping.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 05/16/2008 @ 11:56pm

7. the u.s. government owns half of u.s. debt.

   it's insane!

   Posted by frosty zoom at 05/17/2008 @ 12:12am

8. And Childers is supposed to be a Dem? What are you folks smoking? With friends like this, the party needs no enemies.

   Posted by feinfein at 05/17/2008 @ 01:18am

9. Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/16/2008

   HAPP, who will Childers vote for Speaker?....John Boehner? (Minority Leader in the House, Repub...btw)

   Posted by Mask at 05/17/2008 @ 07:08am

10. I don't know what Happy is smoking...but he should put the pipe down.

    Posted by Balrog at 05/17/2008 @ 09:18am

11. "Where these DINOs will go wrong is passing tax increases that WILL bring down the economy.....social conservatives, like Repubs, but without the appreciation for capitalists like me!"

    Oh, silly me. I guess the economy is doing well.

    Posted by onthehelm at 05/17/2008 @ 09:43am

12. What this tells me is that race baiting politics works best when 1) There is a perceived better-off-ness from those you get government advantages (see Reagan's disgraceful "welfare queens in cadilacs") OR 2) when there is a level of comfort, aka economic stability. I think many are cluing into the idea that both blacks and whites have not faired well overall in the global economy and that the ones that have faired well are the ones at the top.

    Taking the wedge issues off the table like guns, god and gays, completely cripples the Republican attack machine. What do they do, wheel out Free Market Jesus and tout the wonders of globalism that has done jack shit for many a working class American? Some here would take issue with blue dog dems, and yeah they annoy me some too, but consider this the fight over abortion and guns is pretty much settled. Guns won, women's rights won. True a few more Scalias on the court would switch one of those issues, but as much as Republicans harp about "the sanctity of life" (as long as it is an American life) they have done precious little about the issue.

    Gay Marriage will be back in full force, which is always a winner for the homophobic republicans who must think that "gay" is a disease. Though the whole problem is that they have yet to accept that homosexuality for many is a born trait, not a learned one. Too bad like in climate change science just isn't on the GOP's side, guess they will have to hire more Doctor Nicks (of Simpson's claim) to back them up with some new "facts." There are many conservatives, like David Brooks, that are deadon about this issue, marriage or unions are a social stabilizer. If two people love each other, have kids (adopted or other methods), and have property, it is plain dumb not to give them some legal framework to legitimize their relationship. Think inheritance, insurance, stability of a monogamous relationship, and well the dignity of not being a second class citizen.

    For this election cycle expect more of the same from the GOP: fear from gays and terrorists (or some other boogy man), some wedge issues to get their base all a twitter (which to me seems like John McCain is like a cake, a bitter stale cake, but a little bit of this wedge frosting and someone will surely take a bite!), and let us not forget they will tout experience both foreign and domestic. (Which will also fail them because the experience to fail and fumble isn't good experience).

    Posted by Tzimisce at 05/17/2008 @ 11:40am

13. this november may ssee a republican meltdown that dwarfs even my wildest dreams...

    a great, steamrolling "have you no decency" moment in the history of our civilization is in progress.

    watch out TREASONOUS CRYPTOFASCIST TRAITORS! real, sensible, decent, patriotic americans see you for what you are and are.

    your days are numbered. hunker in the bunker and mumble mantra-like talking points. tick tick tick tick...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/17/2008 @ 1:06pm

14. Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/16/2008 | ignore this person

    Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/17/2008 | ignore this person

    .

    Ah yes...the neo con crackup is certainly a sight to behold, isn't it?

    Republicans loosing seats?...'it's a good thing, a good thing, I say'...

    ...'besides, we'll get the White House, you wait and see'...

    ...'besides, my money is all that is important...and I have MORE than you...haha'

    Yes, a sight to behold!

    Posted by Lillian at 05/17/2008 @ 2:51pm

15. On a purely emotional level, I am looking forward to a massive drubbing of the GOP this fall, not because I support or trust the Democratic Party, but because I hate Ronald Reagen, Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman and all that they have wrought both here and abroad, especially they wide-ranging assault on the working class and the poor. With a sizable - hopefully overwhelming - Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, I am relatively confident that a coalition of Progressives, old-line liberals and economically populist Blue Dogs will pass pro-worker and pro-union legislation fairly quickly, overriding any objections from the Obama (or Clinton or frikkin' Kucinich, that's how much of a chance McCain has of winning) White House. If it takes the Blue Dogs to protect an individual's right to bear arms, and a New Democrat-Lite President to appoint Supreme Court justices who will strengthen reproductive rights rather than weaken or overturn them, I can live with that balancing act. And if the whole lot of them get us the hell out of Iraq within a year, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

    But, let us not forget that the Republicans in general and the Right in particular rose from the twin disasters of 1964 and 1974 to dominate this country for the last 28 years. True, the difference is they actually pretty much ran the whole shebang this time and gave themselves AND their ideas a black eye (similar to the black eye that libertarian-style economics has gotten around the world in the last 10 years, though try to find a libertarian who will acknowledge this fact), as Eyal Press wrote in this week's cover story. And this may mean it takes a new reformation of the Right comparable to its birth, but don't let that fool all of you reformers and Democrats that (a) you've killed the GOP or right-wing beasts, or (b) your leaders aren't just as susceptible to corporate pay-offs, super power hubris or sheer stupidity as the Bush Team.

    Don't let your guard down.

    Posted by cka2nd at 05/17/2008 @ 3:28pm

16. True, the difference is they actually pretty much ran the whole shebang this time and gave themselves AND their ideas a black eye (similar to the black eye that libertarian-style economics has gotten around the world in the last 10 years, though try to find a libertarian who will acknowledge this fact), as Eyal Press wrote in this week's cover story. And this may mean it takes a new reformation of the Right comparable to its birth, but don't let that fool all of you reformers and Democrats that (a) you've killed the GOP or right-wing beasts, or (b) your leaders aren't just as susceptible to corporate pay-offs, super power hubris or sheer stupidity as the Bush Team.

    Don't let your guard down.

    Posted by cka2nd at 05/17/2008

    CKa2nd,

    I respect some of your opinions, not out of any agreement but because you have consistent and sincerely held beliefs.

    However, the current problem for Republicans is that they forgot why conservative Americans elected them. They became engrossed with power and popularity. They began to spend just like Democrats do and still haven't learned their lesson.

    Although I think that McCain still has a good chance to beat Obama, the Congress itself is probably lost for 4-6 years. McCain's odds are solid because of the electoral map and Obama himself (not because of race).

    There is actually sound thinking behind what many conservatives are now saying; that Republicans have to lose so that they can regain their political soul. Whenever solid conservative campaigning takes place in most of the US (apart from socialist mini-republics like Mass, NY, and CA), conservative ideals usually carry the day. But they must be genuine and the people must have confidence in the individuals to carry out what they promise. Without that, people say that if you want a Democrat, elect a Democrat, not a Republican who talks like a conservative but votes like a liberal.

    I don't believe you will see your dreams of a unionized America anytime in the next 40 years. One reason will be that with the gains of technology, the choices we make to earn a living more and more fall outside the box of 20th century definitions.

    I am just one of nearly 30 million Americans (and it's more by some estimates) of people who work from home. Couple that with the fact that new technology developments will further revolutionize the entire concept of labor force.

    In manufacturing for instance, I could easily set up a small manufacturing facility right in my garage. I could make plastic injected mold parts and assemblies, hydroform stampings, and have a small machining center. Fedex would pick up and deliver anywhere in the world. I can train family members to learn the skills. So what would a union offer to better that situation.

    I also am involved with the global sale of a product now that is going to 9 different countries. All I have is a website and business cards. I don't even have to carry much inventory. It is drop shipped.

    Frankly, your zeal for your Trotskysist believes is admirable since I always like passionate people. But that world is gone my friend.

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 05/18/2008 @ 5:30pm

17. (apart from socialist mini-republics like Mass, NY, and CA)

    lvliberty1

    more nonsense.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/18/2008 @ 11:17pm

18. But that world is gone my friend.

    Posted by lvliberty1

    and your world is chasing the other's tail to the rubbish bin.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 05/18/2008 @ 11:18pm