Mississippi Special Third Win for Dems

Congressman-elect Travis Childers (D-MS) became the third of three special elections swept by the Democrats. Childers won with a whopping 54 percent of the vote over Republican Greg Davis. The three seats were all in strongly Republican districts, including former GOP Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's (R-IL), and two in the deep South, the other being in Louisiana. Each of the districts were won easily by President Bush and have been held by the GOP for decades.

Of note to the sexual and reproductive health community, the two seats in the South were won by anti-choice Democrats likely to join other reality based anti-choice Democrats to work on prevention and education issues, and will be supportive of contraception.

Matthew Hay Brown of The Swamp characterized the issue this way based on Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's comments about the wins by anti-choice Democrats:

House Democrats picked up an anti-abortion member over the weekend with the special election victory of Don Cazayoux, and could gain another if Travis Childers defeats Greg Davis in Mississippi next week. So does that mean the caucus, which has relied on the support of voters who favor legal abortion, is growing more conservative?

"This is not a party issue," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said this morning, when asked the question at his weekly meeting with the Capitol press corps. "We don't make that a party issue. We don't whip that issue. Members have to vote their conscience on that issue, and do."

Hoyer, himself a moderate Democrat from conservative Southern Maryland, listed the issues that unite the party as "the quality of life for real people, jobs, their health care, their education for their kids, and their national security and homeland security and security at home."

"That is why people are Democrats," Hoyer said. "And that is what distinguishes, I think, the Democratic Party from the Republican Party. The social issues are issues which people feel strongly about for one reason or another. But the issues that I think you will see pretty consistent Democratic unity on are issues affecting families every day."

Like the Louisiana Race, the National Republican Campaign Committee attempted to portray Childers as a liberal and tie him to Barack Obama. Countificus at Daily KOS described those efforts earlier this week:

Davis with his back against the wall and with the help of the NRCC unveiled this race-baiting attack ad on Childers linking him to Obama and ultimately Rev. Wright. Their debate is not an intellectual level of Rev Wright, but a call to the worst in man. Whatever your choice for Democratic nominee, this has to repulse you. The ad is nothing if not a direct call to the past demons of Mississippi to rise again and knock down righteousness.