http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24613179

Why GOP’s Mississippi House loss resonates
Obama gloats on the campaign trail as Republicans lose a once-secure seat

WASHINGTON - Stunning? Only if you haven’t been paying attention in recent weeks.

Sickening? Yes, if you are a Republican.

That about sums up Tuesday night in Mississippi’s First Congressional district.

In a special election, Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in a district which had long been a GOP stronghold and where only three years ago, George W. Bush had won 62 percent of the vote.

Republicans ran ads linking Childers to Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Obama gloated a bit on the campaign trail in Michigan Wednesday. “Look, they (the Republicans) just lost yesterday in the heart of Mississippi…. this is a hardcore Republican seat. And they lost it by eight points."

The Republicans, he said, "did everything they could, you know they ran ads with my face on it, and they said, 'look at this former liberal,' his former pastor said offensive things, I mean they were trying to do every trick in the book to try to scare folks in Mississippi. And it didn't work.”

In turn, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee distributed one flier accusing Republican Davis of links to the Ku Klux Klan, which he heatedly denied.

Childers, a conservative Democrat who called himself “pro-life and pro-gun” in his advertising, won 54 percent of the vote. Now, he'll join his similarly minded neighbor, Rep. Don Cazayoux, a newly minted Louisiana legislator who won his spot on May 3.

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