Published: July 08, 2008 11:56 pm            

State hasn’t seen competitive Senate race since Dowdy-Lott

The fact that the current race between Republican interim U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and Democratic former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove for the seat vacated by former Republican U.S. Sen. Trent Lott in December is tight as a tick is at once novel and historic.

It's historic in that there have only been three open U.S. Senate seats from Mississippi since 1947 - the race to succeed Democratic U.S. Sen. James Oliver "Big Jim" Eastland of Doddsville in 1978, the race to succeed Democratic U.S. Sen. John Cornelius Stennis of DeKalb in 1988 and this current race to succeed Lott between Musgrove and Wicker.

It's novel in that whether caused by Republican dominance or Democratic disorganization, neither of the prior two open Senate seat races have been particularly competitive. The Musgrove-Wicker matchup is, by contrast, extremely competitive.

In 1978, the battle to choose a successor to Eastland saw then-Republican 4th District U.S. Rep. Thad Cochran turn back the challenge of Democrat Maurice Dantin of Columbia and independent Charles Evers of Fayette.

A lifelong Democrat until the mid-1970s, Evers left the party over complaints that state Democrats took African-American voters "for granted" without rewarding their loyalty with a sharing of power. Cochran won the general election with a 45 percent plurality of the vote, trailed by Dantin with 32 percent and Evers with 23 percent.

In 1988, the race to choose a successor to Stennis saw then-Republican 5th District U.S. Rep. Trent Lott face off with then Democratic 4th District U.S. Rep. Wayne Dowdy.

Lott won the race with a 54 percent to 46 percent victory over Dowdy, largely on the strength of successfully creating a linkage in the minds of state voters between Dowdy and Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. But in that same election, Republican nominee George H.W. Bush defeated Dukakis by a 60 percent to 40 percent margin with Mississippi voters - with much of the difference attributed to Lott faltering in northeast Mississippi because of his opposition to locating a federal installation in Tishomingo County rather than in Hancock County in Lott's congressional district.

But barring a scandal on one side or the other, the 2008 campaign for an open Senate seat in Mississippi isn't shaping up as one that will be decided by anything approaching an eight-point spread - nor are any prognosticators seriously talking about anyone generating a 20-point spread in the presidential campaign, either.

For Wicker, he is running with the weight of a president from his party with some of the worst approval ratings in history. Despite that fact, Mississippi has in the past given President George W. Bush the highest percentage win of any state in the union.

But more difficult for Wicker to distance himself from is a struggling economy plagued by soaring fuel and food costs and a serious credit crunch. With every increase in the price of gasoline, Wicker's campaign becomes more difficult.

For Musgrove, he must traverse the minefield of ongoing investigations into the failed Mississippi Beef Processors plant and any additional litigation in the Maddox Foundation debacle in Tennessee.

The national Democratic ticket could be either blessing or curse for Musgrove. For every motivated new or young voter and every African-American voter that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama attracts, the hard reality is that Mississippi has never elected an African-American candidate to statewide office.

Both candidates - who are former roommates - face obstacles and challenges. Partisans on both sides say this race will go down to the wire and that it's very close.

Yet more than at any time since the World War II era, state Democrats and Republicans alike approach this election believing they can and will win.



Contact Sid Salter at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com. Visit his blog at http://www.clarionledger.com.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.