Will a “Hail Mary” trump Mike Espy’s Prayer?
Mike Espy does has a prayer of winning tomorrow’s U.S. Senate seat in Mississippi.
Mike Espy makes a good candidate. He was elected to Congress, serving from 1987 to 1993 and then until 1994 as Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton. Since fighting off baseless corruption charges in 1997, Mike’s been practicing law.
He rejoined the political fray in the Mississippi’s open primary for the U.S. Senate seat that had been held by Thad Cochran for the last 40 years! Espy came in second following the incumbent, Cindy Hyde-Smith, appointed to fill the unexpired term of Cochran.
While Espy was only 0.08 percent behind Hyde-Smith another conservative Republican, Chris McDaniel, came in third with 16%. McDaniel ran and just barely lost to Thad Cochran in 2014. By all accounts he should have won the nomination this year…but for Trump’s endorsement of Cindy Hyde-Smith. Arguably all of those votes should now go to Hyde-Smith. Are they swing voters? Not likely..
Yet Espy looks the part of a U.S. Senator. Handsome enough, his demeanor, posture and his speech portray him as a winner-a Senator the public can be proud of. He has handled himself well. Though he would have voted against Brett Kavanaugh and he’s pro choice, he has positioned as a moderate (D) in a very RED and racially divided state and one known for lynchings- 581- ending only in 1968.
Mike Espy appeals to the Mississippi African Americans, the French descendants-Cajuns who have migrated to Mississippi from Louisiana and Espy has done well with the Mississippi Dixiecrats-the beer drinking, truck driving, gun toting, camouflage wearing good ole boys who used to be Democrats but left in 1964 supporting Barry Goldwater against LBJ and have been a solid political base for Republicans since the emergence of Barrack Obama.
Cindy Hyde –Smith, try as hard as she might, using racially evocative clichés or posing in a Confederate hat holding a rifle, she just isn’t a “Good ole boy.” She does has an impressive record; serving twelve years as a state senator and eight years as Commissioner of Agriculture- a statewide elected position which she won twice. That’s means she has a good base. However, as the incumbent, she shouldn’t have lost 16% to another Republican. Since the primary, she stepped into national controversy saying she’d sit on the front row of a public hanging. Not the kind of remarks one would want coming from the lips of a public official or from anyone.
There have been attempts to compare this year’s Mississippi senate race to Alabama’s of December, 2017 when Democrat, Doug Jones, a former prosecutor of the Klan, was pitted against former Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore. Moore drew national infamy when he was accused of dating and making sexual advances on underage girls while he was an Assistant District Attorney some 30 years ago. Moderates, both Democrats and Republicans, say Ms Hyde-Smith is an embarrassment Mississippi can’t afford, yet the comparisons between Cindy Hyde-Smith and Alabama’s senate race hasn’t materialized.
Keeping things in perspective: Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to carry Mississippi for President. That was 1976. Ronnie Musgrove elected as the state’s last Democratic governor in 1999. Yet Mississippi’s Attorney General, Jim Hood, is a Democrat who has won three statewide elections and is a serious contender for governor in 2019.
So Mike Espy does have a prayer of winning tomorrow.
Meanwhile, back to political reality. Not to be outdone, using a football analogy, the Republicans are throwing a “Hail Mary.” The Republicans have President Trump. He’s in Mississippi today to increase turnout-and he will do just that. Donald Trump’s visit to Mississippi today may well be the “Hail Mary” prayer the Republicans need to win.
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