Two enormous things happened tonight. First, for the third time in a row, the Democrats won a special election for a formerly Republican seat in the House of Representatives. Travis Childers didn’t just win in the MS-01 special election, he drubbed his opponent by 8 points. And this, after the Republicans tried to demonize Childers by tying him to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Here’s Obama’s response:
“I want to congratulate Congressman-elect Travis Childers on winning this special election. By electing Travis in this traditionally overwhelmingly Republican district, the people of Mississippi voted to end the politics of division and distraction, and bring about real change. This is the third special election in recent months that Democrats have won in traditionally Republican areas — an unmistakable sign that Americans want to make a clean break from the failed Bush policies of the past – and are not looking for four more years of those failed policies from John McCain. I look forward to working with Travis in the months ahead to fix our economy, and make a difference in the lives of America’s hardworking families.”
That news is good enough, but we also got great news out of Nebraska, where netroots champion Scott Kleeb crushed all opposition in winning the primary to contest for Chuck Hagel’s vacated Senate seat. Sen. Ben Nelson wanted his big business buddy Tony Raimondo to be the candidate, despite the fact that he was a Republican until the day he announced he was a candidate and that the Democrats in the Senate blocked his appointment by Bush to be the manufacturing czar because he closed plants in Nebraska and moved jobs to China.
Both of these outcomes are major victories for the Democrats and major defeats for the business-as-usual Republicans and their appeasers.
I am totally pumped by the election results tonight and could not give less of a shit about the results out of West Virginia.
