Speaking of Roger Wicker, did he ever come up with an excuse about why he endorsed the screwy liberal Governor of Puetro Rico? Barbour made a major mistake in promoting this guy from the House to the Senate. Of course the same can be said when Hastert decided to "retire" halfway through his term (poor Denny, can't stand the burden of having to vote on bills for another nine monthes), thus forcing the GOP to compete in a "special election" a mere month after the primary). There really ought to be a law penalizing Congressman who cut and run from their jobs for reasons other than illness or being under criminal investigation.
This Republican bloodbath in Congress makes me very wary of November. We did far better in the "special elections" of 2006 (Bilbray, etc.) than in 2008 and yet the Dems kicked the GOP's butt in 2006. I'm afraid that if Hillary did run as a third party candidate in November, all the turnout of Hillary and Obama supporters voting Dem in downticket races would result in a veto-proof RAT majority in Congress, though fieldmarshaldj is probably correct that the result at the top of the ticket that McCain would win over 40 states (Dems would only carry states they regularly get over 60% of the vote statewide, like NJ & NJ going to Hillary and D.C. and Hawaii going to Obama)
Our best hope is for a Dem implosion at the Denver convention where they massacre each other to a stalemate.
In 1962, there were no Republicans from MS. The first elected to the House in the modern era won in 1964. He served one term. The next 2 elected were Lott and Cochran in 1972. We actually dropped to zero again when Gene Taylor won the special election in 1989 for the late Larkin Smith's seat. We remained at zero from late 1989 until 1995. When Wicker was elected to Jamie Whitten's open seat in '94, he was the only House Republican in MS. Mike Parker in the then-4th switched parties in '95 prior to his running for Governor. In '96, we won a 3rd seat when Pickering won Sonny Montgomery's seat (Montgomery had succeeded the first Republican in the modern era in '66). In '98, we lost Parker's open seat, and when MS dropped to 4 seats, Pickering beat the Dem who won Parker's seat in 2002. It's been a tied delegation... until yesterday. But the 1st is Republican enough that no Dem should've really received more than the low 40s% range. Davis had the misfortune of residing in the suburban end of the district and rural types wanted one of theirs. Had we nominated McCullough, he would've neutralized Childers' rural advantage and handily carried suburban Memphis as well for an overall win.
"I hope it's not as bad as Oberweis losing to a unknown in a district that hadn't elected a Dem Congressman since the 30's."
The Hastert seat last went Dem in 1974 when Leslie Arends retired and we put up an apparently weak retread ex-Congressman from a previous overlapping Congressional district. Although ironically, that Republican, Cliff Carlson, had beaten the Dem, Tim Lee Hall, when they had run earlier in a 1972 special election, so the presumption he could win was not misplaced. Hall had also run against Arends later on in 1972 (when the district lines were changed), but the aged Arends blasted Hall by 15%. When Tom Corcoran ran against Hall in 1976, he retook it for the GOP and beat him by 8%. Hall became somewhat of an embarrassing perennial candidate and kept on trying to reclaim the seat. In the bad GOP year of 1982, he still lost in a massive landslide against future Gingrich GOP Whip opponent Ed Madigan (and Bush, Sr. US Agriculture Sec), losing 66-34%. Hall's final foray was an attempt to run for the seat again when Madigan quit Congress after losing that Whip race, but in a low-turnout special primary, he failed to win the Dem nomination.
Bush took 62% in the MS seat to 55% in the IL-14th and 59% in the LA seat.