mississippi

That last senate race of 2018, the Mississippi Special run off election, shifts slightly in he Dem’s favor, chances moving from none to slight — making a whole trajectory of slight to none to slight again.

And the reason for the race tightening.

Yet the trajectory of the election was thrown into doubt last week when a video was circulated showing Ms. Hyde-Smith, 59, praising a supporter by telling him that if he invited her “to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”

How one reads this — in a world where expressions sometimes have ugly roots — and I guess hopefully she never said “eenie meenie minie moe” lest everyone ponder what exactly a “tigger” is — determines parts of the election.  I suppose, in theory,she shoulda transferred her hyperbole of public execution to the guillitone — removing the historicality from what was fashionable in the immediate vicintity over to Revoultionary France.

What strikes me is the strategy of… hide.

Facing an uproar in a state divided by race and deeply scarred by a history of lynchings carried out against African-Americans, Ms. Hyde-Smith has since retreated from the campaign trail, ducking reporters’ questions and declining to apologize. A former state agriculture commissioner, Ms. Hyde-Smith has instead pursued a strategy aimed at shoring up her support with conservative whites, and she enlisted President Trump to campaign for her on the eve of a Nov. 27 runoff vote.

Likewise, Mike Espy’s best bet is… rougly the same, with some shifting fissures.  He has the Dou Jones trick where — seeing a race where they have a clear impact the black vote would come out en masse, and probably hasta hope Donald Trump says some things in his free floating solliquay that offends Suburban white female voters.  The bifrocated strategy, alerting neither wing to the other wing.

Two candidates move to the rope-a-dope strategy.

Well, I suppose there are some thematic parallels of self afflicting wounds with Cindy Hyde-Smith and … Martha Coakley, 2010.  We’ll… see.

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