Posted by Jed Lewison on Tue May 13, 2008 at 7:17 PM Pacific

Travis Childers Wins Congressional Battle

I'm shocked (in a good way!) -- Democratic Congressional candidate Travis Childers has defeated his Republican opponent in Mississippi, winning a solid 8 point victory.

For Barack Obama, Mississippi contest is far more significant than the Democratic primary in West Virginia. The Childers-Davis campaign was the third Congressional race so far this year in which Barack Obama was a central issue, and it was the first in which Republicans used the association between Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright to attack a Democratic candidate.

The fact that the Republican attack on Obama and Childers campaign failed in a conservative, formerly Republican district (Bush won 62% of the vote there in 2004) pretty much conclusively debunks the idea that Barack Obama will be a drag on Democrats in conservative strongholds, particularly in the south. (Edit: In more blunt terms, what I'm saying is that tonight's results should satisfy concerns that downballot Democrats could be damaged by racist campaigns in similar districts.)

Meanwhile, Obama was featured prominently in positive advertisements in Bill Foster's victory in Dennis Hastert's old Congressional seat earlier this year. So it's not just that Obama isn't a negative -- in many Republican leaning districts, he is a big political plus.