Governor William Winter on Davis campaign: "I am appalled..."

Just released by the New York Times is another article surveying the effect of recent Davis campaign attempts to bring down Travis Childers by linking him to presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama. Many Mississippians see this as what it is, race baiting at is finest.

Former Governor and hero of Mississippi politics, who gave us the monumental Education Reform Act of 1982, had this to say,

“I am appalled that this blatant appeal to racial prejudice is still being employed,” said Mr. Winter, who lost the 1967 governor’s race after his segregationist opponent circulated handbills showing blacks listening to one of his speeches. Mr. Winter went on to win the governor’s office 12 years later.

“I had thought we had gotten past that,” Mr. Winter said. “That was a tactic that was used against me in the 1960s.”

Professors at Ole Miss noticed the blatant use of race by the Davis campaign as well.

The chairman of the University of Mississippi’s department of public policy leadership, Robert J. Haws, said he had also noted the use of race in the contest. “Does this reflect a certain level of desperation?” he asked. Dr. Haws also said he had detected a “real reaction from people I know, Republicans” against the ads.

What does Travis Childers think of these controversial tactics?

Mr. Childers, 50, a court official in the district’s rural section, said voters believed that the effort to link him to Mr. Obama was about race.

“When I’ve been out in the district, people tell me, ‘They’re trying to play the race card,’ ” he said.

The Childers campaign is counting on that reaction, as well as an increased black turnout, focusing pre-election efforts on rallying African-American voters scattered through the small towns of the district’s 24 mostly rural counties. Mr. Davis, on the other hand, is counting on Mr. Cheney to help rally his base in DeSoto County, which has about 20 percent of the district’s population, abuts Memphis and is the fastest-growing in Mississippi.