Mississippi Post-Mortem …

Obama won two expected back-to-back wins by impressive margins, which gives him 29 wins to her 14. In addition, he continues getting overwhelming support from African Americans while simultaneously pulling in cross-over White voters, something critical for him for the general election should he win the primary. His lead is still solid – still, his biggest challenge going into Pennsylvania is perception and momentum. 

It’s highly unlikely that any Democratic nominee would win Wyoming and Mississippi in the general election, but his primary performance in these states suggests that his candidacy could help Democratic state races and contenders, making them competitive in places where they never were.  It also forces Republicans to spend money in states they didn’t have to defend before. 

Already, there are many legislators in such states who are mulling the potential of ballot initiatives if Obama wins the nomination.  They feel like they can gain broader support.  For example, on our XM Radio show “Blackpolicy.org” last week, guest Erik Fleming, former Mississippi State Representative and now African American candidate for the U.S. Senate suggested that Sen. Obama had coattails that could help him in November. 

Fleming won the Democratic primary again – repeating his primary win from 2006 – and is putting up another energetic bid against a senior Republican Senator, Thad Cochran.  Fleming lost against former Sen. Trent Lott (R) in the 2006 general Senate election in Mississippi.  Later, he lost his State house seat against Kimberly Campbell and there is speculation that Lott arranged quiet funding of Campbell’s campaign in a bit of petty political vengeance against Fleming for running against him.  Against Lott, Fleming managed a 36% share of the state vote.