The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) believes a vulnerable freshman Democratic congressman in a GOP district will be "cut loose" by the party in order to allocate funds to candidates who are higher on the pecking order.
When Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) appointed First District Congressman Roger Wicker (R) in December 2007 to replace retiring Trent Lott (R) in the U.S. Senate, a special election was held the following year to fill the congressional seat. A divisive GOP primary allowed Democrat Travis Childers to capture the seat, after promising he would not be beholden to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and the liberal faction of the Democratic Party. However, Andy Sere, spokesman for the NRCC, points out that one of Childers' first acts as a U.S. congressman was to vote for Pelosi as Speaker of the House."Gene Taylor, another Mississippi Democrat, has before voted against Pelosi to be his party's leader, so there is precedent for voting against her in the Democratic Party," Sere observes. "But Childers chose to side with her and put her in charge." The NRCC spokesman adds that polls show Childers is extremely vulnerable in his race against Republican Alan Nunnelee, who has proved his conservative record while serving in the Mississippi Senate. So the NRCC suspects their Democratic counterparts will not want to pour a lot of money into Childers' re-election effort. "They have tens of millions of dollars, but they've also got to defend dozens of more senior Democrats," Sere explains. "So are some of these more vulnerable freshmen Democrats who are dead in the water, are they going to be abandoned by their party and left out to dry?" He thinks Travis Childers may be one of those abandoned Democrats.
When Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) appointed First District Congressman Roger Wicker (R) in December 2007 to replace retiring Trent Lott (R) in the U.S. Senate, a special election was held the following year to fill the congressional seat. A divisive GOP primary allowed Democrat Travis Childers to capture the seat, after promising he would not be beholden to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and the liberal faction of the Democratic Party. However, Andy Sere, spokesman for the NRCC, points out that one of Childers' first acts as a U.S. congressman was to vote for Pelosi as Speaker of the House."Gene Taylor, another Mississippi Democrat, has before voted against Pelosi to be his party's leader, so there is precedent for voting against her in the Democratic Party," Sere observes. "But Childers chose to side with her and put her in charge." The NRCC spokesman adds that polls show Childers is extremely vulnerable in his race against Republican Alan Nunnelee, who has proved his conservative record while serving in the Mississippi Senate. So the NRCC suspects their Democratic counterparts will not want to pour a lot of money into Childers' re-election effort. "They have tens of millions of dollars, but they've also got to defend dozens of more senior Democrats," Sere explains. "So are some of these more vulnerable freshmen Democrats who are dead in the water, are they going to be abandoned by their party and left out to dry?"
He thinks Travis Childers may be one of those abandoned Democrats.
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