Tuesday, having witnessed the Democrats and the “news” media bombard Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith with baseless charges of racism, the voters of Mississippi ignored the smear tactics and elected her to the U.S. Senate. Hyde-Smith is the first woman from the Magnolia State to be elected to either house of Congress. She is a former member of the Mississippi Senate and has also served as the state’s Agriculture Commissioner. November 6, she garnered the most votes of four candidates vying to fill the Senate seat vacated by the ailing Thad Cochran, and yesterday she beat Clinton crony Mike Espy by 8 percent.
Hyde-Smith has long been a vocal Trump supporter and he enthusiastically campaigned for her in the Mississippi Senate race. His image and voice was prominent in her campaign ads against Espy and he held two rallies on her behalf on Monday, in Gulfport and Tupelo, where he encouraged his own base to show up at the polls and pull the lever for her: “Get your family, get your neighbors, get out and vote for Cindy Hyde-Smith.” The Democrats, whose chances were never good in a state that Trump won by 18 points, had been desperately seeking something on her that gave Espy at least a prayer of winning.
They thought they had hit pay dirt when an out-of-state activist posing as a journalist found a video of Hyde-Smith saying something that could, with enough media topspin, be portrayed as an endorsement of Jim Crow. It featured a supporter heaping praise on her at a rally in response to which she said, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” This was obviously an offhand remark without racial or any other serious intent, and it was clear that everyone present at the event knew it. But the Democrats and their media allies did their best to imply otherwise. That was just the beginning.
Next, the same social justice warrior noted above tweeted a video that allegedly reveals Hyde-Smith plotting with other “deplorables” to suppress Democrat votes. But the audio is so garbled and mixed with ambient noise that he was forced to add subtitles purporting to be an accurate translation of the sinister words that viewers cannot quite hear. Then, the voters of Mississippi got a look at a photo from a 1975 high school year book (Sound familiar?) in which about a dozen cheerleaders are pictured with pom-poms and what looks like a Confederate flag. The readers are told that Hyde-Smith is among those present.
Meanwhile, the voters of the Magnolia State learned little about Mike Espy’s past as a certified swamp creature whose corruption was so clumsy that even the Clintons cut him loose. Espy was fired from his position as Agriculture Secretary pursuant to a 39-count corruption indictment (he was later acquitted by a Beltway version of the O.J. jury). Espy also racked up IRS liens totaling $267K pursuant to a lucrative lobbying gig on behalf of third-world war criminal Laurent Gbagbo. These little foibles got far less coverage than did Hyde-Smith’s 2014 visit to a state historical site where she briefly donned a Confederate kepi.
It turns out, however, that Mississippi voters are not quite the fools the Democrats and the media took them for. Indeed, the transparent contempt with which the latter regard the residents of the Magnolia State probably contributed to the size of Espy’s loss. Instead of explaining why the Democrat would do a better job representing them than the Republican, they treated the voters like idiots. Hyde-Smith has long been a public figure in Mississippi. They know she’s no racist. When CNN interviewed the executive editor of the Clarion Ledger, the state’s largest and most liberal newspaper, this is what he said:
I’d be remiss not to point out that Hyde-Smith doesn’t have a history of racial divisiveness in her political life. There are a lot of people — Republicans and Democrats — who believe she may not have been ready for the national spotlight that came with this campaign, but they don’t believe she is a bigoted racist, especially considering some of the elected officials and politicians who consistently say and embrace far worse things.
Another reason Espy lost was the interference of out-of-state meddlers like social justice warrior cum “journalist” Lamar White — the character who publicized the surreptitiously recorded “public-hanging” video. Southerners in general aren’t fond of smug white-bread progressives who call them racists if they don’t vote for grifters like Espy. It’s probable that White cost Espy a couple of points in the end. Not that he, the media, or the Dems will stop playing the race card. CNN, in its piece about Hyde-Smith’s victory, reprised all of the non-issues discussed above, utterly unashamed of the race baiting:
Democrats had hoped a surge in turnout among black voters, who make up nearly 40% of Mississippi’s population, the largest share in the nation, could carry Espy to victory in a state that is highly polarized along racial lines.… Espy’s campaign hammered Hyde-Smith with television ads that cast her as an embarrassment to a state that has attempted to overcome its history of slavery and racism.
They’ll just write the loss off to the inability of racist hayseeds to see the one true path of identity politics. Twitter will be filled with snide remarks about all the bigoted brain donors still waiting for the South to rise again. That’s fine. We’ll console ourselves with that 53-47 GOP majority in the Senate. I’ll give the last word to President Trump, the second-happiest politician in America today: “Congratulations to Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith on your big WIN in the Great State of Mississippi. We are all very proud of you!”
