Cochran-Childers race will test how state's voters value seniority

STARKVILLE - After a long, bruising, and for Mississippi Republicans, significantly divisive U.S. Senate campaign, the end of the road is now in sight.

And after the bitter Republican primary and subsequent failed legal challenges to the outcome of that primary, the general election race has taken on a rather anti-climactic character. Six-term incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran is favored to win re-election over Democratic challenger former 1st District U.S. Rep. Travis Childers of Booneville and Reform Party nominee Shawn O'Hara of Hattiesburg.

Childers has run as credible a race as his resources would allow. The hard truth is that the national Democratic Party didn't choose to invest sufficient resources in the Childers campaign. But he has been a game and engaged challenger.

The Cochran-Childers race has been a relatively quiet, exceedingly civil affair. Until the last week, there's been little visible campaign TV ads. The latest ads from the Cochran camp - which enjoys a sizeable financial advantage in the general election - have been generally positive.

Since winning the Republican nomination over state Sen. Chris McDaniel, Cochran has run a veteran incumbent's textbook campaign. To say that McDaniel gave Cochran the race of his political life is a grand understatement.

But a week out from the Nov. 4 general election, the choices facing Mississippi voters haven't changed dramatically over the long, strange course of this campaign. If the GOP retakes control of the U.S. Senate, Cochran will again become chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

On the national level, reputable prognosticators Professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, Charlie Cook of the National Journal, and Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com are predicting that Republicans will pick up sufficient seats to take control of the U.S. Senate.

All of those prognosticators are counting Cochran among their projected Republican senators. So as partisan control of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance, Mississippians face a clear choice - to send a freshman Democratic Party senator to Washington or to hold onto Cochran's hard-won seniority.

Mississippians have a long and undeniable history of protecting congressional seniority.

Cochran succeeded longtime Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee chairman James O. "Big Jim" Eastland in 1978. Eastland served the state for 35 years. Mississippi voters have long recognized that with such a small Capitol Hill delegation dictated by Mississippi's spare population, seniority was one of the few means to give the state clout in competing with larger states. That outsized sense of the value of seniority led to investing decades of it in Mississippi's past congressional delegation.

The late former House Appropriations Committee chairman U.S. Rep. Jamie Whitten of Charleston -- known derisively among some House colleagues as the "permanent Secretary of Agriculture" -- exerted enormous influence. State voters gave John C. Stennis -- the late chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services and Appropriations committees -- a 41-year run in the U.S. Senate.

The late House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery -- "Mr. Veteran" and "Mr. National Guard" to his colleagues -- served 30 years and literally authored the modern G.I. Bill that bears his name. Former U.S. Senate Republican Majority Leader and U.S. House Republican Whip Trent Lott of Pascagoula spent 16 years in the House and another 19 years in the Senate during his career.

Some strong voices in the current Mississippi political arena have castigated the value of congressional seniority of late. But other voices have been just as resolute that congressional seniority is like electricity - easy to take for granted until you don't have it.

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com

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