It’s that time of year. Political postcards.
An increasingly nasty race is brewing in the runoff for Senate District 25 to replace Senator Walter Michel. Will Longwitz, who unsuccessfully ran for a judgeship last November, is running against former Hinds County Supervisor Charles Barbour (nephew of Haley Barbour). Last week, Longwitz took exception to Charles Barbour’s polling.
Yesterday, an interesting press release came out of Senator Thad Cochran’s office. Apparently, Longwitz sent out an otherwise innocuous voter contact postcard (below). However, on the back, it had a written message signed ‘Thad’. The ‘Thad’ was not otherwise identified.
What makes this newsworthy is that most everyone in Republican politics in Mississippi would instantly think that ‘Thad’ would mean Senator Thad Cochran. He’s about the only ‘Thad’ that everyone would know by only his first name and it is certainly a big play in a Republican political context.
Cochran’s people picked up on it immediately. In fact, they took the extraordinary step of writing a press release disclaiming the Longwitz piece.
“Senator Cochran wants to clarify that a mail piece from the Will Longwitz state senate campaign signed ‘Thad’ is not from U.S. Senator Thad Cochran. The Senator has not offered endorsements to candidates in this year’s state primary elections.”
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will Longwitz will be on the Paul Gallo show on Thursday on Supertalk at 9:30 on the Gallo Metro Hour.
