High-profile Dems skipping convention

The Hattiesburg American, 6/25/8

When Democrats gather in Denver later this summer to formally choose their candidate for the White House – presumably Sen. Barack Obama – several high-profile Mississippi Democrats plan to be somewhere else.

Under party rules, Mississippi is allowed to send 41 delegates and six alternates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Aug. 25-29.

Reps. Gene Taylor, D-4th District, and Travis Childers, D-1st District, are delegates. But they don’t plan to go to Denver to vote for their party’s presidential nominee.

It’s customary for Taylor, one of the most rebellious Democrats in the House, to skip his party’s conventions.