The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal Editorial, 11/20/8
The Nov. 4 election did more than result in the election of the first African-American president. It well could have sounded the death knell of the Nixon-era-born Republican Southern Strategy that for three decades converted the once-solid Democratic South to a GOP bastion.
Mississippi began soldiering along with the Southern Strategy in the 1960s, at first only in several federal elections, then graduating into state and local government offices, culminating with election of a Republican governor in 1991, then another in 2003.
Never, however, have Mississippi Republicans been able to grab numerical control of both houses of the Legislature, but GOP Gov. Haley Barbour has skillfully wrested political control of the Senate and constantly battled with Democratic House Speaker Billy McCoy to keep Democrats in that chamber off-balance.
