Background

Republican Roger Wicker had held Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District for twelve years. This district had given George W. Bush 62% of the vote in his 2004 reelection effort. Handicappers did not consider this seat winnable for Democrats when it opened up after Wicker was appointed US Senator. Still, Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers filed to run and began an aggressive grassroots effort in North Mississippi. Childers won the Democratic primary handily and was gaining support among independents when his GOP opponent launched a blistering TV ad that alleged abuses in the nursing home Childers owned. The ad twisted the results of a government report card to suggest that Childers cared more about profits than the elderly.

We knew we had to refute these charges immediately and were frantically searching for the appropriate response when our spokesperson walked through the door with a story we couldn’t have made up. A lady whose deceased mother had lived in the Childers nursing home was so incensed by the TV ads that she contacted Childers’ campaign and offered to help. She was a conservative Republican from DeSoto County (the district’s GOP stronghold) who would go on the record to refute the attack ad.

We listened to her story and in thirty minutes had a script before her. She recorded this heartfelt testimonial and we launched it the same night. The very emotional message conveyed her outrage at the alleged neglect and spoke of “Mimi’s” and Childers’ relationship, telling how he even spoke at her funeral. To really bring her point home, she said “Mimi loved Travis and called him darlin’.” She vouched for Childers’ integrity and compassion, dismissed the ad as a lie, and endorsed “Darlin’ Travis.”

That same night, less than 24 hours after the attack ads went up on TV, we delivered the recording to DeSoto County residents and other swing voters in north Mississippi. Our opponent reacted by pulling the ad (we assume in anticipation of a video version of her rebuttal). Davis’ allegations of neglect of the elderly were quickly dismissed as baseless mudslinging. Childers continued on the high road and went on to win an upset in the special election, a result called a “seismic election” by the late Tim Russert.