The Atlantic Covers Blue Tuesday: "Can Democrats Win Back the Deep South?"

ICYMI:
For your Sunday leisurely read, Molly Ball over at The Atlantic has a really incredible article covering Blue Tuesday and the Democratic movement to win back the Deep South.

As always, the whole article is worth a read, but Ball has some very good insight on the Mississippian municipal candidates that won the Blue Tuesday blowout. Here are some highlights:

Percy Bland, on his election as Mayor of Meridian:

"It's been a long time coming," Percy Bland, the 42-year-old mayor-elect of Meridian, told me. "We haven't had a Democratic mayor in Meridian since '76. And we won it running away, when people thought it would be very close." To win 54 percent of the vote, he said, he had to attract support from blacks and whites, Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

Mayor Moran, on her blow-out victory:

Moran didn't apologize for her progressive views: "I made my campaign about our people, our businesses, our schools, how much we've progressed and how much we need to continue," she said. "That word, progress, is not a dirty word." To charges that she was a tax-and-spend socialist, she responded by touting the public works she'd funded with tax dollars. "People want quality services, and they are willing to pay for that," she said. She won with 62 percent of the vote.

 There's a ton more in this article, and it is truly a great read from a national perspective, but our goal at Cottonmouth is to remain a state blog, so I suggest you hop on over to The Atlantic and read the rest for yourself.

With all of this coverage, though, it really makes you wonder if the Mississippian Republican leadership is starting to develop a distaste for apples.