By Billy Davis

The current congressional race for Mississippi’s 1st District pits a seasoned state legislator against a savvy incumbent, said Dr. Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute of Government.

Wiseman, in a phone interview Monday, spoke kindly of Democrat Congressman Travis Childers and his Republican challenger, state Sen. Allen Nunnelee.

Childers and Nunnelee are locked in a neck-and-neck race, which has gone increasingly negative, with fewer than 40 days left before the November 2 General Election.

Childers “has not made any wrong moves,” said Wiseman of the Democrat incumbent, who has positioned himself as a conservative “Blue Dog” in the North Mississippi district that also leans that way.   

Wiseman called Childers “politically astute” and described how many voters have difficulty finding an “excuse” to vote him out of office.

But Wisesman also complimented Nunnelee, a veteran state senator from Tupelo.

“Senator Nunnelee – he’s a good candidate,” Wiseman said. “The Republicans, with him running, have a good horse to ride.”

Wiseman said the political poll he trusts most, the Charlie Cook Report, shows the 1st District leaning Republican.

The report also predicts Republicans are set to win 50 seats in the House of Representatives, gaining control from the Democrats, Wiseman said.

Both political campaigns are touting their own internal polls, which show their candidate with a single-digit lead.

“We’re getting an incredible response across the 1st District,” said Nunnelee campaign spokesman Morgan Balwin.

Baldwin cited TV attack ads from the Childers campaign as evidence that the incumbent Democrat is nervous and “desperate.”

The Childers campaign created controversy in recent weeks when it aired an attack ad that claimed conservative Republican Nunnelee supports the “Fair Tax,” a proposed national sales tax.

The Fair Tax would eliminate almost all other federal taxes in favor of a single national sales tax according to Web site Fairtax.org.

To source the claim, the Childers campaign included an anonymous blog poster named “Raymond” from a Mississippi newspaper, The Columbus Dispatch. That decision generated unhappy editorials from the Dispatch and the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, the large daily in Tupelo.

A Childers campaign spokesman, asked about the source, called the Dispatch’s blog a “reputable news source.”

Childers spokesman Dana Edelstein also noted that Nunnelee has Fairtax.org listed among his “Likes and Interests” on his Facebook page, indicating he favors the idea.  

Baldwin, asked if Nunnelee favors the Fair Tax, said the Republican candidate would “look at different options” to ensure federal taxes are “lower, simpler and more transparent.”

The Childers campaign has also shot back at the Nunnelee campaign for failing to cite a source in a TV ad that stated unemployment is 13 percent in Mississippi’s 1st District.

Baldwin said the unemployment figure came from the Daily Journal.

Edelstein, asked if she knew the unemployment figure, said she believed it had dropped to 10 percent since the Nunnelee ad aired.

Saturday, October 2 is the last day to register to vote in the November 2 General Election. The circuit clerk’s office will be open until noon in Batesville and Sardis.