Tip those fine people in the above states who are ready for responsible leadership in the White House.

 It sounds good alright, but I bet someone here can dash the giddiness by pointing out an area of concern that we are naively overlooking.......

So we know that this isn't an outlier. Or more pessimistically, he doesn't seem to have gotten a post-Clinton bounce in the state

and the numbers will get even better. We're making history. We have to do it with deliberation.

Voting in MS is very racially polarizing. Yes, he is doing better among African Americans and they are voting in greater numbers, but whites are still the majority and they are generally against white democrats, let alone a black one.

I'm in NJ - I can only tell you that my local paper (as in these two counties which is quite a spread) has had a front page practically everyday about how NJ is in play for McCain...

I will never EVER vote for McCain but I think I know alot of people who will be & right now the Dem. leadership in NJ is extraordinarily unpopular; hated even.

Mississippi stands on the edge of a profound shift in its electorate.

To see how, look at the CNN Exit Polls from '04. http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pag es/results/states/MS/P/00/epolls.0.html

John Kerry won by 63% to 37% landslide in Mississippi -- if you look only at voters under age 30.

We got crushed among voters 65 and older.

That George Wallace generation believed in "Segregation Forever!" They wanted to vote for another Dixiecrat like Strom Thurmond, or a Ronald Reagan fresh from an appearance dishonoring and undermining the heritage of the Civil Rights Movement.

George W Bush was exactly what the old racists were looking for and he got 75% of their vote. Kerry got only 25%, and we can figure that they were almost all black.

But the ongoing demographic change is ruthless. The Grim Reaper takes away the most racist voters, that Dixiecrat cohort, at a rapid rate. Almost 2% of all those who voted in 2004 die each year, and naturally enough they are heavily from the group that voted for Bush 3 to 1.

Voters who came of age after the searing struggle over desegregation was finished have a different view of the world. Kerry took the under 30 voters almost 2 to 1. Some of those are now in the 30-44 cohort, where Kerry already was able to get a fairly respectable 42%. Combining the two segments, Kerry trailed by only 1% among Mississippi voters under age 45.

And kids who were 16 or so when Kerry was our candidate will be part of the 18-29 cohort in this election. If anything they will be even more Democratic than their older sisters and brothers (my hunch, no link to data ;-) ).

So Democrats gain strength in the age groups where we lead or tie. Racist Repubs (redundant in this instance) die off at about three times the rate of Democrats. The South moves inexorably toward racial moderation and Mississippi moves toward swing state status.

Karl Rove and his ilk understand their predicament. For over 100 years, it was a winning tactic in Southern elections to portray your opponent as "a ni@@er lover"-- Willie Horton, anyone? -- but the old Hate Potion Number Nine wasn't working so well any more. They tried to find new ni@@ers using gays, illegal immigrants, Moslems, secularists, abortionists instead. They need a new target for hate because we're very close to the tipping point where overtly racist voters aren't enough to make the difference any more, not even in Mississippi.

It's fitting that this profound change in the Southern electorate arrives at the same time our party has nominated a proud black man to lead our country. A sorry chapter in history is coming to an end.

I'm still hoping McCain decides he can win NJ and spends some money there.  

LOL!!!!!!