Bob Novak: No thanks, Cheney

Key Republicans in Mississippi, stunned by the loss Tuesday of a supposedly safe congressional seat, grumble that Vice President Dick Cheney's campaign visit to the district probably hurt more than it helped.

Their complaint is that the vice presidential visit was a distraction that diminished the effort to save the election. These critics put the visit by ex-presidential candidate Mike Huckabee in the same category. National Republicans spent millions of dollars on the race in an unsuccessful attempt to tie the conservative Democratic candidate to Barack Obama.

It is generally agreed the Democratic winner, county official Travis Childers, was a much better candidate than the Republican loser, Greg Davis, mayor of a Memphis suburb. But any Republican likely would have been able to beat any Democrat in the north Mississippi district if the tide were not running strongly against the GOP.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/955696,CST-EDT-novak18.article.