JACKSON - U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson heads into the general election campaign facing the rarest of rare in Mississippi - a black Republican.
In this case, it's deja vu yet again for Thompson.
Danny Covington, who is black and a former federal government employee, was the GOP candidate in the 1996 race against Thompson. He garnered 38 percent of the votes in the traditionally Democratic district, which then contained all or some of two dozen counties generally from Vicksburg north through the Delta to the Mississippi-Tennessee line.
In 1994, Thompson was also challenged by a black Republican, Jackson lawyer Bill Jordan. Thompson won with 54 percent of the vote.
The 2nd District for the 2002 election has changed some. It stretches from Tunica County to Jefferson County along the Mississippi River and takes in the Delta and most of Jackson.
The latest black Republican to challenge Thompson is Clinton B. LeSueur of Greenville, a first-time candidate.
While the rest of the general election ballot is set, the state Democratic Party is still wrestling with just who its nominee will be in a U.S. Senate race that features popular Republican incumbent Thad Cochran.
The Senate primary was marred by its omission from the ballot in Yazoo County, where about 3,500 votes were cast in the 2nd Congressional District primary, which Thompson won handily.
The state Democratic Party executive committee plans next week to certify the results from the 2nd District and from the Senate primary.
Retired private investigator Steven Turney of Bassfield led retired factory worker James W. "Bootie" Hunt of Starkville by 2,700 votes in the Senate primary.
Mary Coleman, chairwoman of the Jackson State University political science department, said that in the 2nd District race, LeSueur must convince voters he is better than the popular Thompson at articulating economic and community programs for the 21st Century "in an area of the country that doesn't appear to have been touched by change."
"For both of them to argue that they are the more electable is not enough," Coleman said.
Coleman said Thompson should grasp the "wonderful opportunity to get his constituents to look at the district as a community - even though some think it is too large and unwieldy and has too many other areas unrelated to the Delta base."
"This is a poor district with the relationship between blacks and whites more tied to economics than politics," she said. "Thompson must show what he has done to raise the bar on economic development while LeSueur must show why voters should believe he has the wisdom to do better."
After Tuesday's primary, Thompson said his approach to the general election campaign will be no different than before - attend to congressional duties and get home "every weekend and hit the ground and don't stop."
"That's been my method of operation and we just continue it. The people of the district deserve nothing less," Thompson said.
LeSueur said voters respond to a candidate who shakes their hand and asks for support.
"We'll be going door-to-door between now and November, asking everybody for the support, asking everybody for their vote," he said.
Thompson, a Bolton native, has been in government for 33 years, starting his political career as a Bolton alderman, and then mayor. He later served as a Hinds County supervisor for 13 years.
He was elected to his first term in congress in 1993 in a special election to replace Mike Espy, who resigned the post to become the Clinton administration's agriculture secretary.
Also on the Nov. 5 ballot will be Reform Party candidate Lee Dilworth of Jackson.
The possibility remains that the Senate primary may end up in legal squabbling.
Candidate Hunt's son, Kerry, a campus police officer at Mississippi State University, said his family will await the certification results before deciding on filing a protest.
"We've got to see what they are going to do," the younger Hunt said.
Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Rickey Cole said a challenge would not be a surprise.
"Anyone certainly has a right to challenge the results," Cole said.
State law provides a political party's executive committee will hear challenges first with appeals, if any, going to the courts.
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