Cindy Hyde-Smith, by the grace of God and a distracted moment on the part of Governor Phil Bryant, the junior Republican senator from Mississippi, would like you to know that the president* is coming down to hold rallies on her behalf very soon. She would like you to get tickets to these rallies. She would like you to know this very much. She would like you to know this so much that, on Tuesday night, in her debate against her Democratic opponent, former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, she plugged the events twice, in almost identical language, in both her opening and closing statements.

This was not the only time in the debate that Hyde-Smith repeated herself. It happened so often—especially on the phrases "Mississippi values" and "Second Amendment freedoms." Her campaign negotiated rules—no audience, no press in the room—that guaranteed a certain level of boredom but, Lord save us, Hyde-Smith couldn't even abide by those.

According to Ashton Pittman of the Jackson Free Press, the candidates were not supposed to use prepared notes, but Hyde-Smith's people insisted on them and she showed up carrying what appeared to be a disassembled Gutenberg Bible to which she regularly referred. (By Pittman's count, 20 times.) Cindy Hyde-Smith never should have been on that stage. She never should have been in the United States Senate. I'm not entirely sure she's qualified to be the host of a cable-access show in Tupelo—where the president* is going to campaign for her, and did she forget to mention that?

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Hyde-Smith greets Brett Kavanaugh in her office on July 25, 2018 in Washington, DC. Getty Images

Espy, on the other hand—well, he's an African American Democrat running in Mississippi, so he's got that going against him. He's a retread; he was a congressman over 30 years ago and he was Secretary of Agriculture over 20 years ago. (During the debate, as part of his bipartisan bona fides, Espy mentioned a bill of his that President Ronald Reagan had signed in 1986.) He has a very narrow path to the Senate, so he naturally let a few fat pitches go by.

For example, Hyde-Smith has been belaboring him for weeks now over lobbying Espy did on behalf of Cote d'Ivoire's dictatorial leader, Laurent Gbagbo, currently on trial before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. This is undoubtedly a bad thing. But it was the evening of the day on which the president*—who, in case you didn't know, is coming to Mississippi to campaign for Cindy Hyde-Smith—ran interference for the butchers of Riyadh against the findings of the U.S. intelligence community really the day you want to pillory somebody else for slow-dancing with murderous foreign satraps? I'd say no, but Espy let that one go sailing slowly through the strike zone.

Ordinarily, a Senate race in Mississippi would stay in Mississippi, but Hyde-Smith has managed to nationalize this one because she apparently has studied closely the attempt by Sharron ("A chicken in every emergency room!") Angle to unseat Harry Reid in Nevada a few years back.

Her most conspicuous moment in this regard came when she said that, if a longtime supporter asked her, she'd sit in the front row at "a public hanging." Then she got caught on video supporting the suppression of the franchise among college students. Now there are pictures of her dressed up as a Confederate infantryperson. (Judging from the debate, if her handlers told Hyde-Smith to dress up like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, her basic programming would make her do it.) Because of all of this, a number of American corporations—Walmart, AT&T, Union Pacific, Leidos & Boston Scientific—have asked for their campaign donations back.

So, attention must be paid. In the debate, when asked about the public hanging business, with all that entails in Mississippi's history, Hyde-Smith looked down at the thick sheaf of paper in her hand and then offered the following quarter-assed apology:

"You know, for anyone that was offended by my comments, I certainly apologize. There was no ill will, no intent whatsoever in my statements. I have worked with all Mississippians. It didn’t matter their skin color type, their age or their income. That’s my record.”

She then went on to bleat about how Espy and his liberal, liberal, LIBERAL! backers had "twisted" and "weaponized" her words against her. (Ed. Note: there's video.) This was an another answer that caught too much of the plate, and at which Espy, at long last, took a full cut.

“Well, no one twisted your comments because your comments were live — you know, they came out of your mouth. I don’t know what’s in your heart, but we all know what came out of your mouth.”

Mississippi seems to be preparing to elect to a full term in the United States Senate a CGI extra from a reboot of Gone With The Wind who, if she's ever had an original thought, it died of despair and abandonment. I know, I know, it's Mississippi. But, still, the American republic in the 21st century ought to be able to do better than this.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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