Democrat Wins Mississippi House Race After Drawing Straw
Sometimes U.S. politics is about ideas, powered by Jeffersons and Adamses and Reagans. Sometimes it is about strategy, with races determined by the chess-match machinations of Axelrods and Roves.
But every once in a while, the fate of governments is determined by a considerably less eminent character, one usually found lurking in back-alley craps games and on the Las Vegas Strip: Lady Luck.
In Mississippi on Friday, luck smiled on a Democratic state representative, Blaine Eaton II, who had been forced, by state law, to draw straws for his seat after his race for re-election ended in a tie. On Friday afternoon, in a short, strange ceremony here presided over by Gov. Phil Bryant and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, Eaton and his Republican challenger, Mark Tullos, each removed a box from a bag. Eaton opened his box to reveal a long green straw.
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