'Public hanging' remark by Mississippi's Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith draws rebuke ahead of runoff
An AP report covers Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's remark at a Tupelo campaign event — "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row" — which spread widely after Lamar White Jr. posted the video and drew rebukes ahead of her November 27 runoff against Mike Espy, where the winner gets the final two years of Thad Cochran's Senate term. Hyde-Smith called the remark an exaggerated expression of regard and dismissed criticism as ridiculous, while Mike Espy's spokesman called her comments reprehensible and NAACP president Derrick Johnson called them sick in a state with the most lynchings of any from 1882 to 1968.
