WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: The Democrat, Travis Childers, won this congressional seat.

Tea leaves get a good reading these days when it comes to the 2008 congressional elections. Political observers are trying to interpret what certain special elections around the county might say about the landscape come November.

The latest supposed indicator comes Tuesday.

Republican Roger Wicker has held the Mississippi 1st District seat in the U.S. House since the 1994 elections. When Sen. Trent Lott vacated his seat, Mississippi’s governor appointed Rep. Wicker to replace him in the upper chamber of Congress.

So a special election takes place Tuesday in the district that encompasses the northern part of Mississippi, which includes the southern suburbs of Memphis. The district has been dependably Republican.

But nothing seems dependable these days. Earlier this year, the Republicans lost an Illinois U.S. House seat previously held by their speaker, Dennis Hastert. This month, a Louisiana seat traditionally held by the GOP fell into Democratic hands, a more startling loss for Republicans because it happened in the South.

Now, Democrat Travis Childers appears in a position to defeat Republican Greg Davis in the Tuesday special balloting.

Why does this outcome mean anything to the voting public in Northwest Missouri? Well, it probably shouldn’t.

But some who watch politics in these parts will point out similarities in the Mississippi race and that of the campaign in Missouri’s 6th District.

They will say Mr. Davis had Vice President Dick Cheney come to Mississippi to campaign on his behalf, just like incumbent Rep. Sam Graves did in his Northwest Missouri race.

And they will say that Mr. Davis tried to paint his opponent as a bosom buddy of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which Mr. Graves also does to Democratic opponent Kay Barnes in his current television ad.

Once the votes in Mississippi are counted, this will get spun a dozen different ways. And in the Missouri 6th District and districts around the country, one side will say it means much and the other side will insist it means nothing.

Around here, we’re different than Mississippians, folks will rightly contend. But people of the political persuasion will watch what happens in an otherwise nondescript House race in a corner of a southern state.