Nearly four months will pass before Mississippians help choose the 44th president and candidates from a full slate of congressional races, but local partisans aren’t wasting time organizing to boost their favored candidates.

Local Democrats are looking to capitalize on momentum felt from the state’s primary in March, when Sen. Barack Obama bested Sen. Hillary Clinton nearly two-to-one statewide and with 70 percent of Warren County’s Democratic primary voters.

Republicans look to energize a base that was outnumbered by Democrats in the primary, partly a result of Sen. John McCain’s clinching the GOP nomination a week before Mississippians voted.

The race for the U.S. Senate seat occupied nearly 20 years by Trent Lott is proving competitive, as Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, appointed by Gov. Haley Barbour after Lott left in December, faces the voters opposite former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in a special election to fill the remaining four years of Lott’s term.

“It’s sure an exciting time,” said local attorney and announced Vicksburg mayoral candidate Paul Winfield to fellow Warren County Democratic Executive Committee members who met this month. On Related storiesVicksburg’s Paul Winfield elected treasurer of Mississippi Democratic PartySaturday, Winfield was elected treasurer of the Mississippi Democratic Party.

Winfield and local party treasurer Mary Katherine Brown will experience that excitement at Obama’s recently announced outdoor acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Aug. 25-28 in Denver. Brown is among the state’s delegates who are pledged to Obama at the Denver convention, while Winfield is an alternate.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney is the lone delegate with local ties on the Republican side. The former state senator for Warren County will represent the 2nd Congressional District as a McCain delegate to the Republican National Convention Sept. 1-4 in Minneapolis.

Obama’s presumptive nomination is nearly a guarantee that black voters in Mississippi – 33 percent of the electorate – will vote in record numbers. Though special election rules dictate party labels will not appear next to the Senate candidates’ names, having Obama on the ballot might prove to be a boon for Musgrove, for whom a June fundraiser in Vicksburg at Anchuca attracted about 50 people, Winfield said.

It will be up to Jeppie Barbour to minimize that boon in the reliably Democratic Delta and other counties bordering the Mississippi River, including Warren.

“We will have to minimize our losses (in the Delta),” said Barbour, older brother of the governor and in charge of working the Delta for the Wicker campaign. “(Wicker) is the kind of person we want to have up there.”

Traditional Democrats won’t be left out of the mix completely, Barbour told local Republican executive committee members, but “we won’t waste our time with them.”

Each side will get its vote out in similar ways – targeting known partisan voters in a state without partisan registration, using lists partly generated from analysis of past elections.

Percy Strother, 78, said motivating voters on Election Day is the key for Democrats looking to turn victories in Warren County outside the party’s usually strong city-based precincts.

“I can remember when there was a poll tax,” Strother said. “You’ve got to get your people to the polls.”

Olivia Palmer, a Chicago transplant to Vicksburg, said her ardent support of her city’s native son for president has grown stronger.

“I rode around by myself with the windows down trying to get people out to vote,” Palmer said.

Another aspect of campaigning is visibility, usually with yard signs and bumper stickers. Effects of the primary campaign have resulted in a few more sightings of Obama stickers than for McCain, local Republicans said.

Deadline To register to vote in the Nov. 4 general election, people 18 or older who have lived in the state 30 days must do so by Oct. 4 by visiting the circuit clerk’s office or when applying for or renewing your driver’s license, or when applying for services at numerous government agencies.”Maybe we could buy 100 stickers,” executive committee chairman Karoline Finch said. “Our executive committee is begging for stuff.”

Whether either presidential campaign will set up a local office remains undetermined. Obama supporters used office space at Nelson Cotton Properties at 1501 Washington St. for the primary. Its proprietor, attorney Omar Nelson, said he has not heard from the campaign about use of the building for the general election.

Republicans hope for an earlier presence of the McCain campaign than August or September, when state party officials told them a state office would be coming.

“That’s too late,” Finch said.

Mississippi Republican Party executive director Brad White said regional offices are likely to be established in the South, but not necessarily in Mississippi. The state has been carried by the Republican nominee in each presidential race since 1980.

“(McCain’s campaign) will have very much of a presence” in the state, White said.

Voters will see a strategy emphasizing all its federal candidates, local Democrats said, stimulated with thoughts of voting for a winning presidential candidate or a Senate victor for the first time in more than 30 years.

“We are more organized than the GOP,” local Democratic chairman John Shorter said.

Voters will decide winners in two additional federal races, one in each house of Congress.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson will face Jackson teacher Richard Cook for the 2nd Congressional District race. U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran is being challenged for a sixth term by former state Rep. Erik R. Fleming, a Democrat from Clinton.

Local races include two seats on the Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees, in District 3 and 4, and all five Warren County Election Commission members.