A Republican state senator in Mississippi defended a controversial comment about public hangings made by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) by making one of his own.
Video surfaced two weeks ago showing a cattle rancher introducing Hyde-Smith during a Nov. 2 event. She then told a small crowd, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." Hyde-Smith is running against Democrat Mike Espy, who is black, in a Nov. 27 runoff. The NAACP says that between 1882 and 1968, there were 581 lynchings in Mississippi, the most of any state.
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