Hope Index Rising?

UPDATED BELOW
Travis Childers apparently isn't what you or I might call a "better" Democrat (as in "elect more and better Democrats," as in "Ah'm pro-loff and pro-gun"), but it's Mississippi for god's sake, and he just beat a Republican in a deeply red district by more than 7 points, a district that went 67 percent for George Bush last time.
This is the third deeply red seat the R's have lost in special elections this year, the second in which a 527 tried to use Rev. Wright against the Democrat and failed, and the first in which the R's can't legitimately claim they had a bad candidate.
This gives me more hope than I had yesterday.

UPDATE
Oops, it was 62 percent, not 67 percent.
Josh Marshall of TPM notes there are 25 open House seats this year, meaning no incumbent problem to factor in.
Here's his good, short video report.