News

Green Party of MS Says Stop Buying Public Offices

(Aug. 16, 2003, press release) The Green Party of Mississippi announces its support for a new project called "White House for Sale" which tracks the special-interest contributions to President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and analyzes the record of favoritism, conflicts-of-interest and influence peddling related to those contributions. The project is sponsored by Public Citizen, a national, nonprofit public interest organization with 140,000 members, which focuses on returning the power of government to the voters and taxpayers.

Gary Anderson confident about run-off

Gary Anderson, who could become the first African-American elected to state office since Reconstruction, told the Mississippi Link that he is confident about the Aug. 26 run-off with Rob Smith, who is white. "When I looked at the numbers we carried counties all over the state. Our voting strength was not in any one area of the state, but all across the state," Anderson said. "Smith had a very narrow margin even in his own county. We had big numbers everywhere, even in rural Mississippi."

Barbour Denies NAFTA Charge

(Aug. 14, 2003, press release from Musgrove campaign) (Jackson, MS) Haley Barbour is trying to deny his involvement with NAFTA and to minimize the scope of his work for the Republic of Mexico. Unfortunately for Barbour, his public record is very clear on these issues. Haley says in 2003: He did not lobby for NAFTA Fact: Haley Barbour himself said at the time that he helped pass NAFTA. Fact: Over 41,000 Mississippi jobs were lost due to NAFTA (Economic Policy Institute)

Electronic Voting Easily Hacked?

The Washington Post reports that many states are backing away from electronic voting machines: "Since being released two weeks ago, the [Johns] Hopkins report has sent shock waves across the country. Some states have backed away from purchasing any kind of electronic voting machine, despite a new federal law that has created a gold rush by allocating billions to buy the machines and requiring all states, as well as the District of Columbia, to replace antiquated voting equipment by 2006."

Open Primaries in Mississippi?

Is the closed-primary system outdated? The Sun-Herald explores.

"African Americans for Dean" Site Launches

It's intriguing to watch the efforts of the Dean campaign to reach out to the black community. Earlier today, the campaign announced that he has appointed a new deputy campaign director with impressive credentials of organizing in the black community. Now, Courtney Smith of Florida has announced a new African Americans for Dean Web site. I think the real test of this new grass-roots campaign is whether Dean can turn his success on the Internet with young, white progressives into a broad-based campaign that reaches into every American community. Let's keep watching.

Sun-Herald: A Question of Priorities

The Sun-Herald today editorialized about Tuesday's election: "Last year, 43,466 Harrison Countians decided it was worth a trip to the polls to vote on a flag. This week, 22,280 Harrison Countians decided it was worth a trip to the polls to vote on who would be the Democratic or Republican party nominee for governor.

Chasing the Youth Vote

Here's a story from Wiretap magazine about the strategies (and lack of) behind luring the youth vote. This talks about the Harvard report that our teen columnist Jessica Kinnison wrote about in the last issue. Not surprisingly, the writers find that "Generation Dean" is the only presidential campaign figuring out how to tap into young voters--and that is genuinely trying to increase turnout. They write: "What Generation Dean has figured out is that young people want to feel powerful. Young progressives are disgusted with Bush, and at this stage of the game, with no campaign announcement from Ralph Nader or any other third-party candidate, the Democratic Party is the only alternative. Dean, sensing the discontent of young partisans, said in one campaign speech, 'If you want young people to vote in this country, we had better stand for something, because that is why they're not voting.'" Mississippi candidates would do well to heed this advice.

Reed Branson: Race No Longer a Factor?

Commercial-Appeal writer Reed Branson examines the Mississippi primaries in the light of their race implications: "Mississippians are once again about to dance with, or around, the awkward issue of race. And if history is an indication, it will be tense and sometimes clumsy. But it also could be a watershed moment."

Blackmon Makes History

Will Barbara Blackmon become the first African-American -- and a woman at that!? -- to be elected statewide in Mississippi since Reconstruction? Time will only tell.

Sherman Lee Dillon's "Blog" ... of sorts

It's not a really a blog—you can't post comments—but Dillon's gubernatorial race journal is the closest I've seen to a candidate posting a blog, and direct comments to the voters, in the state. Dillon's race for governor on the Greens ticket officially kicks off today.

Treasurer Candidates to Run-off

Cindy Ayers-Elliott told me last week that Rob Smith was the candidate to look out for. She was right.

Election Returns

Get updated election returns from the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

Election Snafus Reported Statewide

The Sun-Herald reports about problems at the polls.

Bill Minor: Watch legislative races

This Tuesday, the state legislative races are some of the most interesting races to pay attention to, columnist Bill Minor writes.

Barbour Files Campaign Finance Report

The following are details of the report for the period of July 1—July 26, 2003:

[Trent Lott column] Beyond Casinos

I will be in Tunica County soon to officially open the new Tunica Airport. As most Mississippians know, Tunica County is one of the handful of Mississippi counties where citizens allow legalized gaming. No matter what one's opinion of gaming, one cannot deny that it has helped make Tunica County a much different place than it was decades ago, when the infamous "Sugar Ditch" was known worldwide as America's poorest spot. Yet, history teaches Mississippians to be wary of putting all of our economic eggs in a single basket, lest we risk a return to "Sugar Ditch." This is why projects like Tunica Airport and other infrastructure initiatives are so important.

Musgrove Campaign Holds $4 Million Cash on Hand

(Jackson, MS) July 29, 2003/press release: As required by state law, Governor Ronnie Musgrove's reelection campaign today will file its campaign fundraising report with the Mississippi Secretary of State. Musgrove has raised a total of $5,448,312 for his campaign to serve a second term. Between July 1st and July 26th, Musgrove reported raising $600,519. Governor Musgrove holds $4,070,500 cash-on-hand to face whomever emerges from next week's August 5th Republican primary.

C-L Endorses Blackmon, Tuck for Lt. Guv

The Clarion-Ledger pointed to Blackmon's experience in the Senate to choose her over Democratic challenger Jim Roberts for the Dem nod, and to take on Tuck in November. Sid Salter pointed out in his fairtime column correctly that Blackmon's place on the ticket could help interest more black voters, which in turn could hurt Haley Barbour come November. He also pointed out that the black woman's race (to be the first black elected statewide in Mississippi since Reconstruction, by the way) could "result in an awakening of the 70,000 additional rural white male votes that Republican Kirk Fordice was able to get to the polls in his 1995 re-election." Presumably, all those presumably angry white guys would never think of voting for a qualified black woman as lieutenant governor. Talk about the bigotry of low expectations; maybe this year is the year that the state's voters will start bucking, er, conventional political wisdom. Let's hope.

Opponents: Barbour Helped Mexico Steal Miss. Jobs

The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports on assertions by both Tyner and Musgrove yesterday at the Neshoba County Fair that Haley Barbour's lobbying for Mexico cost jobs in Mississippi. "The primary criticism of Barbour centered around his representation of Mexico as a lobbyist. Musgrove said Mississippi had lost 41,000 manufacturing jobs to Mexico since the North American Free Trade Agreement was passed by Congress in he early 1990s."

Plea to Candidates: Prosecute Civil Rights Murders

John Gibson writes: "Please call the candidates for District Attorney for Mississippi District 8 (includes Neshoba county) and ask will they and how will they aggressively pursue prosecution in the murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman and others whose bodies were found before, during, and after the search for the three civil rights workers . Please call or write others, especially residents of District 8 (Leake, Neshoba, Newton, and Scott counties), and ask them to contact the candidates. Assistant district attorney Mark Duncan (601 656-1991) of Philadelphia and Johnny Pope (601 267-5636), a Carthage attorney and former justice and municipal court judge, will meet in the Democrat primary. There are no Republican challengers. The vote is on August 5, 39 years and one day after the finding of the three civil rights workers bodies. The state of Mississippi has never charged anyone in the those murders as well as many other murders."

Take That, Joe Lieberman

After all the talk-show babble of the last couple days about Howard Dean being such a "far-left" candidate, it's a relief to see a New York Times story today that actually explores his hard-to-define independence—which may well be drawing much of his surge of support: "But in Vermont, whose political center of gravity lands left of the nation's, one of the secrets to Dr. Dean's success was keeping the most liberal politicians in check. Over 11 years, he restrained spending growth to turn a large budget deficit into a surplus, cut taxes, forced many on welfare to go to work, abandoned a sweeping approach to health-care reform in favor of more incremental measures, antagonized environmentalists, won the top rating from the National Rifle Association and consistently embraced business interests."

Haley Barbour's New "Democrat-Lover" Nastygram

July 30, 2003: Gubernatorial hopeful, and former national GOP party head, Haley Barbour seems more stressed about Davidian challenger Mitch Tyner than you'd think. A rather breathtaking nasty-politics flyer landed in the JFP PO box this morning. In a tone worthy of Ann Coulter, the four-color (read: expensive) Barbour fold-out shows Mitch Tyner in the backseat of a stretch limo driven by a donkey (you'd think that'd be hard to afford with the $209,484 Tyner has raised to date, compared with Barbour's $5,316,884) with "Liberal Trial Lawyer and Democrat-Lover Mitch Tyner." With a huge photo of a zebra on the front, the headline reads: "A zebra can't change its stripes and neither can a donkey!!" READ MORE ...

Haley Barbour Issues Statement Posted

Go take a look at Barbour's positions on a list of issues just posted on his JFP candidate blog.

New answers up from Max Phillips

I have to say, two of the agriculture commissioner candidates, both Republicans, are leading the pack on substantive questionnaires as far as I can see. You've got to go read the very thoughtful answers of Max Phillips and Roger Crowder and about very important issues for Mississippians (pesticides, organics, grocery-store safety and so on). Go on to the Ag page. These are the kind of thoughtful answers we're looking for; I applaud them. On a lesser note, I don't think that anyone's running for lieutenant governor, and I thought the treasurer field was crowded and competitive, but only two have been in touch about their answers. Oh well. To Haley Barbour's credit, his campaign staff has called repeatedly to apologize for not getting answers in, yet. Until they get them done, we're going to post issues information from his Web site. But the campaign has promised a full and substantive line-up of answers in the next couple weeks at least. (You get the feeling they're not worried about primary challenger Mitch Tyner.) We do look forward to the answers, and we appreciate them communicating with us about them. A point added to the Barbour column.

Musgrove statement to JFP, more Klotz answers posted

This morning, we posted a statement from Gov. Musgrove on the Politics Blog addressing several of the substantive issues in our questionnaire. And House 66 candidate Chris Klotz sent over his free-expression answers, which we added to his page. (We're rather impressed with how Klotz is making time to answer our questions, even in chunks. We haven't heard from his opponent at all, yet.) Head on over and check out the latest round of answers.

Fun Politics? Imagine ...

Right now, over on Howard Dean's blog, there's a fund-raising "bat" marathon going on to beat the $250,000 that Dick Cheney is going to get from a few wealthy contributors Monday night. As of right now, they're up $130,000 since last night in small contributions—and has two days to go. Go check it out: Whatever you think of Dean, this energetic grass-roots movement is something to behold. Sure beats the hell out of conventional political, er, "wisdom."

Vickie and Bill Giles

The old saying goes: Marriages are made in heaven. Actually, some are made at football games and barbecues as well. In November 1979, Meridian native Bill Giles was a graduate football assistant at Mississippi College. He smiles as he tells how he finally got up the courage to ask out the blonde-haired, blue-eyed majorette from Jackson that he had been admiring from afar, even though he didn't figure she'd give him the time of day. Funny, but Vickie says that when she sat behind him in PE class, he "never gave me the time of day," either. Bill quickly points out that he was "kinda shy," and Vickie agrees, smiling at him, her fingers intertwined in his.

Jay Sones

Jay Sones, 28, sits across the small table at Fenian's talking on his cell phone (the kind you can send pictures through) with his baby sister, Meg. He tells her that I'm interviewing him and responds when she asks why, "I guess people just can't get enough of me," and gives his characteristic chuckle. He's wearing a three-quarter sleeved gray-and-scarlet baseball shirt with jeans. Dark spiky hair covers his head and frames his greco-roman facial features.

Cordie Aziz

Seated behind a bare executive desk at Cindy Ayers-Elliott's campaign headquarters, Cordie Aziz seems right at home. She radiates hope for her future and confidence in her ability to do anything she decides to do.

Ellington