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Fox News Poll: Bush Lead ‘Razor Thin'

A Fox News poll released yesterday finds that Bush's convention bump in the polls has smoothed out, and the two men are nearly in a dead heat in nationwide polling: "Thoughts of the Republican National Convention (search) appear to have faded as quickly as memories of Labor Day at the beach, as less than a week after the GOP gathering in New York City the latest FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows the presidential race in a dead heat. Clearly President George W. Bush made gains in critical areas such as leadership and trustworthiness, but just days after his convention ended, Bush's edge over Democrat John Kerry(search) is razor thin." ...

Did Cheney Go Too Far with Attack?

New York Times today: "Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the nation was more likely to 'get hit again' by terrorists if John Kerry was elected was one of the toughest attacks launched in a presidential election in 40 years. But Mr. Cheney's latest assault on Mr. Kerry, which startled Democrats and Republicans alike, raised a central question even in this notably ferocious presidential campaign: Is it possible for a candidate to go too far, and alienate the very voters he is trying to court?

Log Cabin GOP Votes Down Bush Endorsement

AP reports: "The Republican Party's largest gay and lesbian organization, which endorsed President Bush in 2000, is withholding its endorsement of the president for re-election because of his support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The national board of Log Cabin Republicans voted 22-2 Tuesday night to hold back the endorsement and called Bush 'disloyal' to the 1 million gay men and lesbian women who it said supported his candidacy four years ago.

Former Gov. Kirk Fordice Dead at 70

Here is a statement from his family, following by a statement from Gov. Haley Barbour: "It is with a sad heart that our family announces the death of Daniel Kirkwood Fordice. Our beloved father lost his battle with leukemia earlier today at University Medical Center in Jackson. Over the last several weeks as news of his illness spread, our father was buoyed by the supportive calls, letters, visits and prayers he received from Mississippians across the state. The people he served while in office served to lift his spirits during his final days. We would like to express our gratitude to all of those who have been so kind to our father and to our entire family over the years. "

Denying the Troops a Secret Ballot

A New York Times editorial: "Members of the military will be allowed to vote this year by faxing or e-mailing their ballots - after waiving their right to a secret ballot. Beyond this fundamentally undemocratic requirement, the Electronic Transmission Service, as it's known, has far too many problems to make it reliable, starting with the political partisanship of the contractor running it. The Defense Department is making matters worse by withholding basic information about the service, and should suspend it immediately."

The South Will Rise Again

Alternet is featuring a provocative piece by Nina Burleigh, who argues that the "Old South" is "crumbling away." More: "The change has not been sudden, but more of an erosion. Slowly, slowly – as slowly as the hundred long years of Strom Thurmond's life – the reign of white and black men who came of age in an era of separate drinking fountains and burning crosses is ending. Republicans – as they are wont to remind black voters – freed the slaves under Abraham Lincoln. The South was dominated, though, by white male Democrats throughout the first half of the twentieth century, until LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Southern majority turned to the Republican Party, which has been quadrennially tossing racist red meat to poor whites ever since. LBJ predicted that was ahead, remarking, when he signed the law, 'I have signed away the South for a generation.' It turned out to be two. But forty years later, with Thurmond's death, the retirements of North Carolina's Jesse Helms and now, Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, and Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia in 2004, the old conservative bulls in the Senate who have retarded the South's social progress for decades are finally letting go."

‘Dixiecrat' Zell Miller Wows Republicans

Conservative columnist/blogger Andrew Sullivan had this to say about Georgia "Democrat" Zell Miller's performance at the convention last night: "Zell Miller's address will, I think, go down as a critical moment in this campaign, and maybe in the history of the Republican party. I kept thinking of the contrast with the Democrats' keynote speaker, Barack Obama, a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift. Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats. Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes. His speech tonight was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric. As an immigrant to this country and as someone who has been to many Southern states and enjoyed astonishing hospitality and warmth and sophistication, I long dismissed some of the Northern stereotypes about the South. But Miller did his best to revive them. The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude."

The Death of Conservatism (As We Know It)?

Conservative columnist David Brooks rethinks today's Republican Party in the cover story of this week's New York Times Magazine: "Democrats may imagine that the G.O.P. is an amalgam of fat cats and conservative ideologues, but things feel different inside Republican circles. Inside there are, beneath the cheering and the resolve, waves of anxiety, uncertainty and disagreement. You hang around Republicans, and you begin to hear all sorts of discordant things. Jesse Helms recently remarked he wouldn't have voted for the tax cut if he'd known how bad the deficit would become. Three of the senior right-wing columnists -- George F. Will, Robert Novak and William F. Buckley Jr. -- have come out, in their different ways, against the war in Iraq. I had lunch recently with a senior Republican official who said his party had succumbed; it was ''defeatist'' about reducing the size of government. As Will himself has observed, under President Bush, American conservatism is undergoing an identity crisis."

‘Skinny Kid' Barack Wows Dems in Jackson

JFP Web Exclusive

"A skinny kid with a funny name" brought his fund-raising efforts to Jackson today, speaking at a multi-racial fund-raising breakfast at Mikhail's Northgate. Democratic star Barack Obama, a state senator on Chicago's South Side who is running for U.S. Senate in Illinois, says he knows people will ask why he has come to Mississippi. "This is the south side of Chicago, granted the very south side, but everyone has connections to Mississippi," said the 42-year-old constititional law professor. Moreover, he said, Americans should believe that everyone in the country is connected. "If a child can't read in Mississippi, then that affects me, even if it is not my child," he said.

Bush Flip-Flops on ‘Winning' Terror War

AP is reporting that President Bush is trying to take back his earlier statement that the war on terror cannot be won, a statement that is causing a firestorm just as he is getting ready to accept his party's nomination in Washington. "President Bush said Tuesday 'we will win' the war on terror, seeking to quell controversy and Democratic criticism over his earlier remark that victory may not be possible. In a speech to the national convention of the American Legion, Bush said, 'We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win.' That statement differed from Bush's earlier comment, aired Monday in a pre-taped television interview, that 'I don't think you can win' the war on terror. That had Democrats running for the cameras to criticize Bush for being defeatist and flip-flopping from previous predictions of victory."

Bush Again a ‘Compassionate Conservative'

AP is reporting: "For months, President Bush has been courting his core conservative supporters. Now, in a New York minute, he's shifting his focus to moderates, independents and Democrats not entirely sold on John Kerry. He wants to be known as the 'compassionate conservative' again. That slogan from his first presidential race lost its meaning to many people shortly after Bush's bitterly contested victory four years ago, when he moved like a man with a mandate to install a right-leaning Cabinet with an agenda to match. Facing an electorate no less divided than in 2000, Bush hopes to reclaim a slice of the political center with a week-long convention script designed to highlight the moderate parts of his program while reminding swing voters why they once found him so likable."

Oral History Conference

at the community level.

Sept. 17-19; deadline for registration Aug. 30. Port Gibson. Mississippi Cultural Crossroads will co-sponsor a state-wide conference, "Telling the People's Story: From Tape and Transcript to

Longtime Division Director Named New Head of Department of Archives and History

H.T. Holmes has been selected to serve as the new director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH). Holmes will succeed Elbert R. Hilliard, who is retiring on January 1, 2005, after thirty-one years at the position. The search for Hilliard's successor began last year with the formation of a special committee of the board of trustees of the Department of Archives and History. The committee conducted an extensive search process before making its recommendation.

Women for Kerry - Jackson Event

Unita Blackwell, internationally known voting rights activist and the state's first black female mayor, will headline a women's voter registration rally at the State Capitol Thursday, August 26--the 84th anniversary of women's right to vote. The event, scheduled for 11:30 in the Rotunda of the State Capitol, highlights a nation-wide effort to honor women who sacrificed for the right to vote in the early twentieth century and in the 1960s.

The Myth of a Red South?

Alternet is discussing several polls and news articles that seem to indicate that Bush does not have the South all sewn up: "But as the election draws nearer, polling trends show that just isn't the case. The Raleigh News & Observer North Carolina came out with a poll this week showing George Bush ahead by a mere three points, well within the 4% margin of error. ... Witness Rassmussen's poll numbers for Arkansas, where Bush and Kerry are tied at 46%. There's also Virginia, where Bush leads Kerry by three points, 49% to 46%, with a five-point margin of error. Numbers like these rule out the notion that the South is 'Bush country.'" I just think the choice of "red" to indicate conservative states is hilarious. Who came up with that?!

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