Thursday, November 6, 2003

Mississippi Politics: A Missed Opportunity

Republican Haley Barbour won the Governor's race on Tuesday in Mississippi against incumbent Democratic Governor Ronnie Musgrove. Barbour is a former chairman of the national Republican Party and apparently an aspiring Iraq War profiteer.

The Democrats should be making the most out of Barbour's unsavory connections, as explained in this article by Bob McElvaine, history professor at Millsaps College in Mississippi:

<< In July, Barbour attended a barbeque sponsored by the Council of Conservative Citizens, an openly racist organization. He has, moreover, declined to ask that the organization stop supporting him because, he says, "once you start down the slippery slope of saying that person can't be for me, then where do you stop?"

<< Barbour is saying that he cannot reject the backing of neo-Nazis who have his photo on a page that also features a treatise called "In Defense of Racism," calls for denying women the right to vote, and says that "negroes [sic.] should not even be labeled as in the same 'nation' as Whites [sic.], much less should they be given any voting rights."It is plain that, while few would argue that Barbour himself is a racist, he wants, and believes he needs, the support of racists. >>

Bob, by the way, was one of my professors in college. So you see where I get some of my ideas.

Unfortunately, the Democrats are busy chewing over Dean's ill-advised comment about wanting to appeal to "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."

It's worth mentioning in this context that Bob McElvaine is a Dean supporter. I don't know what he thinks about the flag remark. He was also very outspoken in 2001 in his opposition to the Confederate state flag in the statewide vote that year. Dean's potential Southern consituency is so not the Confederate-flag enthusiasts, which is why I'm still shaking my head over his foot-in-mouth comment.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Check out Paul Krugman's column in today's NY Times, "Flags Versus Dollars."