11/7/2002 10:46:00 AM BRIAN PERRY/ 'Yankee Jew media'
By BRIAN PERRY
Reasonably Right
Looking back at the 2002 Election in Mississippi, a few superlatives stick out in my mind.
Friends of Ronnie Shows concocted the worst radio commercial. It had two good ol’ boys talking about their drinking problems and their wives leaving them, and how maybe they should think about voting for Ronnie Shows instead of Chip Pickering. One Republican operative pointed out to me that the radio spot attempted to reach the white redneck but came across offensive rather than effective. He suggested that it was likely similar to when white Republicans write political commercials for an audience of black Democrats.
Pickering for Congress crafted the best television commercial. Bush said Mississippi had “a good one” in Pickering and needed to keep him. Bush carried Mississippi with 57.6% of the vote; he carried the new Third District with more than 65%.
The roughest campaign erupted in the Southern Supreme Court District. On one side was incumbent Justice Chuck McRae who carried the baggage of DUI allegations, troubling court decisions, outlandish behavior and coziness with the trial lawyer lobby. On the other side was challenger Jess Dickinson who was painted as a nightclub owning, whiskey bottle smashing, church-suing candidate for big business. Late campaign fliers circulating without attribution further attacked Dickinson on the Sunday before the election, placed on cars in the parking lot while he was inside in Church.
Kudzu Consulting designed the best campaign web site of the election for the Chip Pickering Campaign. Recognized by the definitive national political trade magazine “Campaign & Elections” as one of the Top 5 Most Effective Republican campaign web pages, PickeringForCongress.com provided interactive features, consistent and timely updates and a user-friendly interface. Visitors could watch Pickering television commercials, discover whether or not their precinct was in the new Third District, see campaign photos and post their own opinions in a forum.
Those interested in the campaign received frequent e-mail updates, which were refreshingly blunt. The Shows for Congress gets an honorable mention for launching TheAbsoluteTruth.org near the end of the campaign to get their message out, but it failed to be effective so late in the campaign. Democrats were able to get some updates throughout the campaign at RonnieShows.org as well as his Congressional web page. The biggest political upset of the season (as this is written pre-election) occurred months before voters went to the polls. The Mississippi Senate, led by Lieutenant Governor Amy Tuck, stood firm against the Tornado Redistricting Plan backed by Mississippi House, Congressmen Ronnie Shows and Bennie Thompson, and national Democrats. It would have created a very Shows friendly district. Tuck caught a lot of heat from her own party for standing against lumping much of the Metro-Jackson area in with North Mississippi. The Legislature could not compromise and the Federal Court drew a district to the Republican’s favor, despite a Democrat controlled House, Senate and Governorship.
The most active non-candidates were Mississippi Republican Party Chairman Jim Herring of Canton and Republican gubernatorial hopeful Haley Barbour of Yazoo City. For weeks, Herring toured the state to energize and motivate Republican voters on the grassroots level. He often appeared with Barbour, who has not announced that he will run for governor, but is certainly expected to do so by the GOP.
If you worked at a gas station, Waffle House or court house in the Third District, then your back was likely slapped, your hand was likely shaken, and you likely ran into the hardest campaigner of the year Ronnie Shows. Even when things looked the roughest, when he was tired and frustrated, he continued to campaign. This resilience demonstrated why he has been so successful in rural Mississippi politics.
Chip Pickering’s polling lead in the race was this election season’s worst kept secret. To the media the polls were off the record; to other Republicans the polls were dangerous. Fearing overconfidence, the Pickering campaign did not release their internal polls or disseminate any other organizations’ polls or rumors of polls. Less than a week before the election, the Associated Press and Emmerich Newspapers released a poll showing Pickering leading Shows by 27 points in a 2 to 1 landslide.
The best Neshoba County Fair Speech was the “trial lawyers, like ticks on a hound dog’s ear” speech given by Jess Dickinson. The biggest story to become a non-issue in the campaigns was WorldCom contributions. The best campaign item was the two-sided Hillary Clinton and Ronnie Shows Fair Fan.
The most ridiculous candidate was Independent Jim Giles who ran in the Third District. In his words, he wanted his “white country rebels” to show the “Yankee Jew media” that they wanted him in Congress. The biggest surprise was that he behaved himself during the Neshoba County Fair. The biggest disappointment was that he ran at all.
Brian Perry is a columnist for the Madison County Journal and editor of MagnoliaReport.com.
