[C-L] Rennick Drops Out of Guv Race
According to the Clarion-Ledger, Democratic gubernatorial candidate and executive director of the Marshall County Industrial Development Authority, has dropped out of the race.
It has become more and more obvious that the commitment required to win this race will not allow me to fulfill those part-time responsibilities that both my Board and I agreed upon,Ӕ he said. At the same time, my commitment to the people of Marshall County will not allow me to take money, part-time or not, for a job that I can not fulfill. In addition, I have strong convictions that will not allow me to pay for living expenses out of monies raised to fund my campaign.Ӕ
Posted by admin at 01:16 PM in MS Newspapers | Email this entry
Comments:
In some ways this may be good news. I don’t think Eaves or Renick are especially formidable candidates, but I’d like to think somebody can give Barbour a run for his money this year, and that becomes easier if the nominee isn’t distracted by a primary.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 04/24 at 04:38 AM | #
It’s hard to compete against cash. And the sheeple of Mississippi.
Posted by on 04/24 at 09:01 PM | #
I don’t think they’re sheeple, necessarily--if anybody has earned the sheeple label, it’s me. But folks in this state come mainly from an old rural culture and they think Barbour looks and sounds like one of them.
In Mississippi, it all seems to boil down to whether the candidate feels like a buddy to 50.01% or more of the voting population. That’s how Melton got elected. That’s how Lott and Cochran keep getting so easily reelected. That’s how McMillin keeps doing so well. We’re not very policy-oriented here. Reckon that’s only a bad thing when I don’t like the results!
The whole nation is vulnerable to that sentiment in some way. Reagan didn’t win 49 states by choosing popular policy positions; he was actually pretty far to the right of the electorate, in the aggregate. He won 49 states because people liked him. And nobody thought Bush was smarter than Gore, not even Bush, but he ended up president anyway because he passed the “I’d rather have a beer with him” test. Same story with Kerry. This is why Arnold Schwarzenegger won in California, and why Al Franken will cream Norm Coleman in Minnesota next year. Unless the candidate is really egregious, we vote out of love for the candidate instead of love for the people. That’s wrong, but it’s forgivable and we all do it from time to time.
Personally, after four years of beer with Haley Barbour and seven with Bush, I’m ready for a change. But a majority of Mississippi voters probably aren’t, and since it’s a democracy, I guess that’s their right. I’m one vote in 305 million, and that’s as it should be. If I wasn’t willing to live with it, I’d move to Canada--or, even better, Costa Rica. But I can’t imagine living that far away from this beautiful city.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 04/25 at 03:48 AM | #
Well, yeah. I can see the Bush vs Gore race like that. Gore never comes across as lively, and the best hope was that Bush wouldn’t be that stupid.
As for Mississippi… Well, I’m a cynic. Shoot me. :D
Posted by on 04/25 at 08:36 PM | #
I think another part of the Bush-Gore race was that there was the projected $1.4 trillion surplus. Bush said “Hey, let’s give everybody a tax cut!” Gore said “No, let’s put it in a lockbox!” Gore, in other words, was being the fiscal conservative. And he paid for it.
What I wish Gore had done was say “No, let’s spend it on universal health care!” or “No, let’s spend it on universal public university tuition!” or “No, let’s spend it on poverty relief!"--something that captured the imagination better than “lockbox.” I think if he’d done that, he would have won in a landslide.
There is a puritanical streak to Al Gore that I think hurts him a lot--a belt tightening attitude. Pay more taxes, use less electricity, get a fuel efficient car, recycle, spend more time with your kids, put warning labels on your albums, put V-chips in your television sets, and above all else, be ye therefore perfect. It’s hard to get enthusiastic about that sort of thing, even when it’s a good idea. In some ways he might be doing exactly what he needs to do by working on changing the culture instead of trying to elect his very noble but hard-to-elect self.
Bush, meanwhile, is the opposite extreme. No discipline, no boundaries, no apologies, no half-measures. So we end up with a massive deficit and two simultaneous wars overseas and we wonder in 2007 what went wrong. The answer is that we picked the fratboy turned cowboy over the prude and the aristocrat. Understandable mistake, but it seldom ends well. Fortunately, it’s not a mistake we’re likely to repeat in 2008--all of the viable major party candidates are light years better than Bush, with the possible exception of Mitt Romney, but being both a prude and an aristocrat he’s unlikely to go anywhere.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 04/26 at 02:16 AM | #
And it’s easy to be cynical about Mississippi. Jackson I love, the state I’m not always crazy about. But I’m learning to understand it better, primarily because I’m learning the difference between insight and projection. Insight is “Oh, gosh, here’s why I’m doing this; I never realized that.” Projection is “Oh, gosh, here’s why you’re doing this; you never realized that.” Projection is much easier and much more likely to be wrong.
Most people do what they’re doing, politically, because they honestly think it’s the right thing to do. Most anti-abortion people really believe embryos and fetuses are little babies. Most anti-gay marriage people really believe that broadening the way our culture understands marriage will break down the family unit. Most hardcore capitalists really believe that low taxes and corporate subsidies are better for everybody, not just the rich. Most neoconservatives really believe that we can make the entire world a better place through intervention. Most “tough on crime” types really believe that what they’re doing actually fights crime.
And for God’s sake, most “mainstream media” employees are just trying to make an honest living as journalists. Most suburbanites just don’t want to live in the city. Most Melton supporters, like most Reagan supporters, just liked the guy. People who were not here 15 years ago, when Melton was a more visible figure, should not be expected to understand why. But patience and generosity are virtues.
Are there some nasty undercurrents of thought in all of those movements? Yes. Are there individual people within those movements who are obviously behaving in an evil way and need to be called out for it? Yes.
But does that mean that most people who hold these various beliefs aren’t trying to do the right thing? No. Somewhere along the line, IG, I forgot everything I’d ever learned about psychology and became a lazy thinker when it comes to people in the “Mill Street Posse” and “N-JAM” and all those other dehumanizing labels we stick on people we don’t spend time with. And I don’t know if I’m getting better. I don’t know if I’ll ever get better. I have to say, the more I see of this city and this state and the human beings I’ve stuck all these thoughtless and nasty and brutally unfair labels on, the more I wish I could wipe out the 4,000 posts I put up on the JFP forum. I have been a damned fool. I have become the 38th subject in Milgram’s experiment. I thought I was better than that. I was wrong.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 04/26 at 02:35 AM | #
