10:00 PM:
Watching WAPT. Sheriff McMillin kicks Tyrone Lewis's arse with over 60% of the vote. I'm enjoying this one as some scumbags ripped a huge McMillin sign out of my yard. Ripping this sign out took some work as the 4 foot long metal stakes were hammered very deeply into the ground. Sheriff Mac looks tired. Is anyone at Lewis's party? Who did he anger in the media as they are really making him look pretty bad. As Pikersam at JFP pointed out, there was a crowd shot and only SEVEN people were at his party. How embarrassing. I understand everyone likes a winner but damn, this was one of the worst election-night parties I've ever seen. "Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came: The Tyrone Lewis Campaign for Sheriff Story". However, it was nice to see the Sheriff survive WJTV's hit job last week and slam dunk his rivals to win the election. Congrats Sheriff Mac!!! Glad to see you earned another term.
How many times is WAPT going to interview Faye Peterson? Yeesh, this is turning into the Faye Peterson election coverage channel. Robert Smith, for whom I voted, within 1500 right now. Purvis is last, thank goodness. The more I listened to her, the more I disliked her, unlike the other two candidates.
Once again we are treated to Matt Friedeman (Does anyone pay attention to what he says anymore since he is no longer a regular newspaper columnist and is no longer on WFMN or WJNT?) and Harvey Johnson. WLBT had their retreads as well: Bert Case and Former Congressman David Bowen. The only person missing was Dr. Leslie McLemore as he is usually brought into these discussions in an effort to show diversity. Some diversity. A diversity of boredom if anything. Yawn.
Surely we can get some different political analysts for our election coverage. With all of the bloggers who make it their business to stay educated on Mississippi politics such as Alan Lange, Andy Taggart, Jere Nash, Tom Head, Donna Ladd, John Leek, etc, why isn't the media showing some fresh faces and analysis instead of the same people we have been watching for the last 15-20 years? I would have liked to see three or four of the bloggers I named on a post-election panel for a half hour or so tonight. Instead, I got the late night equivalent of My Three Sons reruns. OK. Enough of my soapbox, back to the coverage.
Charlie Ross is having his party at CORKY'S??? To think I grew up with Edwin Edwards having his parties at the Hilton and other nice venues in Baton Rouge. Yeesh. I am definitely in Mississippi. Phil is at the Ag Museum. The Democrats are playing cheapskates and combining several parties at Hal and Mals. Jamie Franks is at SCROOGES??? Doesn't ANYONE in this damned town know how to throw a good election night party?
At least one good thing will come of tonight. I won't have to watch this race between Ross and Bryant any longer. Watching these guys fight reminds me of the commercials where Palmer and Nicklaus tried to act as if they didn't like each other. Yeah right. One sad thing about Ross is that it is rare that we have someone with his talent and background running for state office and I don't think he played theses strengths up enough. Look at Bobby Jindal and how he has parlayed his Ivy League background into a successful political career in Louisiana.
Over at The Jackson Free Press, Donna Ladd is giddy with glee as she finds numerous errors in The Clarion-Ledger's coverage, something that is unfortunately not hard to do (Especially as long as Eric Stringfellow writes at that paper). She experiences a literary orgasm as she writes "Pro-Choice Choice Candidate Defeats Erik Fleming". She throws a few barbs at the Republican candidates but nothing too harsh.
Damn. Kenny Stokes is ahead in the supervisor's race. I hate seeing him get a promotion BUT that does remove a reliable Melton vote on the City Council. Update: Oops, he lost. So sorry Kenny.
DA's race: Ladd is pimping her girl Faye in a serious tryout for the job of Campaign Manager for Faye Peterson. AND doing a good job of it. Maybe she is in the wrong profession after all. Robert Smith made the runoff and is only 2,000 votes behind Ms. Peterson. Purvis barely received 10,000 votes even though she raised the most money.
Advice to Frank Melton: Please stop sending your lackeys to run for office. One common trait of people you hire is that they do not tend to be that smart, show little initiative, and do little on their own to distinguish themselves as well as being poorly qualified. Elections tend to highlight these qualities as the voters judge accordingly. We prefer to elect leaders, not lapdogs.
Just went to WLBT's website. No mention of election results. There is a small link at the top of the page to click on for results, but no stories listed. strange. WJTV stuck its election results down on the lower right side of the website in a sidebar listing of stories. However, no listing of these stories in the "To the Point Headlines".
WAPT is ending its on-air coverage at 10:30? Gee thanks. Now I have to rely on the Axis of Melton for broadcast coverage.
Clarion-Ledger's website is saturated with election coverage, putting the broadcast media websites to shame. Weird. The site does not have the D.A.'s race listed in the Hinds County Elections chart. Ah. Its in the Statewide Coverage. I stand corrected. However, why is it in statewide coverage when it is a county race? The statewide coverage list of races is VERY long and the Hinds County D.A.'s race is buried in there. Move it over to the Hinds County Race coverage. It is drawing much interest and will be much easier for the readers to find. However, out of all the media outlets, so far the newspaper is ahead of the pack even if its posted times are in EST instead of CST. ;-)
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Thoughts While Watching Election Coverage
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12 comments:
Good post. My thoughts here.
I deliberately haven't read the JFP coverage yet because I had a feeling it'd center on the Peterson thing. My feeling at this point is that I will vote for Peterson again and will be proud to do it, but won't cry if Smith wins, either. The Smith-Melton connection is really tenuous, the Hinds D.A. arguably outranks the Jackson mayor and is in no danger of being anyone's lapdog, and both candidates seem qualified to me.
The Campbell victory over Fleming, coupled with the Anderson victory over Dale, made my night. I don't dislike Fleming anymore (I have come to terms with the fact that people may legitimately disagree with me on some issues), but I really, really, really like Campbell and to say that I look forward to hearing her voice in the legislature would be an understatement.
The Smith-Melton connection is really tenuous, the Hinds D.A. arguably outranks the Jackson mayor and is in no danger of being anyone's lapdog ...
Completely agree Tom. The connection is tenuous, at best.
Ladd's obsession with all things Melton seriously clouds her judgment. At this point she's morphed from civic journo gadfly to a person sportin' a mouthpiece and an obvious personal vendetta.
Melton does need to go and if the process works that will happen come May or June 2009.
Despite all his supposed positive attributes and accomplishments the voters of Jackson turned away from Harvey Johnson. By the way, the numbers from May 2005 prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it wasn't because NE Jackson turned him away.
Voters don't make radical swings and turn out incumbents by that type of margin unless something was seriously wrong. The underlying reasons for Johnson's loss, which wasn't made by voters in haste nor at the behest of mythical public opinion puppeteers at the Clarion-Ledger, seems to me to be the story that still hasn't been written.
Amen on the TV commentators. It looked like the I-55 Kroger coffee club on WLBT. Isn't there someone under 70 that they could have on?
KP:
write that story and I'll post it.
Trust me, with the traffic this site is getting, it WILL be read by more than a few people.
KP, the JFP position on Melton -- that he is bad, was obviously bad before he was elected, et. al. -- makes absolutely no sense unless one begins with the assumption that most Jackson voters are stupid and should not be trusted with the right to vote. You could read the essence of that in a post by someone yesterday to the effect of "Every time polls close, I'm scared of what the future holds." Well, I'm not--I trust the voters of Jackson to decide who best represents them, and if I disagree, I get another shot in four years. That's how democracy works.
Frank Melton was a great candidate. He's a lousy mayor, but he was a great candidate. That sort of thing happens quite often in politics. Disputing two years on that he was a viable candidate, regardless of what one thinks of him as mayor, insults the intelligence of the average Jackson voter.
And if Jackson voters re-elect him in 2009, you know what? I'm not moving over it, and I'm still not saying this city is going to the dogs. We can get a hell of a lot done regardless of who happens to be mayor or what I happen to think of him. Jackson voters deserve the right to vote. If they pick a candidate I don't like, tough--I get one popsicle stick to poke the touchscreen with, just like everybody else. That's the way it should be, and I wouldn't have it any other way. There was a time when people like me and Donna could vote, and people like the majority of folks who voted for Frank Melton could not. If we don't like how things turn out under the new system, tough. That's not our call anymore--and it never should have been.
And that, my friends, is the bottom line.
David Watkins: Mayor.
and yes, I'm serious.
Re: Friedeman in the media.
I agree.
Yours,
Matt
inthefight.com
Matt,
Good to hear from you!
For the record, I enjoyed your commentary last night. Nicely done.
Are there any attorneys (other than those who work for her) voting for Faye? I haven't found any.
I would think attorneys, especially those who practice criminal law, are in a better position to judge how bad Faye really is.
I've heard it was pretty bad from them. I remember on the JFP forums during Melton's trial, several lawyers said Melton would win and why only to be shouted down by the JFP regulars who knew more about the law than did the lawyers.
Matt:
My shot was at the coverage. I've been seeing the same faces for a very long time. I remember you and Harvey doing election commentary and that was before Harvey's first term as mayor, making it more than ten years ago.
I would not have picked you as you don't much visibility in Jackson anymore. I understand the reasons why you are not at those particular radio stations and also the direction that Gannett took with the editorial page, but if I'm picking commentators as they did, I'd be more inclined to put you on the panel I mentioned, but not the sole commentary as you were with Harvey or as Bowen and Case. I would not have picked Harvey either by the way. That was what I meant by my comments, nothign personal. I'm a jacka$$ on this site to everyone at some point. ;-)
I had a conversation with the former public defender a few years ago and he (the public defender) was complaining about how bad the D.A.'s office was and how he couldn't say anything because it actually helped his clients and his duty, of course, was to his clients. But the public defender was not exactly thrilled about how the DA's ineffectiveness was impacting the city in which he lived.
There did seem to be a lot of shouting down prior to the election. My point of view as I recall was that we were fortunate to have three great candidates for mayor. I thought Melton was running a terrible campaign and predicted a Johnson victory, but expected that it would be close because of Melton's name value. I did not expect a Melton landslide.
This was spun on the JFP as media-generated anti-Johnson sentiment, which it wasn't. And the JFP is making the same mistake, as we speak, with Faye Peterson.
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