After more than a century of courthouse-to-statehouse-to-
In the 1950s and 1960s, it started as what many called the “phone booth” Republicans in the state – the notion that the Mississippi GOP was so small it could meet in a phone booth. But the movement was more complex than mere competition. The Mississippi Democratic Party suffered as much damage internally – perhaps more – than externally. The issue of race was the initial catalyst.
In his new book “The Switcher: Jim Herring and Two-Party Politics in Mississippi,” former Mississippi Court of Appeals Judge James H. “Jim” Herring offers his memories of that critical time in Mississippi politics and the forces that shaped the state’s change from Democrat to Republican rule in local, state and congressional politics.
Herring has an interesting distinction in that he’s the only past chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party to have served on the Mississippi Democratic Party’s executive committee. Herring was the scion of a Mississippi family that not only identified as Democrats, but a well-connected set of Democrats to boot.
Herring’s path was beyond interesting. His family was successful in local and legislative politics and the family’s political connections ran from powerful Democrats Mike Conner to John Stennis to Big Jim Eastland to William Colmer to Bill Waller, Sr. Those connections and Herring’s own accomplishments and service positioned him for statewide campaigns as a Democrat.
After failed bids for lieutenant governor in 1975 and governor in 1979, Herring told me years later that the Democratic Party at that time “simply was no longer attuned to my thinking.” He was also disillusioned and disenchanted with the constant infighting and lack of basic organization and the growing financial instability of the state’s Democrats at that time.
Herring switched parties and joined the GOP during President Ronald Regan’s first term. He returned to Madison County and labored in the vineyards of local, state and national GOP politics until making a bid as the Republican nominee for attorney general in 1987 against longtime Democratic Attorney General Mike Moore. Moore won that race with over 60 percent of the vote.
But Herring emerged from that defeat as a senior statesman in the GOP and was named to the State Court of Appeals by then-Gov. Kirk Fordice in 1997 - serving there until 1999.
In 2001, Herring was elected chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, serving in that role until 2008. He was chosen to lead the party’s national organization of state chairmen, which positioned him on the Republican National Committee.
Herring’s rise in GOP politics coincided with that of Haley Barbour, who was elected governor in 2003 and again in 2007. Barbour’s terms as governor along with Herring’s knowledge of both parties created a powerful attraction for disaffected Democrats to make the same party “switch” that Herring had made.
Many of those party switches came in the Mississippi Legislature. At the end of Herring’s term as MRP chairman, the GOP controlled the Mississippi State Senate for the first time since Reconstruction. By 2011, Republicans controlled the Mississippi House as well and would go on to control the eight statewide offices and the majority of the state’s congressional delegation.
Herring’s book, written with Joseph L. Maxwell III, offers an important view of an underreported but incredibly relevant chapter in Mississippi’s political history. True two-party politics simply didn’t exist in Mississippi from Reconstruction until Herring’s times. His book would be a valuable addition to the library of any serious student of Mississippi history and politics.
Jim Herring is of a different generation – one in which people argued vehemently about politics and government but didn’t lose their civility. His life and work have been worthy of a memoir.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.
17 comments:
was he ever elected to anything?
The Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
If you look up the word "bloviate" in the dictionary, there is a picture of Jim Herring right there beside the entry. If there were posters for liberal bloviation, he would be on every single poster.
The republicans have no one to blame but themselves .
they have not improved the state in any way as well.
both parties are just as bad , they all screw us
"In 2001, Herring was elected chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party."
If there's to be a memoir, written by Sid, of course, the second chapter, following Chapter 1 - Accolades and High Fives...Should be "How to hold many offices yet never be elected by the people".
The days of knowing where to squirt WD-40 on the wheels of Mississippi political groups is long gone. The relevance of such will be buried with old politicians and old columnists.
Jim Herring is a fine man. I met Jim over 40 years ago and have always respected him.
RMQ
Who wanted to bring about change and use the government to do it?
Who wanted to maintain the status quo and limit the government's power?
The agents of change found the Democrats as a populist party to be their best vehicle. The agents of suppression found the Republicans as a small government party to be their best vehicle. Since both parties seek absolute power this can all change with the shifts in population.
8:21 and 9:31, Jim was elected by the people of Madison county as district attorney.
Sid must have really fallen for Herring's red herring based on some of the suggestions that he makes in this critical critique of Jim Herring's term as Chairman of the MS Republican Party. To suggest (as I'm sure Herring did in his recanting of successes that occurred during his term) such as Republicans taking control of the MS Senate in 2008 that it was due to his 'leadership' of the party is laughable. He does note that it occurred during the first term of Haley Barbour but leaves out the fact that the Republicans won the Senate and made major gains in the House due to Barbour's leadership of the party and the fact that Barbour committed to raising a massive budget to be focused on winning control of the legislature; something that fell one vote short in the House Speaker's race.
That success was due not to anything Herring did at the party but despite it. As Herring would have to admit, he was not in the loop at all in running of the party during those four years but was a figurehead with Barbour controlling the machinery through the Executive Director he picked and placed in the building to get the job done.
To think that he was a player in the National Committee due to being 'elected" as Chairman of the Southern Chairman is laughable as well knowing that none of the other Chairmen from the south wanted the title (all Chairmen are automatically on the National Committee so this 'position' was meaningless to anybody except one who is all hat and no cattle; someone who ran for office three times and never got 40% of the vote, and after getting appointed to a Judgship being unable to hole it in the election a year later.
He likes to think of himself as a Republican Godfather and power-broker. Just ask him.
Herring dropped the ball in 2002 when he failed to extend even an iota of party support and money to Clinton LeSueur. Thompson was poised to be surprised if not for Herring's snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory.
Those of you who would criticize Jim Herring are no ladies or gentlemen. I have known him most of my life and he is as fair as they come. His demeanor and mentality are what it will take to bring this state and country back.
@9:01 AM
Flowood, Gluckstadt, Madison, Brandon, are all Republican and doing great socially and economically. The democrats hold their hand out and hold the state back. The overwhelming majority of the negative metrics of this state are caused by the democrats. Every bad thing from the literacy to the crime, to the bad health stats. Majority democrat. Everything they touch is ruined. I had to pickup some prescriptions from the pharmacy and it was horrible and slow because it was all sassy entitled democrats “working” poorly.
Negative comments from poor losers. Typical crybaby democrats
I'm sorry 2:28, but your pining for the leadership of old men and old ways is a waste of your time.
The glory days of men lighting cigars and sipping brandy while telling each other how important they are to 'the cause' are dead and gone, as was pointed out in the concluding paragraph at 9:31. The train has left the station and you missed it.
You should cover the Tate Reeves Gov Newsome gun debate over on the Twitters.
Mississippi (and America) is so screwed. With either party, sadly.
Who is gonna opine and bloviate a book on “The Rise of the Haley Barbour Political Machine” and it’s long ranging grip of MS and it’s politics????
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