The Mississippi election primary is August 8. There are four good candidates for governor and lieutenant governor.
I had the privilege of hearing all four speak at the recent annual convention of the Mississippi Press Association.
Running for Governor are Republican incumbent Tate Reeves and Democrat challenger Brandon Presley, currently northern district Public Service Commissioner. Should be a good race.
Running for Lieutenant Governor are Republican incumbent Delbert Hosemann and Republican challenger Chris McDaniel. Another good race.
Each of these candidates spoke over 30 minutes, so the audience got quite the opportunity to observe their personal style and ideological preferences. They are all quite different.
First I’ll address personal style:
Tate Reeves is the consummate professional politician. He reminds me of that T-shirt slogan. “I make it look easy.” The only problem is that comes across as somewhat arrogant. Hey, it’s not bragging if it’s true!
Reeves has the phenomenal ability never to say, “ugh,” “you know,” “like” or “and.” He speaks meticulously, in proper, full sentences. In this case, he was carefully reading from a prepared text (the only one of the four candidates to do so).
Reeves knows the game. It’s all about the money and taking the right positions to get 50 percent plus one of the votes. He’s not out to save the world. He’s not going to get emotional or worked up (unless it’s to berate his enemies). This fellow is polished and cool.
Reeves is also competent. That’s a big, big plus. I’ve never heard of anyone accuse him of graft, which is impressive for someone in the Mississippi political game for so long. That being said, he certainly plays the legal political money game to a T. He has quite the fund raising machine and makes sure to reward his donors.
The one thing Reeves lacks is a certain warm and fuzzy feeling. They say you can’t have both respect and love. I don’t know a lot of people who love Tate Reeves (other than his friends and family)!
Hosemann is very different from Reeves. Reeves always wears a dark suit and tie. Hoseman wore khakis and running shoes. Hosemann spoke totally off the cuff, displaying his prodigious command of state issues.
Hosemann, like Reeves, doesn’t inspire passion, but he does evoke this sense of common sense, plain spoken, even keeled competency. When Hosemann speaks, it’s like he’s sitting across the dinner table telling you what’s going on. Very familiar. Very approachable. Not in the least bit stiff or intimidating. Very low key and insightful.
I like the fact that Hosemann is practical and moderate. He’s not rigidly ideological like Reeves. He’ll compromise to get things done, which I believe is a big plus. Politics, after all, is the art of compromise.
Brandon Presley was wound up and on a mission. He struck me as the class old-school Mississippi dirt hills populist — conservative yet cynical about the motives of big money, big corporations and big government.
Presley is a good speaker and came the closest of the four to delivering a stemwinder.
Presley would say something like, “Can you believe they have the nerve to tell you . . .” and then link Reeves to some cozy shenanigans like the TANF scandal. I would guess that Presley draws more blood against Tate than Jim Hood did last time, but I wouldn’t bet any real money against Reeves.
This style has little to do with national Democratic politics or policies. It’s a Mississippi home-brewed populism in the style of Bill Waller, Cliff Finch, William Waller and Ronnie Musgrove. Deeply ensconced in family values and community loyalty, but critical of the insensitivity of the affluent towards the struggle of the working poor.
Presley stuck a bunch of jabs at Reeves for his fundraising and big money connections, calling him out of touch. Meanwhile, Reeves did his best to portray Presley as a Nancy Pelosi liberal.
Chris McDaniel was engaging and enthralling. He wore a tightly tailored dark suit with a tight collar and a perfectly knotted tie.
He started off telling an intensely personal story about seeing his father die in a car accident and holding his hand as he died. He grabbed you and wouldn’t let you go. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. Too intense. Too emotional. Too ideological. But that’s just me.
I liked a lot of what McDaniel said, given that most of my personal political philosophy comes from America’s Founding Fathers. Tea Party stuff. Solid raw conservatism. No surprise that he’s a big Trumper. He and Delbert couldn’t be more different. This reminds me of the McDaniel-Cochran race. My guess is that McDaniel would do a lot of boat rocking in the legislature, for good or ill.
