JACKSON - Marty Wiseman, director of the Stennis Institute of Government, is seen by many as the neutral arbiter of politics in Mississippi. But he went out of bounds in recent comments that characterized Democrats as the bad guys and Republicans the good guys in enforcing party loyalty.
Political realities, from Washington down to Mississippi, strongly suggest otherwise.
Here in Jackson, Senate Republican loyalists of Gov. Haley Barbour have held hostage a monumental tax law reform to raise the woefully low cigarette tax and cut in half the oppressive 7-cent sales tax on food. Obviously they are getting their marching orders from Barbour, the most partisan governor this Deep South state has ever seen.
It's noteworthy that the same day an op-ed piece by Wiseman appeared in print, documents revealed in Washington that eight U.S. attorneys with outstanding records were fired in mid-term by the Bush administration for party loyalty reasons.
That was just further evidence that the Republican administration headed by George W. Bush has placed a higher premium on party loyalty than any administration in memory.
Marty, in comments about veteran Democratic Sen. Tommy Gollott of Biloxi switching parties at the last minute before the March 1 qualifying deadline, made it appear Gollott bolted because Democrats for some time have insisted on party discipline by its members.
Wiseman (and of course Barbour-led GOPers) apparently made an entire case against state Democrats based on one proposal by a small, vocal group on the state Democratic Executive Committee to disqualify Democratic candidates who publicly supported Bush in the 2004 presidential race.
At a poorly attended committee meeting last Saturday, and over protest of Party Chairman Wayne Dowdy and Democratic elders, the disgruntled forces were able to slip through a proposal to disqualify two Democratic office-holders. One of them, Insurance Commissioner George Dale, had endorsed Bush at the 2004 Neshoba County Fair.
That action - which obviously won't stand because it is contrary to state law - is an isolated instance of the Democrats making any formal move to enforce party discipline. It certainly doesn't justify making an entire case against the Democrats.
Mississippi's Democratic Party is still pretty much a loose-knit party like legendary humorist Will Rogers described years ago. "I don't belong to an organized political party," he said. "I'm a Democrat."
Any notion that Gollott switched parties because of ideological differences with Democrats is a joke. Gollott did it for totally cynical reasons: He foresaw the next Senate staying under Republican control and joining the GOP was his best ticket to regain the president pro tem job snatched from him in 2004 when he was a Democrat.
Meantime, Wiseman says that the Republicans, with Barbour as their national chairman in the 1990s, saw the error of their former ways and under him reshaped the party into a "big tent," no longer restricted to the ideological pure.
Some Republican big tent it was: Swept into office during the 1994 congressional takeover by the GOP were two of the most notorious party line enforcers to ever hit Washington: Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay.
Gingrich as U.S. House speaker introduced what became "unending campaigning" by members of the House GOP conference to generate a steady flow of campaign cash and keep the party in power. And as Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post describes in her book "Fight Club Politics," he set out to create a "more ideological and centrally controlled House and he succeeded."
DeLay, who as majority leader was called "the Hammer," because of his heavy-handed control of GOP members, removed Rep. Joel Hefley of Colorado as chairman of the Ethics Committee when the committee twice admonished DeLay for unbecoming conduct.
Even worse from the standpoint of us military veterans was DeLay's demotion of New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith as chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee because he angered DeLay and the House leadership for pushing legislation to increase veterans' benefits.
Significantly, Smith had been regarded by the late Mississippi Democratic congressman, G.V. Sonny Montgomery, as his worthy successor to champion veterans' causes.
DeLay in 2005 had to resign from the House after his indictment for election irregularities in Texas, and Gingrich was forced out because of abuse of his power. So much for Barbour's big tent.
