Mississippians more than ever are living in an "interconnected world" in which choices they make at home ripple out to events that happen all over the globe, state Democratic Chairman Rickey Cole said Wednesday night.
That's why Democrats must show up at the polls in November, he said.
"Beginning at your local voting precinct, the fate of the entire world is decided," Cole told the Greenwood Voters League.
Evidence of that, Cole explained, is in President Bush's fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial candidate Haley Barbour last week, a visit that Cole lampooned. He calculated that the flight from Washington cost taxpayers $141,000 an hour.
"It's all interconnected," he said. "If it's not interconnected, your Air Force One would not have come to Mississippi at the cost of $141,000 an hour."
The effects of the extra $87 billion Bush has requested for the post-war effort in Iraq will show up in Mississippi by draining domestic programs, such as low-income housing, Cole said.
Fresh off a trip to France, Cole said foreign sentiment about the United States has been distorted by U.S. leaders. The French, he said, greeted him with kindness, comradeship and a question: "Why doesn't America practice what it preaches?"
"There is disappointment among our friends and admirers around the world because too often we fail to live up to the high standards that we hold ourselves up to," Cole said.
Cole urged the crowded house to vote Democrat and preserve the public image of the party.
He said, "We can't be the party of 'againsters.' We can't be the party of reaction. We can't be the party of knee-jerk opposition. The other party pretty much has that wrapped up. We are the party of optimism. We believe things can be, should be, shall be and must be better, and they can if we simply work together."
Two Leflore County Democratic candidates spoke after Cole: Annie Conley, who is running for tax collector, and Sylvester Hoover, a candidate for county supervisor in District 4.
Conley said she is a public servant by nature, working with the Deep South Network for Cancer Control and her church, New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist, among other organizations. That drive spurred her to run for tax collector.
"It will be another means four me to continue to be a public servant," she told the Voters League.
She promises to make the tax collector's office a "public-friendly" place in which all taxpayers are treated with respect.
Hoover's focus would be on developing tourism in District 4 and throughout the county and city of Greenwood. He sees opportunities to revitalize sites around Johnson and Walthall streets that were once important sources of blues music.
"We have people from all over the world who want to see our heritage," he said.
This effort would start with cleaning up District 4, Hoover said. He pledges to landscape areas around highways, repair potholes and address drainage and sewage issues in Itta Bena and Rising Sun. "It's very important we keep our community neat and presentable," he said.
