VICKSBURG - If it should come to pass that Mississippi's next ballot for governor lists Lance, the late Kirk Fordice's beloved dog, and Richard Barrett, the goofball from Learned, as the only two candidates, this state would make history. We'd be the first with a canine chief executive.
That's not an idle guess, by the way.
Barrett, founder and leader of the four or five members of something they call the Nationalist Movement, has solid proof of how Mississippians feel about him.
He actually did run for governor back in 1979. In a six-candidate Democratic Primary field, the other five candidates beat him by more than 50 to 1. He not only came in dead last, the guy who came in next-to-last had almost three times as many votes as Barrett - and Barrett was listed first on the ballot, usually a good place to pick up indifferent or accidental votes.
Well, why then is it that a person so thoroughly discredited can still gain state and national press attention - including this column - when there's clear proof only a minuscule audience has the slightest interest in his anti-Jew, anti-integration, anti-civil rights views?
It's a tough question, but one that deserves an answer. Too bad there's not a really good one.
What brings this to the fore is Barrett's latest stunt. He captivated the Jackson broadcast media and later the print media by saying he planned to make Edgar Ray Killen available for autographs or something at the State Fair this month. Killen, now a doddering 79-year-old, was named in a federal indictment as a conspirator - some say the chief conspirator - 40 years ago in the murders of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and James Chaney near Philadelphia. Turns out, Killen's wife finally told The Associated Press, there never had been a plan for her husband to leave their home in Union to go to the fair. It was all just some kind of prank concocted by Barrett.
But it raised hackles everywhere - big-league hackles. There was Tavis Smiley giving Barrett, 61, air time on National Public Radio. There was a piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts of The Miami Herald citing proof positive of deep-seated racism.
Shock. Outrage. Amazement. Righteous indignation.
All, of course, are legitimate fodder for a news story. But again, the question is why would anyone bother to report what Barrett's up to, especially given that his flock is about as tiny as it was when he moved to Mississippi 38 years ago? (That's right. He's no home boy. He grew up in the New York area, graduated from Rutgers, joined the Army, served in Vietnam - picking up two Purple Hearts - and then went to law school in Memphis before moving to rural Hinds County.)
One answer is that the press, especially the press outside the state, is hot to report anything showing racism is alive and well. It's a hot-button topic, and will draw viewers and readers every time - just as surely as it makes the vast majority of non-racists in this state cringe. Mississippians can relate to the chorus of Kris Kristofferson's irreverent song, "Jesus Was a Capricorn." It goes, "Everybody's got to have somebody to look down on, someone they can feel better than any time they please … ." We are well aware of the unwritten rule that all scripts for movies and TV and all public discourse will depict people from California as cool and suave and white people from the South as backwards and bitter.
Indeed, one of the reasons Barrett has given for moving here is that he gets a better reaction to his vitriol when he starts a speech in Denver or Cleveland with, "I'm Richard Barrett from Mississippi," than if he started with, "I'm Richard Barrett from East Orange, New Jersey."
But if the press gives "keeping you in the know" as its only justification, it's less than a complete justification.
And that leads to the broader, more academic reason. Specifically, while some say providing Barrett a stage is "giving him what he wants," another view is that exposing his antics has no effect on broadening his appeal. Rather, this theory holds people are smart enough to see how silly he is - and keep their distance.
Unfortunately, as noble as all that may sound, I'm afraid a simple confession would be more honest. Extremists of all types - including the pathetic Richard Barrett - are "good copy." They lure reporters the way freak shows lure gawkers. We just can't help ourselves.
My guess is as long as there are Richard Barretts - and there always will be - the press will keep putting them on TV, and writing about them in the paper.
Hope you'll forgive us.
