JACKSON — July Fourth is a great holiday. Family, burgers, swimming pools, iced tea. It’s a fun, relaxing holiday. An added bonus, so far this summer has been remarkably mild.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were signing their death warrants if their rebellion was squelched. Our nation was founded on selfless bravery.
What followed was the best system of government mankind has ever seen. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s the best. Our Founding Fathers were brilliant, perfectly balancing theory and reality. Today, the United States is unparalleled in the world for its freedom, prosperity, goodness and might.
What a blessing to live in Mississippi: Smack dab in the heart of the fastest-growing region of the greatest country in the history of the world. Not only that, we are blessed with ample rain, four mild seasons and the most spiritual and generous state in the union.
I have to pinch myself when I wake up and realize how blessed I am to be able to make a living observing, analyzing and writing about our state. I love Mississippi and want to see it prosper.
I attended recently the 153rd Mississippi Press Association at the Golden Nugget in Biloxi. Before anyone writes of the newspaper business, pause to consider what it takes an industry to survive for 153 years.
I have been to 40 or so of these meetings, and it’s always an extra bonus during a campaign year to hear the candidates address the group. It’s freedom and democracy in action, right before your very eyes.
Every candidate we heard is sharp as a tack. Only super high-functioning individuals can muster a statewide campaign effort, so you’ll never hear me calling a successful politician stupid or an idiot. What nonsense!
Several candidates spoke passionately about bringing vocational training back to our high schools rather than the current policy of getting students on a college track.
Delbert Hosemann, current Mississippi secretary of state, is a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. Rumor has it, he turned down a chance to be U.S. senator because he felt he could do more for Mississippi serving in statewide office. Indeed, the lieutenant governor has a huge amount of power.
Hosemann is quick-witted, personable and funny. He rarely speaks from a prepared text and has a plain-spoken, what-you-see-is-what-you-get demeanor. He’s getting up there in age, but he looks and acts like a person fully physically capable of doing the job.
Hosemann has done a good job as secretary of state for 12 years, cutting costs and saving millions. He brought voter ID to Mississippi with minimal fuss. He greatly improved management of 16th Section land, automated the Secretary of State’s Office, improved our state’s business laws and got insurance coverage for autistic children.
Notable quotes from Hosemann:
• “I want to be as collegiate as possible, as open to the public as possible and everybody participate as much as possible.”
• “Only about 25 percent of our high school students will get a college education. The other 75 percent need a meaningful job that allows them to raise their families. We need to get the community colleges reaching out to students in the 10th and 11th grades to teach them skills so they can become plumbers, electricians, welders and (have) other employable skills.”
• “State government won’t look today as it will look four years from now. We have over 200 agencies, boards and commissions and the effectiveness of each of those needs to be reviewed by all of us. The government needs to be lean and mean.”
Jay Hughes, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, also addressed the group. Hughes is an attorney and businessman who served as an Oxford alderman before being elected state representative.
Like Hosemann, Hughes has the skill set to be lieutenant governor. He’s super smart, articulate, passionate and driven to improve our state. Some quotes from his speech:
• “We’ve got to do something with our roads and bridge. When a business is coming in to a new community, they don’t ask, ‘What are your policies on God, gays, guns and abortion?’ They want to know about your public schools, your health care and your roads and bridges. We’ve got to do something with that.”
• “Private prisons, I’ve toured some of them. It’s an abysmal failure, putting the lives of the community and the incarcerated in jeopardy. I recently toured the Leakesville prison. It needs 275 employees, it’s got 125, so every single person incarcerated there is in solitary confinement.”
• “Medicaid expansion. I support it. A billion dollars a year it brings in and 12,000 jobs it will create. Our hospitals will be able to survive, and some of the rural hospitals that have closed will be able to reopen.”
