Sunday, March 17, 2024

Bill Crawford: One Small Surprise & One Dead Surprise Last Week

No surprises in the March 12th congressional and presidential primaries. Well, maybe a small one.

Political neophyte Ghannon Burton carried nine northeast Mississippi counties against incumbent Sen. Roger Wicker in the Republican primary. Only Alcorn County in that neck of the state stuck with him. Guess the robocalls from Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy didn’t help much up there.

Burton, a retired Marine colonel and former F/A-18 pilot with Top Gun credentials, carried the counties of Tippah, Prentiss, Union, Lee, Itawamba, Pontotoc, Calhoun, Chickasaw and his home county of Tishomingo. Wicker carried all other counties, but Burton’s 25% vote statewide was respectable. He also ran ahead of State Rep. Dan Eubanks in most counties. It will be interesting to see if he rides these results into a future race.

Eubanks finished third with 14% and lost his home county of DeSoto two to one to Wicker. Burton was a distant third. In the November general election, Wicker will face Ty Pinkins who was unopposed in the Democratic Primary.

Former President Donald Trump easily won Mississippi’s Republican delegates with 92% of the vote. President Joe Biden was unopposed in the Democratic Primary. All incumbent congressmen advanced.

One day later, March 13th, the big surprise in the Mississippi Senate died. Sen. Dennis DeBar’s bill to “save” Mississippi University for Women by giving it to Mississippi State University died. He had introduced a measure to transfer the Mississippi School for Math and Science to MSU which came to the Senate Education Committee that he chairs. At the last minute he surprisingly added the MUW transfer to the bill.

W forces geared up quickly to fight the bill. Even after DeBar passed an amendment to change his bill from a transfer to a study, it failed. Contributing to that defeat was another bill the Senate did pass that calls for a study. Sen. Nicole Boyd, chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee (which never saw DeBar’s bill), passed her bill calling for an efficiency study of all eight IHL universities.

Boyd’s bill would establish a 10-member Mississippi University System Efficiency Task Force to “examine the efficiency and effectiveness of the public university system in Mississippi, as it relates to the universities' collective mission of enrolling and graduating more degreed Mississippians and retaining them in the state, and anticipated nationwide challenges with regard to demographic shifts and a projected overall decline in enrollment.”

Translated that means the universities experiencing enrollment declines, particularly the smaller ones like the W, will be carefully scrutinized.

Boyd’s bill will move on to the House for consideration.

“Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off,” Proverbs 23:18.

Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

We're just stuck with warmongers Wicker and Guest who have no concerns about the national debt increasing one trillion dollars every 100 days.

Anonymous said...

Sad day for Mississippi, Wicker should have been retired, we all complain about what happens in DC but we keep sending the same people back to represent us. Wicker has been in Congress way too long, but so has Bennie Thompson. They will probably both die in Congress wearing diapers and using a walker. Our country is truly lost!

Anonymous said...

Anyone got the inside scoop on the online gambling bill?

Anonymous said...

Burton post campaign social media post are concerning. Tin foil hat applied!

Anonymous said...

If you are familiar with the Wicker v. Burton Senate race, there are many take aways. First is that Wicker spent around 3m and mostly on tv ads and a small amount of mailers and signs. Burton spent about 70k mostly radio and signs. Burton spent more on radio in the north east. Neither candidate ran what your political pundits would call a good campaign. Wicker saving grace was money. Burton had a consultant but you can’t do much on 70k. Wicker’s campaign had a consultant that is leaving the business and basically has checked out, leaving the campaign in the hands of a kid from South Dakota who spent most of his time on weekly group texts and phone calls and a small amount of time getting people to put out signs. Wicker was mostly in DC during the campaign. If Wicker had a real opponent with money and a true campaign staff and had made the central theme of the race that Wicker voted twice against the Trump wall and was secretly a Nikki Haley supporter, he would have been gone.

Anonymous said...

Insanity: Electing the same people over and over again while expecting different results.

Anonymous said...

When will you people realize that Wicker is a blank sheet of cardboard. The man cannot address an audience. Why else would he not even show up for a candidate debate in his district? Twice. Sent his spouse to stand in for him. Including Desoto County where he has an official office on Main Steet Square.

Anonymous said...

Why would anyone expect Eubanks to carry the state. Don't we have enough politicians now who say we simply need to 'pray about it all'?

Anonymous said...

Let’s do a study. Like what Barbour did on PERS. And then the legislature just ignored it.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Bennie Thompson? He is a Marxist and has done NOTHING for his constituents. He keeps them poor so he can keep his control. So, for the trolls that monitor this site, you can let him know we have been onto his game since he has been a member of the New Republic Of Afrika since the early 70’s.

Anonymous said...

I had dinner with Wicker in DC in mid February at Joe's Steakhouse. I can promise you he had zero worries about his primary or general election. Call him what you want, but he gets a lot of earmarks tacked onto bills with money sent back to MS. Yes, he makes deals and votes with Dems some to pay back those earmarks, but he gets a lot of money sent back to his state, none the less. If the Republicans can somehow win back the Senate in November, he'll be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee

Anonymous said...

remember this when you go to the polls......rep michael guest helped create, chaired , and oversaw the committee to investigate the jan 6 brouhaha at the capitol.

later he did everything he could to get president trump indicted on those BS charges if inciting a riot.

he needs to go worse than benny thompson .

Anonymous said...

Yes, 2:54, Wicker was in DC when those 'debates' were held ---doing his job. The US Senate was in session and as an elected representative of the state, Wicker was there as required. Do you think he should have to leave Washington, fly down to Missisippi to be present each and every time somebody schedules a 'debate' rather than doing what he was elected to do? Hell, he is running for reelection to the job - and if he put the campaign ahead of the job it would be good reason to not reelect him.

If those 'debate' sponsors had really wanted him to appear they would have scheduled them at times when the Senate was not in session or on a weekend - but oftentimes the sponsors intentionally look to have them on days when it would not be possible for an incumbent to be present (yes, its true, some of them have agendas they are looking to fulfill under the guise of a 'debate' among the candidates.)

And it appears that his wife, standing in for him, must have done a good job if as you say she was at a Desoto County event, since Wicker kicked Burton's ass there.

Burton's claim to infamy as an election denier of the 2020 election explains a lot about where his support came from, and where it didn't. Other than expounding on that fiasco, what did he offer that would make anyone want to consider sending him to the US Senate, other than he was a better choice than the crazy MS Representative, Dan Eubanks?

Anonymous said...

8:35 - Never in history has Wicker shown up and participated in a debate or any event that would place him within five feet of an opponent. Never. Perhaps 'the senate was always in session and he was at his desk doing his job'. Balderdash!

As was said, he cannot speak extemporaneously. He cannot enunciate a platform, path or plan speaking off the cuff. He's incapable. He can read from a note card. And he can lie when he tells us his priority is Mississippi. His priority is the military-industrial complex and the money that enriches him personally.

It's good, though, to have you take a moment from adjusting his tie and weigh in here.

Anonymous said...

I don’t agree with Wicker on many issues, but he does a good job for Mississippi

Anonymous said...

Wicker is an empty suit, but at least he’s predictable (he votes the script provided to him). This Ghannon guy seems like a crazy person. Wicker is not ideal, but no real alternative was offered this go round.

Anonymous said...

"Sen. Wicker missed 1.5% of votes in the 117th Congress (2021-22). This makes him the 65th most absent member of the Senate."


https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/W000437/votes-missed/117

Anonymous said...

We have an unconsolidated group of taxpayers supported institutions that become personal power arenas and social enclaves and compete for limited resources.
The tax waste from this lack of cooperation in purchasing everything from books to computer paper is stunning. There should be bulk purchasing among other things.
Geez, did you know that other states have systems that are compatible and that produce information to government in a uniform manner? Consolidation happens in most of the States because it's efficient and productive.

Anonymous said...

I am a TRUE Republican, in the NORMAL sense of the word and definition of the Party, and I fully support Senator Wicker because of his common sense approach to governing.

And further, March 17, 2024 at 7:18 PM "......rep michael guest helped create, chaired , and oversaw the committee to investigate the jan 6 brouhaha at the capitol.
later he did everything he could to get president trump indicted on those BS charges if inciting a riot."
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT CONGRESSMAN MICHAEL GUEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our nation was attacked by these imbeciles led by Mr. Trump. I am thankful for his unselfish and unbiased leadership.

Anonymous said...

@2:34 Amen.


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