Things continue to be interesting in Mississippi. Here’s Dave Weigel, earlier Monday:
Mississippi’s extra-innings Senate primary ends [Tuesday], and Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Theodore Schleifer report that a collection of conservative groups will be sending in poll-watchers. FreedomWorks, Tea Party Patriots, and the Senate Conservatives Fund will team up for the unprecedented, single-minded effort to beat Sen. Thad Cochran…
But this second push to control the electorate is more dramatic than the Times lets on. The paper quotes Senate Conservatives Fund President Ken Cuccinelli in saying, accurately, that voters who drew a Democratic ballot three weeks ago can’t vote in the Republican primary tomorrow. True. But Adams, quoted in the Times piece, told Breibart.com’s embedded reporter Matt Boyle that it would be illegal for a voter who intended to vote against the winner of the GOP primary to cast a ballot at all…
Given that more than 90 percent of Mississippi’s black voters usually vote Democratic, poll-watchers have an easy way of spotting interlopers. Hey, you, picking up the Republican ballot! Do you plan to vote for the winner of the Republican primary?…
Weigel reports there is informed disagreement with the Conservatives’ interpretation, but I don’t see that discouraging Chris McDaniels’ Tea Party supporters from providing some ugly optics “challenging” voters they suspect might be Democrats. (Not, I suspect, that any African-American voters in Mississippi would expect anything better from the GOP… )
⚽️ Martin
Yeah, this should be interesting to see play out. Hey black people, you aren’t allowed to vote. Should go over swimmingly.
TheMightyTrowel
@⚽️ Martin: Clarence Thomas thinks it’s fine, so it can’t be racism.
MattR
I thought this article was a pretty good summary of the law. The short version is that the law says you are not allowed to vote for someone in the primary who you don’t intend to vote for in the general but it is generally unenforceable unless you openly state your intentions to break the law. There is even a precedent of a black man being prosecuted for challenging all white people on the grounds that they were Republicans trying to vote in a Democratic primary. (although part of the prosecution was based on the Voting Rights Act and I don’t know if it was one of the sections SCOTUS recently gutted) And TPM is reporting that the Mississippi Sec of State and AG (who I believe are Republican and Democrat respectively) will be dispatching people around the state to monitor the election and make sure that no third party groups are present near the polling stations, only the one official observer associated with each candidate.
David Koch
Christie Faces New Bridgegate
His fat ass is cooked.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@David Koch: Well yeah; it’s just deep fried now.
Amir Khalid
@MattR:
I don’t understand the idea of a Republican candidate asking Democratic voters, let alone the black ones, to vote for him in a primary. Why would they do that unless he renounced the Republican platform? Surely he can’t think they like what he proposes to keep doing as a Republican Senator, and will also vote for him in the election proper. Can he?
balconesfault
I think Dems should be willing to cross over and vote for Cochrane only if Thad commits to run as a third party candidate if he loses in the GOP Primary.
mdblanche
@balconesfault: Is that legal in Mississippi?
James E. Powell
I feel a little guilty for laughing at this Mississippi Republican Meltdown. I’m sure there are good people there who don’t deserve it.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: The theory is that Cochran won’t be as bad as his tea party challenger and that whichever Republican wins the primary will win the general because…Mississippi. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me either. They all suck.
raven
@Betty Cracker: The devil you know.
Alex S.
There’s a whole industry depending on this. FreedomWorks, Tea Party groups, and the Conservative Fund had nothing to do with the defeat of Eric Cantor. That Brat guy showed that it’s possible to beat the establishment without money and without grifters, so those guys really need this.
Baud
@⚽️ Martin:
I support any action McDaniels takes to boost black turnout in the general election.
Baud
Including in the general election.
Schlemizel
@James E. Powell:
We get a variation on this anytime we point and laugh at retrograde shit-hole places. Its usually in the form of “HEY! I live ind said shit-hole and I am not a mouth breathing moran, dog kicking, lout! There are nice people here”
Does not matter. Nobody says every Mississippian is a racist rube, only that a large enough contingent of them are able to run the state the way they like. I live in Minnesota, we have people like that here just like everywhere. Just like everywhere these morons cause trouble in various forms but they don’t get away with it statewide often or for long. I’m sure that is true in the bluest of states.
When we point out the shit-holes it is because of large traits they exhibit over extended periods of time not because every person there is an asshole.
Betty Cracker
@Schlemizel: As a Floridian, I agree 100%. We’re not all bug-fuck insane down here, but enough of us are to make the state a national laughingstock. Oh well.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: The argument from the Cochran campaign is basically “I’m a Republican, but I bring pork to the whole state. My opponent will tell you to go fuck yourself.”. Has a certain ring of truth to it, but it may not matter. Party cross-over voters generally don’t amount to much in primaries (even with strong PR pushes urging people to do so; anyone remember Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” from 2008? Thought not), and Cochran may piss off more white Republicans through this approach.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemizel: That’s easy for you to say. In MN even the assholes are polite and helpful:
“The grocery store? Yes, go down 2 lights and take a left, go one block turn right and it should be right there on the right. Now go fug yourself you dogdamned cracker MF’er. Oh, and the walleye is especially good this week. I hope you grab a bad one and get salmonella. And the Iowa sweet corn? It is just to die for. And I hope you do…”
danielx
I am shocked, shocked to discover discrimination in voters’ right in a Mississippi election….forget going back to 1963, these bastards want to take us back to 1853. And given half a chance they will do so.
Betty Cracker
@dmsilev: As someone who wishes the Republican Party ill, I’m having a hard time deciding what’s the optimal outcome from that standpoint. I guess I’ll root for the tea party loon since a newcomer would theoretically have less personal influence. Also, I’m hoping that if the tea party claims another scalp, that will increase the anxiety levels throughout the GOP, driving them to ever greater levels of insanity and hastening their ultimate destruction as a national party.
Botsplainer
McDaniels will mainstream more of the puke and drive the GOP further right, which is bad. The white portion of the American electorate has showed time and again that it is incapable of realization of why everything gets fucked up when you let conservatives run anything.
One other thing – I don’t see how the Mississippi law is constitutional in terms of association, liberty or privacy. The only Supreme Court votes to uphold it would come from Scalia and Thomas.
Botsplainer
@Betty Cracker:
It won’t happen. We’re stuck with them forever.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: That’s where I am, too: stop pretending you are grownups and these are serious policy considerations. Just be who you are!
Make the Village put a second coat of lipstick on that pig.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve never been a big believer in interfering with the other side’s primaries. I admit that it does work sometimes, however.
Betty Cracker
@Botsplainer: We might indeed be stuck with the brand name “Republican Party” forever, but that doesn’t mean the party’s current configuration is permanent. If they find themselves shut out of national elections for an extended period of time, they will evolve or die.
Botsplainer
@WereBear:
The problem is that they’ll be all too happy to oblige. “Some say”, “both sides”, “tough choices” and “seemingly harsh rhetoric” will soften up the white folks for conservative policy.
WereBear
@Botsplainer: That’s been working, yes. But their core is literally dying off.
I was a child in the sixties, and perhaps one had to be there to grasp the extent that some people flat out lost their shit over granting full personhood to women and people of color.
It was a radical change and I’ve come to understand that some people are simply allergic to change. They say they aren’t, they play the lottery and whine about their lot, but real change freaks them out.
They have to expire to stop dragging their feet.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Politics ain’t bean bag.
@Betty Cracker: This. And the sooner they change the better. We need a sane, functioning, conservative party.
WereBear
And that’s just racist code, I now realize. Even their women don’t want true equality, they want the reflected privilege they get from marrying Angry White Jerks.
Punchy
Wait….10% of MS AAs vote GOP?? Thats seems ridiculously high.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
My reservations don’t arise because of a sense of decorum. I just feel that our side obsesses more about Republicans than about electing Democrats, and this type of thing plays into that mentality. But I really don’t feel that strongly and it does sometimes work.
Baud
@Punchy:
Mississippi is a one party state. That will result in voting patterns you wouldn’t see in a competitive state.
Botsplainer
@WereBear:
I’m always amused that those who shove the “tough choice” trope will never be the sufferers of the bottom side of that choice.
It’s the same thing with “shared sacrifice”.
Baud
@Botsplainer:
I want someone like Warren or Sanders to use that rhetoric when it’s something the 1% doesn’t like. I might actually watch Morning Joe for once just to see the freakout.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Mass Rethug suicide. Failing that: charges of sedition or treason brought against the Rethug “brain” trust and “leader”ship, including the Kochs, Rancid Pribble, Jim DeMint, and a shitload of others not currently holding elected office.
It would be a start.
NotMax
Personally, expecting turnout to be right around, oh, 27%.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, candidate gives signal that Islam is three-fifths of a religion.
Baud
@NotMax:
You know what other religion had…
Well, you know the rest.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Heh…. That made me laugh. It is definitely true, but considering how much Republicans obsess over Democrats….
Botsplainer
@NotMax:
Paul Broun’s district. He’s already measuring the drapes.
raven
@Botsplainer: This is the dude that is running against him here
Mike Collins
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yeah, the GOP identity is about being Not Democrats, as per Cleek’s Law. But their obsession actually motivates them to win elections. I feel like too many people on our side are only motivated by things that are edgy or provocative or cutting edge, which 90% of politicians will never be.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Kay said something the other day on that topic that made a lot of sense to me. I’m paraphrasing here, but as I understood it, her point was that keeping people engaged politically is always a good thing for turnout, even if it’s not specifically designed for that purpose. That would seem to be borne out by high GOP turnout in midterms — Republicans keep their voters simmering in an outrage cauldron all the time.
WereBear
Yes, and it’s an excellent point. However, I do think these nasty bitter people have outrage as a default. We would probably do better to make it positive and use that as our driver. “This program feeds kids. That’s a good thing!”
JGabriel
Dave Weigel:
What’s to keep a voter from responding, “None of your goddamn business”?
It’s not like these self-appointed right-wing “observers” have any authority, and I’m pretty sure one can’t be deprived of the right to vote simply for telling a wingnut to fuck off. At least not until the Roberts Court rules otherwise, which I suppose is not out of the question.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Part of the GOP’s strength in that regard also stems from age. Their base is older and older folks vote more consistently.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: A more positive approach appeals to me too. But I wonder, human nature being what it is, would a positive approach be as effective? I’m thinking a message that the Republicans are helping rich people screw you and snatching food from the mouths of babes might resonate better.
JGabriel
@WereBear:
You mean like, “Your vote will help us execute, er, I mean prosecute, the right-wing billionaire conservatives who are corrupting the country and our political system for their own profit!”
Baud
@WereBear:
Yeah, it’s pretty obvious only a small fraction of Democrats are motivated by the outrageous things that Republicans do outside of campaign season.
Botsplainer
@raven:
He’s not firing a rifle on full auto into an Obama effigy while screaming “FREEDOM! and “SUCK ON THIS, LIBTARD!!!”
That makes him a RINO, so Hice wins.
Schlemizel
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nah, Minnesota assholes are NEVER that direct. If you do something for a Minnesotan and ask how it was & the say “Oh, thats OK.” You know they are unhappy with it!
Nothing exemplifies “Minnesota nice” better than the scene in Fargo where the sheriff has to get out of bed to investigate the shooting on the highway. Her husband wants to be nice & make her breakfast which she does not want because of morning sickness. He offers & she says, oh thats OK so he insists & she says no, he does not have to so he says he wants to and she says he shouldn’t & that goes on for a bit until he makes breakfast & she eats it – then tosses it up later. Both people were trying to be nice but missing the bigger picture. You sort of have to do that when you are snow bound 4 months of the year I guess.
Botsplainer
@JGabriel:
I wouldn’t mind if some black voter stood his ground. Give the wingnuts a martyr for the cause, and set a price.
Schlemizel
@JGabriel:
Yeah, I bet a black man in Mississippi, even in 2014, would feel very comfortable saying that to a crowd of white men.
It aint the authority its the intimidation.
raven
@Botsplainer: I’m glad you know more about my district than I do.
Botsplainer
@raven:
Just woofin’ around.
raven
@Botsplainer: Me too! This is the moderate postion:
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are only motivated by those things, but it definitely gets their juices flowing. Sometimes it seems a lot of people (both left and right) think one has to provoke in order to be provocative.
Botsplainer
@Schlemizel:
I don’t know the current percentages, but think that Mississippi is something approaching 40% black. It takes an impressive amount of oppression and disenfranchisement to completely mute the political voice and choices of a population cohort that large, considering that 10-20% of white voters will always swing the other way.
Think about it – when was the last time you remember anything that a southern white conservative did to placate other than a white male constituency?
WereBear
I guess outrage IS a good driver, too, but unlike Republicans we have positive outcomes as a carrot. I find it astonishing that Republicans are all about the past being perfect. I wonder if that is a consequence of their voting base swinging so old.
Yeah, things were better in the old days… for YOU.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemizel:
I know, I was trying to channel a hillbilly who grew up in MN. Didn’t work too well. I have a sis in MSP and go up to see her every few years and the difference in people there compared to here is just so stark. People really are nicer up there. And yeah, I think it does come of being snowbound 4 months of the year.
and one of my favorite scenes from Fargo too.
NotMax
@raven
Delicious in the totality of its wrongitude, taking into account the reign of George III and all.
Suppose he would rail against the insidious homonym agenda, too.
JPL
@raven: A friend who graduated from Northwestern, attempted to explain to me that the Fair Tax wasn’t regressive. It didn’t work.
danielx
@WereBear:
Warning: racial pejoratives used below…
Fixed. Many of them still do.
I have noted this before, but…many if not all conservatives want to return to the mythical never never land of the 1950s, when white men ran everything, had good decent-paying jobs more or less for the asking, and women, children, niggers and spics did what they were by god told and put up with abuse without any backtalk, or else.
Those are the ones that don’t want to go back to the 1850s, and there are a lot of the latter too. All of which is a viewpoint promoted by conservatives since forever under the reasonably accurate supposition that if all bad things can be blamed on brown people and/or liberals, those conservative (white) people who aren’t part of the conservative power structure won’t notice that they’re being screwed just as badly – economically speaking, anyway – by that very same conservative power structure.
Schlemizel
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Nice” is a two edge sword. Sometimes you find yourself in situation you did not expect because the other person was not direct & open. It comes off as cold and passive-aggressive some times. It has to be tough on new comers.
Schlemizel
@JPL:
Its depressing to think anyone with a college education would think the fair tax was not regressive. Its like words have no meaning.
gratuitous
Mississippi is simply holding open auditions for the next William Rehnquist.
WereBear
@Schlemizel: Still, I prefer even the blunt NYC attitude to the knife-dipped-in-honey approach of many Southern sub-cultures. They will destroy you, but will be oh so polite about it. Because in their mind, somehow, honesty is the greater sin.
Eric U.
@OzarkHillbilly: I had a republican tell me all he wanted to do was to piss off liberals, which is Cleek’s law in a nutshell
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Having resided in Minnesota for a few years, the home-grown affability is an eye-opener and printed in all caps and bold in the plus column.
That said, it is soda, not pop.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
My wife (and I love her dearly) can’t take it. She can not sit and listen to all the BS that happens in congress etc, to the bloviators and all spouting the latest outrage. She is a liberal but she doesn’t have the energy to put into anger. Life is too short. She wants to relax and enjoy her downtime. To that end she stopped listening to the news on her commute and listens to Books on Tape instead. Never reads a paper and we don’t have TV. Consequently, come election time she is often clueless about the issues and has to ask me about the various amendments and ballot initiatives. (candidates are no problem, as long as they don’t have an R after their name)
My suspicion is, that describes a lot more liberal voters than it does conservative voters.
low-tech cyclist
So, who’s watching the poll watchers? Sounds like someone should be following these guys around, filming them, and recording what they tell prospective voters.
Betty Cracker
@Schlemizel: I lived in Boston for a few years, and I found the cultural differences somewhat jarring. For example, if someone invites me to a shindig I have no interest in attending, my default response is to make up an excuse for why I can’t attend rather than just flatly saying I don’t want to go. But when I tried that up there, people would sometimes question my excuse! They didn’t get that I was just trying to be polite!
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: Because a Repub will almost certainly win in the general & this repub (Cochran) may be a bit better than the tea party loon.
That’s the logic.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Have found that bemoaning it is the same time as already have a coffee enema scheduled, and it is so hard to get another appointment, pretty much universally works quite well.
As always, YMMV.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: That describes my husband too. He is a liberal — a firebagger, even — but he pays far more attention to baseball than politics.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemizel:
Heh. Same thing in Mexico. Nobody ever wants to admit that they don’t know where the place you are looking for is, so it is always two rights and a left away. Either that or else they don’t want to tell you your Spanish is atrocious.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: @WereBear: I went to a workshop for financial professionals one time.
Let’s say you want someone to save 100.00 a month. They said there is research that shows that people are much more likely to save that money based on letting them know what they are losing if they do not save than if you let them know what they get if they DO save.
That principle may be applicable here, as well.
OzarkHillbilly
@Eric U.: All I want to do is piss off religious oligarchical social conservatives, which is easy. I just walk through the door.
NotMax
Trying to decide whether should call the credit card (gas card) company as I received two identical statements on the same account in the mail on Monday.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: So sticks DO work better than carrots?
gene108
@WereBear:
1. Positive does not beat negative. See 1988 Presidential election. Turning the electorate into angry voters, who hate what your opponent does tends to win elections.
2. Liberals are not inherently Democrats. The converse is not true. Conservatives are Republicans. Liberals need a reason to believe Democrats will uphold their values and not “sell out” to “corporatists” by passing free trade agreements, push charter schools, not increase the powers of the security state, etc.
All the drive for promoting increasing the minimum wage is a good thing, but it does not negate liberal suspicion of Democrats being Republican-lite enough to get 100% buy-in from liberals.
3. Right-wingers have a huge media megaphone that liberals lack. They can set the narrative that the less tuned in voters pick up on, which is one reason Obama has such low popularity ratings. Everything that would have been set as “positive news” 30 years ago, like Bergdahl’s return to the U.S., gets immediately drowned out in a swarm of crazed negativity.
I really do not know how to drive up turn out for Democrats. There are some real problems with regards to the system we have, as well as flaws in the Democratic Party with regards to reaching out to the average person’s interests.
EDIT: Republicans have also done a great job as defenders of issues single issue voters will crawl over broken glass to vote to either repeal or expand, like gun laws and/or abortion. There is not a similar group of one-issue voters on the Left, as far as I can tell.
Belafon
@WereBear:
It’s all about slave owners getting their slaves back, even if they can’t beat them any longer.
Botsplainer
@Schlemizel:
Fair(y) Tax floggers have been shilling that stupid shit for at least 15 years. Always the same template – tax returns are hard, it catches illegal money and makes them Pay their fair share.
Meanwhile, everybody who isn’t doing weird boot-for-basis swaps or depreciating a wide range of structures and expensive manufacturing equipment can run a tax return on a $40 computer program. Hell, I can do a manual return for most W2 wage earners in 10 minutes, simpler businesses in 40 minutes.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: Funny. I’m not sure if that’s a stick, though. I do find it really interesting. Maybe people are wired to hang on to what they’ve got than to get something new.
If I recall the research correctly (it’s been a few years) this principle was true even if “what they didn’t lose” was much less than “what they could get”.
I think this can really help us now with ACA – no matter what people think they know about Obamacare, Now that they’ve got this stuff, there’s no turning back.
WereBear
I would agree that is true of most people.
I’m apparently some kind of strange outlier when it comes to accepting new information and changing my behavior because of it, to judge from people’s reactions to what I have done in the past.
g
@⚽️ Martin: Even better – the right wing is going in to intimidate Black people who may be trying to vote Republican. How’s that outreach effort going for you?
redshirt
@Betty Cracker: I am about 98% checked out on politics these days. I am locked in my position, I will vote at every election, and if I had to research a specific ballot initiative, I would, then.
But now? Its the same tired Republican bullshit all day, every day. I already know how that story plays out.
Paul in KY
@Schlemizel: They had ‘fair’ in the title! What more do you need to know it’s not regressive?!
worn
@Schlemizel: Now wait just a damn second. It was y’all up there in Minnesota that foisted good ‘ol Michelle Bachman upon an ungratified nation.
Oof dah, dat’s some genuine East Texas behavior right dere.
Berial
The Mississippi AG and SOS Issued this release. It basically tells the people that want to ‘poll watch’ they can’t.
“There is no authority in state law for a PAC or other outside group to place “election observers” in Mississippi polling places.”
However, a voter can be challenged under these grounds:
A person offering to vote may be challenged based upon the following grounds:
”
1) The voter is not a registered voter in the precinct,
2) The voter is not registered under the name he/she has applied to vote,
3) The voter has already voted in the election,
4) The voter is not a resident in the precinct where he/she is registered,
5) The voter has illegally registered to vote,
6) The voter has removed his/her ballot from the polling place, and
7) The voter is otherwise disqualified by law.
“
J R in WV
@NotMax:
Chase just did this on our F’in mortgage this month.
We spent a year trying to get auto-pay working from an account that always has enough money in it for this purpose. They always had a reason it couldn’t be done revolving around the check with Void written on it that you’re supposed to send.
We all know that it is pointless to write anything on a check with VOID written on it – it isn’t a check any more, just a document with the routing number of the bank and the account n umber of the account pringted on it with magnetic ink!!
But they would tell us that “the amount is wrong” or the “Date was wrong” or “You didn’t sign it” ???? It isn’t a check people – it doesn’t need a signature, or an amount OR a fucking Date! Its only purpose is to provide the routing number and account number.
But it is a bank, so I am allowed to hate it. I think I should send copies of the whole exchange over the last 2.5 years to Senator Warren… ya think?
Glocksman
I went to Mississippi about 10 years ago for a week on a business trip to a little town called Quitman.
I thought growing up in southwestern Indiana had inured me to racism.
I was wrong.
The open displays of racism and contempt for others among the whites I dealt with had me almost literally biting my cheek in order to keep from screaming at them and declaring that Sherman should have made a detour in 1864-65.
On a more practical note, the other thing that shocked me was Mississippi’s sales tax applying to grocery items.
Shit, even here in Hoosierstan we don’t tax food not meant for immediate consumption (read: hot and ready to eat).
Glocksman
@Berial:
SInce the huge majority of Republican voters are presumably white, I’m sure challenging people for any of those reasons will go over quite well for future party unity.
Let the bloodbath begin.
Berial
I will simply be glad when it is over. I’ve had over 18 ‘political’ phone calls from pollsters, and the two candidates since Saturday. I should have just unplugged the phone.
drkrick
@Punchy:
Not if you think about the history of the MS Democratic party, which didn’t stop being white supremacist until into the ’70’s, well within living memory. Some grudges are hard to shake, especially when they include stuff like lynching.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Maybe wingnuts will just hand out replica lynching postcards to voters who look “unreliable.”
Sam Dobermann
@danielx:
Mississippi Summer, a documentary will be on PBS tonight, 7 pm my time.
This details the 1964 push for voting registration and rights. It will be hard to watch but glorious too. Those kids were mega-brave. Learn some history that shouldn’t be forgotten.
PBS re ran Freedom Riders a couple of weeks ago. You may be able to catch it on the Web site.
They had a documentary on the Miss Sovereignty Commission, the State run White supremacy group a few months ago. I don’t think they want that again. These t-freaks really don’t remember how things were.
This current electoral battle is just too much. John Lewis and some others are probably pissing themselves laughing right now.
boatboy_srq
@Amir Khalid: Why not? He’s done quite well at keeping poor, ignorant, angry white racists poor, ignorant and angry for years.
boatboy_srq
dupe post. FYWP.
Joey Giraud
@J R in WV:
One of my happiest days was when I refinanced my mortgage from Chase to a local credit union.
Chase plays all kinds of sneaky games.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: It would be instructive to watch a Deep Red state reap the (real, quantifiable, dollar-value-associated) rewards of the Small Gubmint they all say they want. I don’t wish Mississippians ill, but there are some lessons you just don’t learn in school.