A liberal blogger has unfortunately attacked Ronnie Musgrove recently for being in their eyes beholden to the insurance industry.
Now those attacks are being gleefully used by Republicans including the National Republican Senatorial Committee to attack him.
I am a Coast resident and I care deeply about the recovery of my home, but these one-sided attacks ignore history and the context of this election.
1. Ronnie Musgrove has sued insurance companies for unlawfully denying claims.
2. Roger Wicker, the Republican candidate, has taken over $80,000 from insurance interests. Even after Hurricane Katrina Roger Wicker took $3,000 from the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers PAC, $500 from the Independent Insurance Agents, and $500 from the Professional Insurance Agents.
3. Both Wicker and Musgrove have pledged to support Representative Gene Taylor's All Perils Insurance Bill.
The question then is who will be able to be most effective in partnering with Representative Gene Taylor to pass the legislation. Republicans WILL be in the minority. Democrats WILL continue to be in an increasing majority. We need a Democratic senator to get important legislation through. If Senator Lott couldn't get it passed, then why would a less distinguished freshman senator in the minority party have any more success?
I care about the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It is my home and where I have helped friends rebuild their lives. I want what is best for the Coast and that is not a Republican freshman senator in the minority.
As the progressive blogger of note, I have gone after both Wicker and Musgrove for their weaknesses where South Mississippi are concerned and done so in what has become my signature: excessive documentation.
ReplyDeleteI continue to connect the dots between Musgrove and his conflicts of interest with being on the payroll of the very law firm that represents State Farm, USAA, the insurance industry and George Dale. I will continue to go after Wicker for his desertion when it came time for showing up for duty to support our disabled veterans with votes in the Congress.
Here in South Mississippi both of these areas are of vital importance to plenty of families, including my own. How the insurance companies treated South Mississippians--including those who have family members overseas--is deplorable. The very real impact of Katrina on the care of our vets, particularly our disabled vets, is also deplorable . . . and fundamentally personal for me.
What I find disconcerting is the fact that my coastal colleague in the blogosphere has completely ignored the second Democrat in this race, former Congressman Ronnie Shows, who is a legit Democrat free from even the appearance of any conflicts of interests with Katrina families battles with the insurance industry and also good on vets issues. Of course, anyone above a total goose egg, a big ZERO percent is better than Wicker's record in 2003, 2004, and 2005 according to the DAV.
Why has my colleague limited the race to only Wicker and Musgrove as if not to consider the second Democrat in the race. Was he not a partner in drumming out ol' George Dale out of office with the then-long shot Gary Anderson? Did he now celebrate with the rest of us the glorious outcome of last August's primary results? Of course, he did as well he should have.
I have asked before and hope that my blogosphere colleague will be kind enough to provide an explanation why this blog has chosen not to even provide a reasonable explanation as to his support of one Democrat over the other, especially when Musgrove has such significant insurance-related baggage alone.
A simple, straight forward, reasonable explanation would be most appreciated.
At least with my own blog, my perspective is out front--why I support one or another candidate: Musgrove's connections to the Big Guns of Big Insurance create Big Conflicts of Interests.
Hoping for a clear answer on the Ronnie Shows question soon. Thanks!
When Ronnie Shows does something worth reporting on I will gladly report on it. So far I haven't even seen evidence of a single campaign appearance. Have you?
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with ana maria that here on the Coast, this property insurance connection baggage that Musgrove has will DOOM his chances of winning any significant portion of the vote.
ReplyDeleteI must say that it simply DOES NOT matter who brings this up, the Repubs will find it and use it against Musgrove, end of sentence, PERIOD!
I would hope that at this early stage that no Democrat, or Democrat blog, would start cheerleading for either Democratic candidate in this three-way special election race without giving us STRONG reasons why they support either Democrat candidate.
ana maria is simply saying, from a south MS point of view, as a Democrat, that it looks like Shows is the better choice thus far among the 3 candidates. With Wicker being a CLONE Republican, and Musgrove appearing to be a Corporate, property insurance industry connected lawyer, I would, as a South MS Coast resident, be very much inclined to lean towards Ronnie Shows myself, especially since he is a native South Mississippian.
I hope that Cotton Mouth has no hidden agenda here other than some sort of personal or professional like or admiration for Musgrove.
A Liberal blogger attacking another. Never thought I would see the day.
ReplyDeleteDidnt we go through this Insurance money thing just last year? It was all over the news and in the Blogs about Haley and his money from Big Oil, Big Insurance and Big Tobacco. Ya'll know the tune. That was all aimed at the coast and man did it work. Eaves was able to keep the 30% of the vote while Haley rolled with 70% on the three coast counties. There has to be a new theme against the Republicans this year. The insurance thing has just been beat down and it did not work at all. Let me know if you need some help on finding something the voters will actually care about.
Oh yeah,
ReplyDeleteAna please get me that info on Shows and the DAV. Again you make the statement about Shows being good on Vets on Cottonmouth. Did you dream this up? Where is the record on Shows that you quickly produced against Roger? If you are going to make a case for someone you have to show something for it. Do you understand? I see that you have ignored me on your blog, but you know just as well as I that you are wrong. If it’s so personal then that should motivate you to obtain the information. Ana you come across as phony and you need to reconnect with real issues on the coast other than this DAV thing.
John,
Maybe you can get through to her. Ana needs a lesson from you on making a statement and then backing it up with documentation.
I'll ask once again, has anyone out there seen or heard ANYTHING from Shows? He must be confident the elections won't be til November b/c he doesn't appear to be doing anything. Maybe AM should volunteer to coordinate his campaign. How 'bout you, AM?
ReplyDeletewlb,
ReplyDeleteWhen you say "I hope that Cotton Mouth has no hidden agenda" you indicate that you believe who I am supporting.
I don't know yet.
I do know that Shows has been invisible and if he wants to win he can't do it by just putting his name on the ballot. As soon as he does anything worth reporting I will as I wrote above.
Has it gotten to the point where you can't say nice things about someone in a primary without being attacked as immature, naive, or having a hidden agenda?
chuck,
ReplyDeleteI have the documentation on Wicker's poor ratings on veteran's issues on my front page at the moment. Just scroll down.
I don't doubt Ana's sincerity in belief. She's clearly passionate about Coast issues which is good.
Ana usually uses good documentation. I admire a lot of her work.
I'm with Ana on this one except neither Democrat in this race excites me. I have been told and since verified that Musgrove "sold" a seat on the Board of Health to Mr. Ted Cain when he was Governor according to testimony before the State Senate last year. This is the sort of good old boy graft that holds us back.
ReplyDeleteI have sent an email to Congressman Taylor's office encouraging him to run if the election ruling stands.
Neither Democrat presently running will beat Wicker IMHO.
sop
I highly encourage the moderators here to turn off comment moderation as it discourages participation (again IMHO).
I agree with Ana Maria on most of this, though I personally think that the $3.5 million in Katrina funds redirected to Jackson law enforcement was a wise decision. Like Houston, Jackson has experienced an increase in crime that--y'all can look at the quarter-by-quarter data on this--began right after Katrina. And this should come as no surprise. Crime comes from poverty and income disparity; Katrina created both, and brought tens of thousands of victims of both into Hinds County. We need that money, and it is indeed a Katrina-related expense.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to Wicker vs. Musgrove vs. Shows, I have problems with all three of them. Wicker is a conservative Republican (albeit of the national model rather than the scarier, Mississippi-based model), and a vote for him is a vote for a Republican majority in the Senate that will be responsible for advise-and-consent on the judge to replace Justice Stevens. If we get a Republican president next January (and that's still quite possible), this could be very bad. So I can't support Wicker.
That said, party affiliation really shouldn't matter. The old "we need to elect this person because s/he belongs to the majority party, and the minority party won't get seniority" argument ignores the powerful role that many Republicans, such as Thad Cochran, still play in the U.S. Senate. Not only that, but if we were to elect a Democrat, we'd be honor-bound to suggest throwing that Democrat out the next time s/he comes up for reelection in a year when the Republicans happen to be in the majority.
That said, I don't care for either of the Democratic challengers.
Musgrove began his campaign by bashing immigrants, and Ana Maria is completely, 100% correct about his ties to big insurance. Is he better than Wicker? I have no idea. I think he was seriously underrated as governor, but he's running a lousy Senate campaign out of the gate.
Then there's Ronnie Shows, who holds the dubious distinction of being the first House member of either party to propose a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. His 2002 campaign against Chip Pickering involved some of the most over-the-top nativism I've ever seen in a major-party race, and my gut tells me that the first time I do hear something from him, I'll wish I hadn't.
So that's basically the gist of it: One conservative Republican I can't support, two Democrats who are likely to run on a "let's throw out the brown people" platform. It's a variation of the Barbour-Eaves race, except that this time the Supreme Court is at stake. Frankly, I may sit it out or vote for a third-party candidate. I don't want to be part of a system that rewards the Mississippi Democratic Party for returning to its Dixiecrat roots.
I agree with Tom. The way it works in Mississippi, at least how it sounds from an outsider, is that Republicans rule the moral roost, while Democrats run as close to that with anti-immigration as they can w/o being under the GOP tent.
ReplyDeleteCottonmouth does not support any candidate, as we are a collection of writers who try to make fair calls when we see them happen. if you believe otherwise, take your conspiracy pandering back to the DailyKos. (FYI I :heart: DK, so no hard feelings)
Democrats are needed in Mississippi more than ever. We need real change in education, health care, and civil private protections.
I support no candidate. I have not heard one peep from Shows. Nor from any body running for the open 1st and 3rd seats.
Mississippi needs leadership and new change now. Not 8 years from November.