Marshall Ramsey

Treasurer and now Lt. Governor Candidate Tate Reeves visited The Clarion-Ledger editorial board, and since I was there, I popped in for a listen.

A few observations:

1. Reeves, who I like and respect, kept talking about his positive campaign, but then turned around and attacked his opponent, Billy Hewes, on comments he had made about Reeve’s record.  In about 10 seconds, Reeves went from “Watchdog” to “attack dog”

2. He mentioned his opponent started off the race negative.  Not necessarily — if you count Hewes’ excellent “going through the drive-thru ad” earlier in the year. But Hewes (who was getting waxed in early polls because of poor statewide name recognition) came out negative, blaming Reeves for not stopping bonds that the Legislature Hewes was a senator in had passed.  Yes, I know — it’s confusing.  It’s not that unusual for a way-behind candidate to come out negative. It’s just interesting to me, if Reeves is still so far ahead, why is he using so much energy to attack back.  Makes you wonder if he’s worried.

3. Reeves did not like a question he got from a member of our Reader Editorial Board about long-time Republican Godfather Billy Mounger supporting Hewes. If he could have shot lasers out of his eyes, I think he would have.

Tate isn’t flashy, but he’s solid. No doubt he is intelligent and capable.  He has a ton of campaign cash at his disposal. And he’s obviously still the front runner. But it will be interesting to see what the next five weeks or so brings until the August 2 primary.

Andy Andrews talks about the “Butterfly Effect” in one of his excellent books: How little changes can impacts others’ lives.  It’s also very similar to the “Broken Windows” theory: Make little changes and eventually you’ll see big results.  What little thing will change today? Whose life will you positively impact?

These are weird times for me professionally. People I once looked up to for support and motivation are no longer supporting or motivating me.  I’m now working 12 1/2 hours a day and that’s not including any freelance work.  I won’t lie: It’s a challenge both physically and mentally. I’ve had more discouragement in the past week than I have in the last ten years. If I needed other people to motivate me, I’d be in big trouble.  Instead, I’m focusing on motivating others instead.  Help them do great work.  If you are the sum of your five closest friends,  I want to be the very person I want to be surrounded by.

So my mission is this: Bring out the best in people who want to be the best. It will bring out the best in me.

Supertalk FM had the three Republican State Treasurer candidates on my show for a one-hour debate.  Lucien Smith, Lynn Fitch and Sen. Lee Yancy all came in studio, answered questions and then at the end of the show asked each other questions.  (Ocean Springs Mayor Connie Moran, who is running for the Democratic nomination, is running unopposed, so we just had the Republicans on the air.)  I moderated and Dawn Rayborn helped keep time. My producer Jim Thorne kept his fingers on the mic button in case anyone got windy; No one did.

I wrote the questions last week and the folks at SuperTalk developed the format.  I’m not basing my observations here on anything but what I saw and heard in that hour.  But here are a few thoughts about the candidates and the process of moderating a debate on live radio:

1. I have new respect for anyone who moderates a debate. Live radio is about time management. And managing candidates is like herding cats. If the candidates are as good at managing money as they are their time, Mississippi’s cash should be OK.

2. Lynn Fitch, Sen. Lee Yancy and Lucien Smith are all qualified for the job. It’s pretty rare to get three candidates that qualified for a position like that. Each are qualified in different ways — but the voters are lucky to have good choices.

3. Of the three, Lucien Smith impressed me the most with his answers.  He did a very good answering a tough question from Lynn Fitch.  He was the smoothest of the three.

4.  All three were cordial on and off the air.

5. All three also agreed that the hardest part of running for Statewide office is the travel.  All were going up and down the state like yo-yo’s.

6. Each candidate had two minutes per question to answer.  Sen. Lee Yancy went over a couple of times (and in his defense, one of the times was trying to describe what he did for a living.)

7. All three seemed fine with how MPACT is being run and managed. All wanted to find new ways to market it.

8. I had a little over a minute at the end let, so I allowed them a 20 second plea for people’s vote. That worked well and then the bumper music came on, ending the show.

When I’m 95, we’ll just teleport. But if TSA is still checking diapers, I’ll give them something extra special to check.