Cindy Hyde-Smith is wrong for Mississippi
Ex-Bush, Condi Rice aide Elise Jordan endorses Democrat for Senate seat
Since leaving Holly Springs, Mississippi, at 18, I’ve had a front-row seat to national Republican politics and foreign policy as a speechwriter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a National Security Council aide to President George W. Bush, and an adviser to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s presidential campaign. These days, I’m lucky to make my living as a political analyst unbeholden to the Republican Party for my livelihood, so I have the freedom to say what I think.
My loyalty is to the place I love and call home, filled with the people I love. More than anything, I want to see a better Mississippi for all Mississippians. Tuesday’s Senate runoff election is bigger than political party affiliation. It’s about the values we want our great state to represent in the world.
Working in Afghanistan and Iraq for the State Department impressed upon me the importance of electing congressional leaders with common sense, judgment and the humility to apologize when they get it wrong. I worry that Mississippi is about to send a senator to Washington who lacks those critical character traits.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who gave only a belated and cursory apology for comments supporting voter suppression and, of all things, public hangings, will be a constant reminder of the darkest days of our history. Is that a reputation risk Mississippi can afford to take?
The stakes are historically low if you’re a Republican considering Democrat Mike Espy. Republicans already hold a 52-seat majority in the U.S. Senate, and this Senate seat will be on the ballot again in 2020. If Espy won, he’d be under immediate pressure to satisfy the crossover voters who elected him. Meanwhile, the state GOP would have two years to find and field a more competent candidate to challenge him.
Two years, though, would be a long time for Mississippians to suffer headlines about Hyde-Smith’s unforced errors. It’s hard to argue that she passes the basic test of judgment. Was it good judgment to talk about a “public hang- ing” in a state where mobs lynched more than 600 African-American men and women from 1877 through 1950? Was it good judgment to endorse voter suppression in a state where the Ku Klux Klan firebombed Vernon Dahmer’s home in 1966 for helping other African-Americans vote? Was it good judgment to pal around in 2014 with Greg Stewart, a disbarred lawyer and Confederate flag activist, pose in a Confederate soldier cap with a gun at the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, and write on Facebook: “Mississippi history at its best!”?
The answers are obvious. These actions aren’t just buffoonish and offensive to our African-American neighbors and plenty of other Mississippians, they’re also radioactive to the businesses our state needs to help lift half a million people out of poverty. More than a few corporate donors found Hyde-Smith’s comments disturbing enough to ask for their money back.
Here’s another question that answers itself: Is it good judgment to profess blind loyalty to President Donald Trump’s policies, even when — like his trade wars — they go against the interests of almost 30 percent of Mississippians who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods? As a fourth-generation cattle farmer, you’d think HydeSmith would worry that net farm income is half of what it was in 2013.
I’m not impressed that Espy represented a brutal dictator for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But at least he’ll take questions and own up to it. When I interviewed him in September for my Words Matter podcast, I asked him tough questions about domestic and foreign policy. His knowledge of trade policy was impressive, and I came away thinking he just might be a forceful advocate for Mississippi’s farmers.
Sometimes elections present hard choices. I’m not convinced this is one of those times. Mississippi, let’s think twice before rewarding Cindy HydeSmith’s dubious judgment with a Senate seat. America is watching, the world is watching and, most important of all, our kids are watching.