Dear Jack,
 

Judge Jim Herring has just written a rather good book. First elected as a District Attorney in 1971, Herring ran for Lieutenant Governor in 1976 and then for Governor in 1979 – each time as a Democrat. 
 
Jim’s book, ‘The Switcher’, gives all sorts of insights into these colorful campaigns, not to mention some of the candidates. 
 
‘The Switcher’, as the name implies, is a book about one man’s personal journey from the Democrats to the Republicans.  Once a stalwart of the Mississippi Democrats, Jim ended up serving as Chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party for seven years. 
 
But 'The Switcher' is really also the story of how an entire state – you might say the entire southern United States – flipped to the GOP. Over a period of about twenty years, a once solidly blue state went red.

Until Thad Cochran’s election as US Senator in 1978, Mississippi had not had any state-wide Republican politicians since the 1880s.  Not much changed until 1992, when Kirk Fordice and Eddie Briggs were elected Governor and Lieutenant Governor.  Even then, it was not until 2011 that the Democrats lost their hold on the state Legislature. 
 
Why did Mississippi flip? 
 
For Herring – and indeed for many Mississippians - Ronald Reagan clearly exerted a powerful pull factor.  A key moment the book refers to came when Herring heard ‘the Gipper’ speaking in Gulfport about the need for “steadiness of purpose, fidelity to ideals and love of country”. 
 
Reagan’s brand of conservatism, with its attachment to the free market, limited government and uncomplicated patriotism, attracted millions of traditional Democrat voters throughout the South.

Mississippi's switch was made possible, too, thanks to the heroic efforts of Billy Mounger, Wirt Yerger and Clarke Reed. In some sense, one might even argue Mississippi's 'switchers' made possible not only the conversion of our state, but perhaps too, the Reagan Revolution. Without the southern switch and the rise of the Reagan Democrat, the 40th President is unlikely to have been Republican.
 
Mississippi proves that you do not – or at least did not - need to be a Republican to be classified as conservative.  Plenty of folk that voted Jimmy Carter in 1979 and Bill Clinton in 1992 had conservative views when it came to Faith, Flag, Free markets and Family.
 
Herring himself remains remarkably consistent to his political principles across each chapter of the book, favoring limited taxes, light regulation and adherence to the Constitution. He, like many in our state, might have switched parties, but his conservative ideals remain largely unchanged. 
 
Being a conservative is more than just allegiance to a particular party.  It ought to be about more than having the right bumper stickers or watching Fox News over CNN. 
 
Although Jim’s book doesn’t mention Edmund Burke, the great Anglo-Irish forefather of the conservative movement, reading it, it is clear to me that he is a Burkeian conservative at heart – like most folk in Mississippi, and perhaps indeed America.
 
Burke, an early supporter of the American Revolution and doughty defender of free trade, believed that throughout a nation’s history, a process of trial and errors means some laws and government arrangements survive, while others die out.  Those that survive we should therefore regard as a sublime inheritance because they represent in effect the aggregated wisdom of past generations.  That, to me, seems to be the essence of conservatism. 
 
There is much in ‘The Switcher’ that explains what happened in our state before, and sheds light on how we ended up where we are.  Anyone interested in Mississippi’s future should read it.
 
Oh, and Jim will be signing copies at an event Tuesday June 6^th from 4:30 at Lemuria bookstore. Why not come along?

Have a magnificent Memorial Day weekend!