[Presley has a story beyond his kinship with Elvis. He was raised
by a single mom who worked in a garment factory after his father was
murdered. He tells working-class voters that they should see their
names on the ballot when they see his.]
[[link removed]]

A DEEP SOUTH GOVERNOR’S RACE TO WATCH  
[[link removed]]


 

Ben Jealous
July 2, 2023
Trice Edney Wire News
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Presley has a story beyond his kinship with Elvis. He was raised by
a single mom who worked in a garment factory after his father was
murdered. He tells working-class voters that they should see their
names on the ballot when they see his. _

Brandon Presley, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for
governor of Mississippi, speaks to supporters in Grenada on April 15,
Rogelio V. Solis/AP

 

A year in which there are only three races for governor’s seats, all
in the Deep South, wouldn’t normally create a lot of political
speculation. Kentucky’s popular Democratic incumbent may have a
tough race, and chalking up Louisiana and its neighbor to the east to
a Republican would be typical conventional wisdom.

But “Mississippi Miracle” may well become the catchphrase of this
election season. Brandon Presley is making a strong bid to become the
first Democratic elected governor in the Magnolia State this century.

Presley (yes, Elvis from Tupelo is a cousin) has won a seat on the
state’s Public Service Commission four times, where he’s opposed a
huge coal-fired power plant and a proposal to dump nuclear waste in
Mississippi and fought to expand internet access in rural areas.

He’s hard to pin as a typical Democrat. He lowered taxes and
balanced budgets as a mayor, endorsed George W. Bush in the 2004
presidential election and describes himself as a pro-life Christian
(which he is quick to note demands supporting health care, education,
and seniors as well).

Presley has a powerful personal story that reaches well beyond his
kinship with the King of Rock and Roll. He was raised by a single mom
who worked in a garment factory after his father was murdered. He’s
told poor and working-class voters that they should see their own
names on the ballot when they see his.

Nettleton, the town of about 2,000 people in the northeastern
Mississippi that Presley hails from and he first became mayor at age
23, is split about 60% White and 40% Black like the state as a whole
but has a median income $10,000 below the median in one of the poorest
states in the country.

It’s no surprise that Presley is campaigning on issues that matter
most to those voters. He responded to Gov. Tate Reeves’ state of the
state address outside a shuttered rural hospital to highlight his $1
billion Medicaid expansion plan, which he says will improve health
care to low-income residents and save nearly 40 Mississippi hospitals
at risk of closing.

Reeves is unpopular even among his party’s voters. Six in 10 voters
in a recent poll, including a third of Republicans and two thirds of
independents, said they want “someone else” to be governor. While
he’s campaigning on a raise he gave educators, the teachers union
has endorsed Presley.

The incumbent has been tied to a scandal in which up to $94 million in
welfare funds were diverted to pet projects of the state’s most
powerful while many families in need were being denied $170 a month in
assistance. It's a particularly salient issue at this moment when
Mississippi and other states are beginning to seek and spend hundreds
of billions in federal dollars to build infrastructure and create
clean energy jobs.

Presley will need a big turnout from the 38 percent of Mississippi
voters who are Black. He’s not well known in Jackson and the
southern end of the state where most of them live. He had the
endorsement of Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state’s only Black member
of Congress, almost immediately after announcing his campaign (the
last Democrat who ran did not).

Black and low-income voters would gain much from Medicaid expansion
and Presley’s plan to cut Mississippi’s regressive 7 percent
grocery tax. Having suffered with a Republican leading the state a
decade ago, they’d have a champion as governor as legislative and
Congressional districts are redrawn in response to the census this
time around.

Even more broadly, a Presley victory and his economic proposals might
begin to shift what’s been a historical migration pattern for Blacks
out of the state up the Mississippi River and westward to California.
When I was a young organizer in Mississippi in the 1990s, a mentor who
had helped build the state’s public health clinics during the
Kennedy and Johnson years told me that there were more Black doctors
who’d been born in Mississippi living in Los Angeles County than in
the entire state of Mississippi.

No state can thrive indefinitely letting its best and brightest look
for opportunity elsewhere. Mississippi may decide to turn off that
spigot in November.

_Ben Jealous is executive director of the Sierra Club, the nation’s
largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization. He
is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and
author of “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free,” published in
January._

_The mission of the Trice Edney News Wire is synonymous with the adage
often attributed to Joseph Pulitzer – “To afflict the comfortable
and comfort the afflicted.” In America, the most afflicted are all
too often African-American people.  We offer our content – stories,
special reports and perspective pieces – to not only speak truth to
power, but to empower readers everywhere with information charting and
fortifying African-American progress; thereby American progress._

_Our goal is the same as that of the historic Black Press, “to plead
our own cause”. We do this by offering to fill historic voids in
news reporting and by contributing to the balance of both news and
commentary across the nation. We ascribe to the belief expressed by
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere”. Therefore, the important issues that we bring
to light on the pages of publications, through the airwaves and in
cyberspace, are American issues.  As we educate a nation about the
racial imbalances that prevail in every city, town, and precinct, we
aim to impact lives, inspire hope, and motivate change._

* Mississippi
[[link removed]]
* elections
[[link removed]]
* Medicaid
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]