Race Could Be Key Issue in Tight Contest for MS Treasurer's Position

Jackson, MS, Clarion-Ledger ^ | 11-02-03 | Salter, Sid

[Theodore R.]

Republican state treasurer nominee Tate Reeves is about as fine a young man as I've met.

Smart, polite, hard-working, you name it. He and his wife make a nice couple. He's well-educated (Millsaps undergraduate degree in economics), has excellent professional credentials and solid private sector financial experience.

[Theodore R.]

Salter does not understand that Reeves supporters may be backing him because of philosophy, not because of race. Sometimes "experience" is not what voters are looking for in a campaign.

[Theodore R.]

*ping*

[fnord]

how convenient

if the voters don't elect the Democrat party-liner, it's because they are backward and racist.

[JohnnyZ]

Tate Reeves is a white conservative Republican. Gary Anderson is a African American liberal Democrat.

[Theodore R.]

What have polls shown about the treasurer's race? Usually, southerners vote solidly Democrat in down-ballot races, but even that tendency is changing, as in TX, FL, SC, and AL.

[JohnnyZ]

Tied. 44-43ish, I think.

[Theodore R.]

It could be that voters in MS who won't vote for a black candidate are telling pollsters that they will vote for a black, because that is what those voters think pollsters want to hear. I understand that scenario may have happened in NC in 1990 and 1996, when some told pollsters they were for Harvey Gannt, but Jesse Helms still won, despite polls that showed him highly vulnerable.