Folks I’ve mentioned this privately to a few folks including one of the Anna Maria’s of the Slabbed that Mississippi could well elect its first post reconstruction African-American to statewide office in Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree. I’ve personally met the man and his daughters on a few occasions dating back over the last 20 years and the man exudes gravitas. He and his family are class acts truly committed to making their community a better place. Left out of the Sun Herald endorsement is the fact that when he was first elected Mayor of Hattiesburg the city had a white majority electorate and is still almost evenly spilt racially and he has been re-elected twice. He simply gets the job done as mayor.
DuPree has refused to sling mud at his opponent, affectionately known here on Slabbed as Phildo. By all accounts the campaign has been remarkably clean as Mayor DuPree has stuck to his message of economic development for small business, support for public education and honoring the state’s promise made to its retirees, who often worked for less pay than the private sector offers specifically for the retirement benefit.
Now while DuPree has refused to sling mud Slabbed has often had something to say about Phildo, especially last year during the oil spill when he acted as Tony Hayward’s briefcase boy constantly downplaying the environmental impacts of the spill. People down here on the coast in particular still remember Bryant’s jackassery when he dismissed the gasoline like fumes that had invaded the coast as local residents smelling “lawn mower fumes“. After his display last year the best I can say about him is he is a simple ignorant redneck asshole.
But Phil has another side folks that includes a nice vindictive streak to go along with the assholery as the aftermath from his 2007 Lite Gov campaign well revealed in his treatment of fellow republican Charlie Ross after the primary election. There are lots of such skeletons in Phildo’s past and next month they could well come back to bite the man. I say that because of a conversation about the election I had with an elderly lady recently, who actually brought the subject up to me while making small talk. To set up the gist of that conversation we need to turn to Mel Brooks via Youtube:
Phildo just does not inspire much love folks, especially down here. My elderly friend asked me if I thought it’d be OK “to vote for a nigger” over Bryant. I assured her that supporting a quality person like Johnny DuPree was a no brainer and reminded her of the fact that she really liked Tate Reeves and the best way to get Tate for Gov going sooner rather than later was to vote DuPree. I was encouraged it all seemed to make sense to her. 😉
The bottom line here is that DuPree’s personal story is compelling all on its own as the Sun Herald endorsement makes clear and it is a tale that will attract even the older generation of Mississippians that remain a bit too stuck in the past as this snippet illustrates:
Born in Georgia on Nov. 18, 1953, DuPree’s “parents separated when I was a small boy, and later, my mother, sister, brother and I moved to Hattiesburg. My mom worked domestic jobs to support us, but since I was the oldest male in the house, I was also expected to work. So, at the age of eight, I began working to help support my family.”
In time, he would go to work for Sears for 15 years before he and his wife went into real estate.
He appreciates the value of family and faith. When he and his wife became teenage parents, he says, “My wife and I didn’t start out with a lot of money, but we were determined to raise our girls with a strong Christian faith. … our circumstances were less than desirable, but we were both determined to do our best because we had made a commitment to each other and wanted to keep it.”
If DuPree can get minorities to turn out and vote next month in proportion to their population totals, I think there could well be enough cross over white support to get the man elected. By my rough politically uninformed calculation DuPree needs around 30% of the white vote to win in that scenario. The key is in the execution.
It goes without saying Johnny DuPree has my vote next month and I’ll be able to cast it in support of the man for all the right reasons.
sop