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It’s election year in Mississippi, and for the first time in a long while, we have a gubernatorial candidate who appeals to Democrats, independents and centrist Republicans. He even has a famous last name that strikes a sweet chord in every Mississippi heart: Presley. Brandon Presley. On Nov. 7, Elvis’s second cousin hopes to unseat GOP Gov. Tate Reeves.
I first became aware of Presley when he responded to Reeves’s January State of the State address, which featured the standard chest thumping, calling 2022 “the best year in Mississippi’s history” and railing against “the expansion of ObamaCare.” Presley spoke from a “closed down emergency room inside a shut down hospital” in Newton, Miss., the hospital where I was born.
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Reeves opposes Medicaid expansion, which would bring millions of federal dollars to Mississippi, improving health care, keeping hospitals open, creating jobs, increasing tax revenues, and maybe even keep people from moving away. Mississippi is one of only three states to lose population over the last decade, according to the 2020 Census, and most of those who leave are young and educated. The brain drain is a real problem.
To date, 41 states have adopted Medicaid expansion, including bright-red Republican Utah. Mississippi has not. Utah ranks No.3 in “Best States” to live. Mississippi ranks 48.
Presley says he will fully expand Medicaid in Mississippi on his first day as governor. He’s been traveling the state, talking about expanding health care, cutting taxes and — most importantly — cleaning up Reeves’s corruption.
Here’s the simple truth: When he was lieutenant governor, Reeves oversaw Mississippi’s welfare department, which misused and squandered at least $77 million in federal funds meant to assist the state’s poorest residents, most of whom are Black. When Reeves became governor, he fired the attorney investigating the case.
While the state was rejecting a large majority of requests from struggling families for monthly welfare payments of $170 in 2017, Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre is accused of using politically connected friends and family — including Reeve’s brother, Todd — to steer $5 million from the Mississippi Department of Human Services to build a volleyball court at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter Breleigh played volleyball. Apparently Farve, who made nearly $140 million in the NFL, had promised to fund the stadium himself, then decided he’d rather have someone else actually pay for it (taxpayers).
Until now, Tate Reeves has avoided scrutiny in the case. The details get complicated and exhausting for the average citizen — I suspect Reeves is counting on that as the election draws near. But texts released recently show that Todd Reeves coordinated with the auditor to help Favre, suggesting Gov. Reeves may have lied about his role in the multimillion-dollar scandal.
I loathe all the money in politics — there are no limits in Mississippi on campaign giving, which is part of the problem — but I donated to Presley’s campaign, twice, because Mississippi God Damn.
I’m not alone.
Even though he entered the race at a disadvantage to Reeves’s enormous $9 million war chest, the race is tightening. Some polls have them in a virtual tie. Sixty percent of Mississippi voters say they would prefer a new governor in 2023. Twenty-one percent of Republican voters say they would vote for Democrat Brandon Presley over Reeves. Presley leads among independents 57 percent to 28 percent.
I recently came across a letter my mother wrote to her parents in 1958, shortly after she moved to Newton, Miss., from Washington, D.C. “Newton is another word for paradise,” she wrote, telling them about the pine forests, the sound of crickets, and her struggle to make cornbread and turnip greens to please her new Mississippi-born husband.
But my mother also wrote about the day she registered to vote.
She arrived at the courthouse with her citizenship papers. My mother became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1942 after she and her parents escaped Nazi-occupied Austria. In the letter, my mother wrote that in order to be allowed to vote, she had to write about the duties of a citizen in a democracy and her interpretation of the 14th Amendment — “no person shall be deprived of liberty, life, property without due process of the law.” She said that no one even read her answers, while the Black woman in line behind her, who’d lived in Mississippi all her life, was turned away, disqualified.
Though Mississippi has come a long way since the 1950s, my mother’s experience reminds me that we still have work to do. The burden of corruption is felt by Mississippi’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens, suffering obscene police brutality, closed bridges and crumbling roads, and undrinkable water. It’s time we elected a leader committed to cleaning up our state government.
It’s now or never. That’s the way a lot of us here feel about this upcoming election.
Margaret McMullan is the author of nine award-winning books. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Bulwark, The Morning Consult, The Morning Edition, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and Glamour, among others. She received an NEA Fellowship and a Fulbright in Hungary to research her memoir, “Where the Angels Lived.”
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Outside of Mississippi State, Arkansas and Auburn, the SEC had a very successful Week Two of the college football season. The latest AP Top 25 poll reflects the strength of the SEC with 6 of the top 7 spots belonging to SEC teams.
Here’s a recap of how the ranked SEC teams fared in the second full week of the college football season:
Click here for a recap of the unranked SEC teams.
With the exception of giving up three points, this was probably exactly how Georgia expected this game to go. Carson Beck threw five touchdowns and the defense held Tennessee Tech to less than 150 yards of total offense. Anything less would be a surprise.
More than 100,000 people saw Texas come into Ann Arbor, Mich. and leave with a huge win. The Longhorns looked like the better team from the first drive of the game where they easily marched down the field. That Oct. 19 game in Austin against Georgia is looking better and better.
It was a lot closer than Alabama would’ve liked, but it’s a win that will fend off the “Nick Saban is gone, we’re doomed” crowd. At the same time, though, there were some things that crowd could point to at a later time.
Two games against inferior competition and Ole Miss has outscored its opponents 129-3. They’ll take a slight step up in competition next week against Wake Forest, but the Rebels are still about a month away from playing a team that will truly test them.
Missouri’s schedule just took an unexpected bump in its level of difficulty with No. 24 Boston College joining the top 25. Bill O’Brien is brilliant at game planning and calling plays (not so much with making trades, but that hasn’t reached the college ranks yet). Missouri needs to be on upset alert (and ready to stop the run).
This happens every year. Tennessee looks really good to start the season and by the end Volunteer fans are saying next year is their year. But maybe this year is their year with the way Nico Iamaleava has been playing.
Of the two SEC newcomers, Texas is getting most of the attention which makes sense based on the current teams. But folks, don’t sleep on the Sooners. They ruined many of my own childhood memories growing up in Texas. This week’s way-too close game doesn’t help that argument, but think long term.
LSU was one of three SEC teams to play FCS schools after playing top 25 teams last week. The Tigers and Texas A&M both lost, while Georgia won. So, it’s not surprising to see each of them play FCS teams and neither were any of the results.
SEC Week 2 Power Rankings: Which Teams Are Contenders or Pretenders?
WATCH: Mississippi State’s Bowl Hopes Take a Hit with Arizona State Defeat
Mississippi State Crumbles in the Trenches: What Went Wrong Against Arizona State?
Cam Skattebo slammed Mississippi State on the football field on Saturday night and also took another jab afterward in his postgame press conference.
The Arizona State running back, following a 30-23 Sun Devils win at Mountain America Stadium, took exception to MSU only utilizing three defenders on the line of scrimmage. The results were damning.
Arizona State (2-0) rushed for 346 yards. It was the most allowed by Mississippi State (1-1) in a game since Arkansas in 2016. Skattebo’s 262 rushing yards on 33 carries were the second-most in ASU history.
“They couldn’t stop us in that three-down front,” Skattebo said when asked what made ASU’s run game successful. “Honestly, we all felt disrespected with them in a three-down front. You can’t come in here and put five guys in the box and expect to stop six. I don’t know. We took that a little disrespectful, and we rushed for what over 300 yards? Something around there. It is what it is.”
Skattebo, a 5-foot-11, 215-pound junior, also led Arizona State with 35 receiving yards on three catches.
“I knew these dudes were big and heavy,” he said. “We knew going into the game they weren’t as physical as most other teams but they’re heavy. So when they hit you, it hurts, no matter how hard they’re coming — 300 pounds at 10 miles per hour or 16 miles per hour hurts the same. I just kept my feet moving.”
Mississippi State trailed 30-3 in the third quarter but scored 20 unanswered points to cut the score to 30-23 with 5:27 to play. The Bulldogs never touched the ball again, with the Sun Devils running out the clock on 12 plays.
Skattebo had a game-sealing 39-yard rush that allowed ASU to kneel down.
“Until the end, we had our ups and downs there, but that was fun,” he said. “You can ask these guys up front, bullying dudes, grown men that are 300 pounds, that’s fun to us. That’s fun to the front-five, the front-seven and the running back. The quarterback probably hates it. He probably likes watching, but he didn’t complain one time the whole game.”
Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.
It was 11:10 p.m. Saturday in Starkville when Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt barreled into the end zone for his second touchdown of the game.
At that point, it would’ve been fair for Mississippi State football fans to call it a night. The Bulldogs (1-1) trailed 27-3 at ASU in the final minute of the second quarter. They were dominated in just about every statistical category. New coach Jeff Lebby looked like he was headed toward his first loss, and an embarrassing one.
And even if you gave the second half a chance, eyes just a crack open, that wasn’t encouraging either. Arizona State (2-0) took the opening drive of the third quarter for a field goal while eating 8 minutes, 27 seconds of game time. That just about decided the game before Mississippi State touched the ball in the second half.
Wrong.
Instead, MSU scored touchdowns on three of its next four drives and cut the score to 30-23 with 5:27 to play. The defense, which was torched for 346 rushing yards, needed one more stop to let the offense try to tie it. It would’ve been the largest comeback in program history.
Mississippi State’s path to a bowl game seems murkier than it was a week ago. But in the long-term, there’s still encouragement after the 30-23 loss.
“Our guys battled in an incredible way in the second half, and we’re going to hold on to that,” Lebby said in his postgame radio interview. “We’re going to find ways to get back in the building, get back to work and be able to walk into Davis Wade (Stadium) with a ton of confidence and ready to go win a football game.”
Lebby said after beating Eastern Kentucky 56-7 in Week 1 that there is an abundance of teachable moments in wins, just like losses.
There is plenty to point to after losing to Arizona State.
Mississippi State came out incredibly flat. The Sun Devils scored on their first five possessions. The MSU offense had one field goal, two punts, a fumble returned for a touchdown and a turnover-on-downs in the first half. MSU had -13 rushing yards in the first half.
There were concerns entering the game about the travel distance, late kickoff and high temperature. But let’s be real, Mississippi State was playing so poorly at the start that it was hard to judge if those were factors.
“I got to do a better job getting these guys ready to go play out of the gate,” Lebby said. “I thought our energy, our effort and our emotion was really good, but then we did not play clean there in the first quarter, so that part was frustrating.”
The Bulldogs outscored the Sun Devils 20-0 in the final quarter and a half. It was a surprise. Arizona State was rolling. Mississippi State was not.
MORE: Introducing Sam Sklar, the Clarion Ledger’s new Mississippi State beat reporter
For Lebby, a first-time head coach at any level, let it be a learning moment for him. It was his first time getting pinned in a corner. The Bulldogs adjusted correctly in the second half like good coaches do.
The rushing offense and defense both need to improve. Badly. Quarterback Blake Shapen has been impressive in his first two Mississippi State games and the wide receiver room is deep and talented as ever, but they can’t be the only answer.
That’s just for this season.
Mississippi State has its first tally in the loss column. But it isn’t a strike against Lebby leading the future of the program.
Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.
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