Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, at left (this is not the guy who didn't vote!)
Disaster struck for Mississippi Democrats on Tuesday night, when an ultra-Some Dude named Robert Gray managed to
win the party's nomination for governor. Gray is a truck driver and retired firefighter who spent no money and admitted that he
didn't even bother to vote for himself in the primary. Yet despite being utterly unknown, he took 51 percent, while attorney Vicki Slater, who had the backing of whatever remains of the Democratic establishment, wound up with just 30 percent. (Physician Valerie Short finished with 19.)
No one knows how Gray might have managed this—he's so obscure that no one could even find a photo of him online—but it's reminiscent of the bizarre case of Alvin Greene, the unemployed veteran who somehow pulled together the $10,000 filing fee necessary to run for Senate in South Carolina, then blew past former state Rep. Vic Rawl in the Democratic primary back in 2010. Greene, who was invisible on the campaign trail until his unlikely win, became best-known for his unorthodox ideas on stimulating the economy. ("Another thing we can do for jobs is make toys of me, especially for the holidays. Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an army uniform, air force uniform, and me in my suit.") He was, naturally, destroyed in the general election.
Of course, Mississippi Democrats had no prayer of beating GOP Gov. Phil Bryant this fall; that wasn't the point. Rather, the party is concerned about protecting their lone statewide office-holder, Attorney General Jim Hood, and their one member of Mississippi's Public Service Commission, Brandon Presley, plus all the Democrats in the state legislature. With a non-candidate at the top of the ticket, that job just became a lot harder. Nevada Democrats got flattened at every level last year because they lacked a real option in the governor's race; the same thing could happen in the Magnolia State this year.
Now, no one disputes that the fortunes of Mississippi Democrats have long been on the wane, and the party is not poised for a comeback any decade soon. But before you say, "This is Mississippi—what does it matter?", consider this: After Hurricane Katrina, Hood went to war against big insurance companies who were refusing to pay out victims and won hundreds of millions. A decade later, he's still pursuing the fight. Can you imagine a Republican doing that?
So even if we can't win a high-profile Senate seat or state legislative chamber here, this is a reminder of why it's still important for progressives to try to elect Democrats at every level. Gray may have hurt the party's chances, but hopefully Hood will still hang on this fall.