Also posted at Cotton Mouth (Mississippi's Premier Political Blog)

I attended the Jefferson Jackson Hamer (JJH) Dinner along with a friend of mine who takes excellent photos. I got good video of folks at the event and many good pictures. This is just a few observations of mine about the dinner.

- The turnout was low. It was better than past years, but I don't know how it compared to when Howard Dean came. I think he set the high water mark for attendance. I'd say at least half the tables were unsold.

- Though Ronnie Musgrove was in DC, his campaign put up a large number of signs around the inside of the Multipurpose Center. Many folks had Musgrove stickers on when I got there, though I didn't see anyone handing them out. Melody Musgrove was present.

- As we approached the building initially it was clear that there was a strong pro-Obama presence. As we exited the parking lot several folks offered us Obama rally signs which we politely declined because we didn't have a place to put them. They also had a mini rally going on outside.

The following was written by Matthew Krell for Cotton Mouth.  He writes at Street Prophets and here under uID mkrell.

...

Haley Barbour has led, by most accounts, a fairly charmed life.  He's gone from being a Republican in a single-party Democratic state, to being the second Republican governor of Mississippi since Reconstruction.  Along the way, Gov. Barbour has been chairman of the Republican National Committee and the lead partner in the most influential lobbying firm on the Republican side of the aisle.

But Barbour may have reached his apogee, and although I know it's hardly Christian of me, I think his star may be about to fall - and it's about time.

I wanted to personally thank the Daily Kos community and Kid Oakland specifically for making my attendance at Yearly Kos possible.

Kid Oakland had my e-mail from the "Blogs United" list and sent me an e-mail asking if I would be attending Yearly Kos to represent Mississippi and Mississippi's only statewide, pro-Democratic blog, Cotton Mouth.  I responded that I couldn't due to finances.  I am a college student and a political activist.  Neither provides much financial benefit as you can likely guess.

I then recieved an e-mail from Kid Oakland alerting me to the donor matching campaign he was about to begin and that I would be one of the original recipiants of funding to help folks from places like the South attend.

Crossposted at Cotton Mouth

There's a higher level of scrutiny for those of us in this business.  I've heard that it mostly only applies to US Senate and White House staffers, those people who speak with or on the authority of the office.  But there is a maxim that most of the people I consider to be professionals adhere to-

"the appearance of impropriety is tantamount to the act itself."

Crossposted (with small edits) at Cotton Mouth

There is a divide among Southern Republicans that hasn't really made it into the public eye yet in Mississippi. It is highlighted in Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter with Kansas? The divide is between the so called "Country Club Republicans" who care more about economic issues and are more libertarian on social issues and "Religious Conservatives" who tend to be moderate on economic issues, but are very conservative on hotbutton issues like abortion and homosexuality.

I believe that Phil Bryant (running for Lt. Gov.) is closer to the first variety and doesn't particulary care about the issues Christian Conservatives often focus on and if this gets out it could begin to open that rift in the Mississippi Republican Party.