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Lu runs into mighty Mississippi Saturday, Nov 24, 2007 By John Brummett It looks to me like Arkansas may have received the shaft again, and Mississippi the gold mine. You can just see the smirk on Haley Barbour's face. That's all right. We're used to it, except in football, in which our guys routinely slap the Rebels and Bulldogs into remarkably easy submission. Here's a little scoop: Merit, fairness and playing by the stated rules - all that nice-sounding business may not matter as much as money and connections. The other day the Commission on Presidential Debates announced the locations of its presidential and vice presidential events next fall. The bustling University of Central Arkansas at Conway - "Lu-see-a," as some have taken to calling it in honor of the ambition and public relations chutzpah of the president, Lu Hardin - had made a strong pitch. It didn't get selected, though it seemed to ace the published criteria with its auditorium, the adjoining meeting rooms, the adjoining satellite television facilities of the Arkansas Educational Television Network and the air access and hotel rooms a half-hour away in Little Rock. A half-hour is nothing in the modern metropolitan world. Be aware that UCA is not complaining. Lu Hardin, for once, chose not to talk to the press. Mr. Optimism believes UCA will live to hold a presidential debate another day, and I wouldn't bet against him. But he may simply have been out-politicked this time by Ole Miss, which will be the site of a presidential debate. And that might be only because he didn't play politics, since he didn't know that was the game. Bill Clinton could have been invoked. He knows people in the big-time political world. We know all about being out-politicked by Mississippi. We were naively promising roads and tax breaks and rail spurs to Toyota if it would choose Marion for its big plant - this in supposed competition with Chattanooga. Then Mississippi came in at the last, like Rosie Ruiz joining the New York Marathon at mile marker 25, and carried the day. Mississippi's governor, this smirking Barbour, is a former K Street lobbyist who did a stint as Republican national chairman. Mississippi's senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, were deemed more valuable allies by Toyota than our Democratic tyros, even in a Democratic Senate. Toyota, being Japan-based, thought it needed to concern itself with growing American political sentiment for protectionism, which would favor home-based automakers. Now we have the matter of these debates, which have become big road shows, with lots of equipment and 4,000 people, counting technical staff, candidate contingents and the media. Oxford, Miss., while thoroughly historic and charming, is less accessible and has fewer hotel rooms than the Conway/Little Rock region. I also can point out that the vice chairman of the presidential debate commission is Frank J. Fahrenkopf, and that he, like Barbour, is a former Republican national chairman. Oh, another thing: Fahrenkopf is president and chief executive officer of the American Gaming Association. That is to say he is a casino lobbyist. Mississippi, as you may be aware, has a certain relationship with casino gambling. You're probably headed to Tunica as we speak. Like UCA, New Orleans got rejected for these debates. And they're not happy in the Big Easy. Anne Milling, founder of the advocacy group Women of the Storm in New Orleans, said this: "Politics trumped the correct moral decision. Supposedly, many people said that they would not be comfortable coming here," because New Orleans stands as a rebuke to the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. I guess it could be that. But it might be that New Orleans simply needs a well-wired business lobbyist as governor, one with chums in the casino industry. Imagine - something as noble as presidential debates sold out to filthy lucre. My, oh my. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
