Moore in national spotlight

By Sid Salter
Syndicated Columnist

Scatter shooting over the Mississippi political landscape.

The national media continues to demand a steady diet of more Moore -- Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, that is.
  I've fielded phone calls from a half-dozen journalists with national publications seeking to dissect Moore for their readers. The questions are predictable:
  "Does he have ambitions for higher office? Is he a nice guy or a jerk? Does he have a realistic chance at being elected governor? What do Mississippi people think of him? Is he sincere about battling Big Tobacco, or has this all been a politically motivated exercise? Do you see any similarities between Moore and Bill Clinton?"
  The answers are about as predictable: "Certainly, or at least he's not ready for a lifetime job as Attorney General. Nice guy. Yes, better than anyone unless Pat Fordice does the Lurleen Wallace thing and seeks the job herself. Mixed feelings, but Mississippians don't like smoking much more than the rest of the nation. For the political beating he's taken at home at the hands of Kirk Fordice and others, if his choice was politically motivated, he got more than he bargained for. Not really, Moore's a baseball daddy whose family values are solid and visible."
  USA Today is expected to examine Moore this week. But more important than all the national media attention, if Mississippi actually cashes one of Big Tobacco's checks, Moore can make legitimate and lasting claim to winning a victory for Mississippi taxpayers.
  The other side of that coin is the fact that at the same time, Moore's got to defend and legitimize the role his longtime friend/political patron and highly-successful product liability attorney Richard Scruggs of Pascagoula played in the tobacco settlement both nationally and in Mississippi.
  Two realities that Moore can't escape are the facts that Scruggs is on record as both a major political contributor to the Attorney General and as an attorney whose association with Moore on behalf of the state has been extremely profitable.
  As to Gov. Fordice's continued temper tantrums on the topic of the tobacco settlement, there are also realities that he can't escape.
  Mike Moore is poised to bring $170 million into Mississippi this week that came as a result of a tenacious effort on Moore's behalf.
  The only Mississippi windfall that rivals that result is casino gaming -- an enterprise that Fordice says he morally opposes and to which his only contribution was being in the right place at the right time.

Former Department of Economic and Community Development spokesman Denton Gibbes is under fire from State Sen. John Horhn of Jackson for accepting a job with a Jackson advertising agency that handled the DECD account while Gibbes was in state employ.
  Horhn is a vocal critic of DECD and of DECD Director Jimmy Heidel. One way of getting at Heidel, Horhn knows, it getting at Gibbes.
  I've known Denton Gibbes for more than a decade. He is an outstanding young man who performed his job well while working for the state.
  Bottom line, Denton Gibbes is honest. If Horhn has any specific evidence of wrongdoing against Mr. Gibbes, he should produce it and give Gibbes a chance to actively defend himself.
  If not, Horhn should battle Mr. Heidel nose-to-nose, rather than attempting to ruin a young man's career for political gain.

Begging the question of Mike Moore's unquestioned emergence as the front-runner at the halfway point of the next governor's race --which will be underway in less than two years -- is where Lt. Gov. Ronnie Musgrove figures into that picture.
  While Musgrove hasn't received the national attention that has been foisted on Moore, he completed the 1997 session of the Mississippi Legislature with a solid list of accomplishments -- not the least of which was the renewed confidence of Mississippi elementary and secondary school teachers and their families.
  Despite Moore's media saturation of late, one can't dismiss Musgrove from a 1999 gubernatorial derby, either.
  While Moore and Musgrove clearly dominate any discussions of the Democratic side of the ticket, the more interesting scenarios present themselves on the Republican side of the ticket.
   House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Charlie Williams of Senatobia, DECD Director Jimmy Heidel, Southern District Public Service Commissioner Curt Hebert and former Lt. Gov. Eddie Briggs continue to lead the speculative list of contenders for the Republican nomination.
  Key GOP partisans continue to talk longingly about a run by Mrs. Fordice or another out-of-the-woodwork unknown, as Williams at this juncture appears to have the best shot at the GOP nomination after Heidel suffered serious political wounds in the aftermath of the Magnolia Venture crisis.
  One rumored GOP scenario that appears to have no basis in fact is the fable that U.S. Senator Thad Cochran would return home to seek the governor's office.

  Sid Salter served as the Kelly Gene Cook Chair in Journalism last year at Ole Miss and is the publisher of the Scott County Times in Forest.