Another Democratic primary election out in the Southern tier of states, another “Some Guy Wins”… because his name is a color, basically.

Robert Gray was driving a truck for his small business Fancy Horse Transportation on Monday. On Tuesday, he was the Democratic nominee for governor of Mississippi.
The 46-year-old from Terry, Mississippi, didn’t even vote in the primary, allegedly too busy operating his independent livestock hauling business. His opponent, incumbent Governor Phil Bryant, has a reported $2.8 million cache in his campaign fund, while Gray is living day to day without health insurance.
It’s not that Gray won by default either. Democrats in Mississippi had two well-funded, hard-working candidates with clear-cut goals and practiced rhetoric. He soundly defeated Vicki Slater, a trial lawyer with the backing of a lot of the Democratic establishment, and Dr. Valerie Adream Smartt Short, an obstetrician-gynecologist—without spending a single penny. In a heartbreaking admission, Slater reportedly told the AP “I did everything I could to win this.” The Daily Beast has reached out to her campaign for comment and has yet to hear back.
Gray earned 51 percent of the vote Tuesday, obliterating Slater, who nabbed only 30.2 percent. A small group of Mississippi Democrats have begun to galvanize support for the candidate, creating a Facebook page with a mere 170 likes.
The Democratic establishment is seemingly holding their breath as they trudge toward the November election with a candidate that is the textbook definition of an Average Joe. The chances of Democrats actually winning the election were always vanishingly small, but Gray’s appearance at the top of the ticket will likely complicate efforts to hold on to the offices they do control in the deep-red state.

Eh.  He looks better than Alvin Greene.  Is better for the ticket as a whole than Mark Clayton.  I suppose the man he fits the bill is Albert M Gore, who was the Democrat’s Senate candidate in Mississippi a few cylces back — and did… huh.  As good as anyone else in articulating a Democratic message in various campaign stops, and in the current climate the alternative is seen in the next election cycle where the Democratic candidate was running with great Republican rhetoric against a Republican who was forced to make entrities to a Democratic constituency to keep his campaign afloat in the primary against a “Tea Party” challenger… and the Democrat would’ve lost to either candidate anyways.

Jefferson – Jackson dinners are disappearing from the Democratic arsenal of fund-raising.  (It’s worth noting that in some past epoch, the Jefferson – Jackson dinners in southern states were frequently paired with a third name — that of a bigtime political governor heavy-weight with huge stature in state politics of … er… keeping segregation alive and running.   I see that Mississippi gets them now paired with Fanny Lou Hamer — parties evolve.)

Interesting argument on keeping the names Jefferson and Jackson as, despite everything, historical figures worth preserving who… after all… did found the political party in two parts.  (Though, on that equation, it really should be the Van Buren Dinner.)

I’m having trouble finding it, and I am pretty sure I noted it on my blog when it happened, and it was not headline news by any stretch but once upon a time (I may be the only person anywhere who thought it worth noting) — I caught Barack Obama calling Andrew Jackson one of our nation’s “great presidents”.  Depends on criteria, as always — some call him one of the worst for, you know, Trail of Tears…

The big problem might lie in the Republican Party making some deal on the dumping of Jefferson, who… you know, after all, is quite popular, and was a “Republican” as against the “Federalist” (before Van Buren and Jackson came and turned their wares to a Demcoratic Party).  Though, here, I spotted a Natinal Review article claiming that the idea to nix Hamilton for a portrait on our currency in favor of a “woman to be named” is in a grand Democratic Party tradition, so they’re still straddling Jefferson to the Democrats after all.

I remember hearing George Carlin once refer to the news media as a bulletin board of the powerful.  I can’t help but think of that when I read over the tenor of this “Joseph Biden — Don’t run for President” story in the New York Times.

Try this one for a second.

Those supporters, in the White House and the Senate, and within the political circles he has moved in for decades, fear that the legacy Mr. Biden has built as an effective partner who took on tough jobs for President Obama, not to mention the deep reservoir of public good will and sympathy he has amassed in his poignant handling of personal tragedies, could be sacrificed in the pursuit of an unsuccessful challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

They fret that Mr. Biden, as well known for his undisciplined, sometimes self-immolating comments as he is for his charm on the trail, could endanger Mr. Obama’s own legacy by injuring Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy and causing his party to lose control of the White House.

While the concern about Mr. Biden appears widespread among his political allies, few seem eager to tell him out of fear of hurting his feelings and seeming to be presumptuous about a decision that is all too personal.

Followed by quotes from people who, if and when Joseph Biden reads this New York Times article, Joseph Biden is likely going to know immediately who is being quoted.

Incidentally… I find it hard to see how he is going to derail Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, no matter what he does in gaffing across America.  Or, for that matter, harm his reputation, as his gaffing is already baked in as a part of his legacy.  I suppose Hillary Clinton knows what’s up, as we move to New York Times “bulletin board for the politicos” article number two… already running against Jeb Bush, and… huh?

“This is the strategy of a weak Democratic candidate: to attack and be attacked by Jeb Bush, to rally Democratic antibodies to her defense and get her through an uncertain nomination process,” said Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist.

That’s a non sequitur.  But you always have to say things are going bad for the other team, and things are great for your team, and work the retro-fit the reasons from there.

In Republican candidate debate.. what do you make of this line-up?  Kasich in, Perry out… and the seating arrangement seems to match the “central figures in the midde”, though gets dodgy in the tiers from there… (Kasich certainly fits the outest edge, but Christie?  In 2008, Clinton and Obama were always in the middle, with Edwards and Richardson next to them, then Dodd and Biden, and out on the edge Kucinich and Gravel… can’t wait to see the seating arrangement for the Democrats — certainly Clinton’s sitting in the middle — should Biden jump in probably seated next to him, but might they just stick Chafee in the next room? … Or, apparently nowhere — he’s not at the one percent thresh-hold… which, come to think of it, would’ve dumped Mike Gravel out of 2008’s debates.)