Mississippi’s Democratic Party has used a terrible argument to try to keep Bob Hickingbottom off its primary ballot for governor.
A better reason would be that the little-known Hickingbottom is behaving like a plant designed to accomplish two objectives for the right wing of the Republican Party:
– Further compound the fundraising disadvantage of Brandon Presley, the main Democratic challenger to Republican incumbent Tate Reeves, by forcing Presley to spend more than he’d like to on a primary contest.
– Undermine moderate Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann’s reelection bid.
Hickingbottom is threatening to sue the state Democratic Party after it disqualified him and another Black candidate on the trumped-up reason that they had not filed a legally required ethics report prior to the qualifying deadline. The problem for the Democrats is that it did not apply this condition equally. A news source found 56 other Democrats who also failed to file the report on time but were not disqualified.
However this is resolved, Hickingbottom is a minor nuisance for Presley and might actually benefit the presumptive favorite. The additional news coverage could help the North Mississippi politician build up greater name recognition in the southern half of the state.
Hosemann’s ultraconservative GOP challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, believes, however, that Hickingbottom can be more than a nuisance to the incumbent leader of the Senate.
Hickingbottom, a political operative who has acknowledged doing the bidding for whichever party will pay him, has been professing his great admiration for Hosemann. That feeds right into McDaniel’s main line of attack, which accuses the longtime GOP officeholder of being a closet Democrat.
Mississippi Today’s Adam Ganucheau recently did an in-depth exposé that suggests Hickingbottom and McDaniel, if not coordinating, are definitely cooperating on a social media disinformation effort.
It started on Feb. 17, when Hickingbottom posted on his Facebook page that the only Republican whom Democrats should support is Hosemann. “Delbert is really a Democrat and has been our friend through the years. We all need to do everything we can for him. He’s the best Lt. Governor that we could possibly have in Mississippi.”
About 30 minutes later, McDaniel reposted Hickingbottom’s ringing endorsement of the incumbent lieutenant governor, adding “There you have it. Democrats Love Delbert!”
What started out as an inconsequential post from a kooky minor politician to 400 social media followers soon was seen — thanks to McDaniel and his guerilla marketing friends — by tens of thousands. And Hickingbottom keeps feeding the flame-belching maw.
He gave a subsequent interview, later shared by McDaniel, to a conservative Black radio host that again proclaimed,
“Delbert is a Democrat.” That is the same radio host, Ganucheau reports, to whom Hickingbottom bragged 16 years earlier: “I’ve been at the forefront of every dirty deal that was cut in politics.”
Hickingbottom posted a feigned apology this month to Hosemann — “I would never deliberately do anything to hurt Lt. Governor Delbert Hoseman.” — and the next few days went about trying to do just that. He put up a collage of photos of Hosemann, Presley and Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, claiming they conspired to retire the former state flag, while failing to mention a number of other Republicans who joined in the bipartisan effort, including the incumbent governor whom Hickingbottom supposedly thinks needs replacing.
McDaniel is using this social media charade to support his case that Hosemann isn’t Republican enough because he is open to working with Democrats and occasionally agrees with them. That actually is one of Hosemann’s strengths. He has the ability to build bipartisan consensus because he is willing to work across the political aisle and listen to dissenting views. It is partially why he is effective. Only those on the extremes of the political spectrum, such as McDaniel, have tried to make the concepts of cooperation and compromise seem repugnant.
McDaniel is also a politician to whom unscrupulous people seem to gravitate. His near-upset of U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in 2014 was scandalized by one of the dirtier tricks in Mississippi political history, when one of McDaniel’s supporters secretly photographed Cochran’s bedridden wife in a nursing home and used the image to insinuate that Cochran was carrying on an affair while she languished away in the latter stages of dementia.
Though McDaniel denounced the incident and authorities were unable to establish any coordination with his campaign, the distasteful episode helped shore up support for Cochran.
With any luck, Hickingbottom’s assistance will also backfire.
– Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
