Ronnie Musgrove

[Notre Dame rules!]

Musgrove ran one of the nastiest campaigns I have ever seen.  He virtually claimed that Barbour wanted to kill your children (no joke).

 Living in Memphis at the time, we were subjected to non stop campaign ads, since the Memphis market reaches north Mississippi.  Musgroves ads probably turned more Democrat voters into Barbour voters then anything that Barbour campaigned on.

The flag issue was separate from the Governor's race, unlike the case in GA.

[Notre Dame rules!]

The flag is a total non-issue until the NAACP, ACLU, et al start telling you that they are going to try to get the rest of the country to boycott your state.  People tend to get a little   pissed off by such fascist tactics, and respond by keeping the symbol that pisses the fascists off.

[Notre Dame rules!]

I have no problem with the Confederate flag as a symbol of the old South or of some kind of heritage, or anything of that kind--though it seems pretty silly to cling to such things.  However, when the national NAACP (not just the state chapter) promises to boycott your state and threaten your livelyhood, it tends to anger people more than scare them.  Also, people like John Stewart ragging you on television to vote for the 'compromise' flag tends to entrench people rather than convince them.

Had MS proposed a decent looking flag that symbolized something, anything, withnout denegrating those who were content with the flag they currently had, the issue may have passed.

As for the GOP's involvement in the flag issues, it must be remembered that both SC's decision to fly the battle flag  over their State House, and GA's decision to place the battle  flag within the state flag, were done so under Democrat governors and Democrat state legislatures.

The only thing that the GOP hasa officially said about the issue is that it should be left up to the voters of the respective states to decide the issue.