Dear Mr Howell;

I agree with Mr. Salter in his opinion of Mr. Freeman. I also think he’s good for the state. Assuming his quoted remarks were really spoken by him and are not being taken out of context, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.

“Reform in Mississippi is hard because the base stock of this state is a mule-headed bunch of farmers. These farmers have ruled the roost for so long because this is an agricultural state.”

This state IS an agricultural state so who, pray tell, should be ruling the roost here? And case in point these same “mule-headed farmers” were, and still are to some extent, the backbone of the Democratic Party. Back when the Democratic Party claimed to be the party of the working man.

“Holding on to the old politics of race, class and region has starved Mississippi for too long……”

Exactly what does this comment mean? To my knowledge. every state in the union has to deal with “politics of race, class and region.” And Mississippi, while being  the state the comedians and talking heads of the TV media love to denigrate, is doing as well as any in this regard, and far better than some.

And as to “reform in Mississippi is hard….”  Exactly what “reform” is he referring to?

In today’s political climate I think us “common country folk” should get a little jumpy when politicians (or actors who are business partners of politicians) start talking about “reform.”

Especially when the remarks were made as a host at a cocktail party in Los Angeles given for Bill Luckett, a possible Democratic candidate for governor of Mississippi in 2011, and who is quoted in this same article as inferring that not belonging to the  Democratic party means being “a racist or something.”  

/s/ Wendell Carvan

Oakland, Miss.