Echoes from Founder’s Square Fair: Neshoba speeches evolving
With information and ideas being dispersed these days via Blackberrys, e-mail, Web pages, spin-masters and smart cell phones, it would seem that political stump speech gatherings such as the Neshoba County Fair, Jacinto near Corinth, the Black Hawk rally in Carroll County, and Bentonia’s annual Great Fox Hunt are relics of a bygone era.
Truth be told, there’s a plethora of evidence to support the statement that great oratory has seldom won a political race.
An often-forgotten fact is that Abraham Lincoln lost the election for the U.S. Senate following his famous (or infamous, as the case may be) series of debates with Stephen A. Douglas in Illinois. Although Lincoln did not get the Senate seat, historians credit the debates with propelling him into the national spotlight and eventually the presidency.
Clarion Ledger
7/21/7
Magnolia Tribune
