The Clarion-Ledger Editorial, 10/30/7
The 2007 race for the post of commissioner of agriculture and commerce shouldn’t even be a contest, given the incumbent’s inability to take responsibility for himself in office.
A wag could put it as incumbent Lester Spell against the beef plant. In this, the state loses both ways: with Spell refusing to take responsibility for the $55 million fiasco, and the fiasco itself. But, really, it’s Spell vs. Spell.
Spell, who turned Republican before this race (to the chagrin of Republicans, making him a man without a party), has tried to blame the Mississippi Beef Processors Inc. plant disaster that closed three months after it opened on the 14-member Land, Water and Timber Resources Board that he co-chairs. But, as challenger Rickey Cole put it, not only will Spell not take any blame for the fiasco (most officeholders connected with it have admitted some blame), Spell won’t even take 1/14th of the blame.
Magnolia Tribune
