Gallo Notes: May 12, 2008

Gallo Notes:

After U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner, V.P. Dick Cheney, former Senator Trent Lott (and tomorrow Gov. Barbour, etc, ) there’s no one left to appear on the Gallo Show in support of Gregg Davis except the President and the Pope. By the way, the polling on the SuperTalk MS. Network, which ended at noon Monday, predicted Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers 53% and Southaven Mayor Greg Davis, 47%!!!!!

Under the “If A Tree Falls In The Forest” notes- Representative Sid Bondurant of Grenada, a practicing OB-GYN physician SWITCHES TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY and very little PR was done. The Republican Party both nationally and Mississippi have got to do a better job of PR. Both Bondurant and Brad White will join me on Tuesday’s Show. There are now 48 GOP members of the Legislature’s House. That puts them 14 shy, but with the help of Blue Dog Democrats, Mississippi’s conservative representation is alive and growing in the McCoy controlled House of Representative.

Gallo Under Fire from McCoy Camp- Here’s another point on McCoy’s boys coming after the SuperTalk family. Over the weekend the Clarion Ledger had inserts from MDOT “Evacuation Maps”. I’m pretty sure many other privately owned papers South of I-20 also carried the inserts. This means an agency of the state government contracted with the MEDIA to deliver much needed information. I thought it was money well spent. Informing the public through the use of the media is not a superfluous expenditure as related by one of those free speech opponents. What I didn’t hear was anyone from any of the newspapers decrying the need for legislative involvement to make an agency decision.

Also, if Speaker McCoy thinks advertising is just a waste, then why did he create the VPAK? Wait, is Mr. McCoy saying that public awareness isn’t important unless it’s to keep him in power? Here is what we might suggest in the upcoming Special Session-that all expenditures go through the same process he advocates for advertising. Since he cannot honestly demean the role of public awareness after vigorously funding the VPAK, then he should not mind if all expenditures come under the same non-discriminatory procedure. That means all contracts, from outside labor to paper products to vehicles to cell phones to paper clips to light bulbs to–you get the idea, would be treated like advertising.

A little overlooked fact is that many Federal Programs DEMAND advertising be inclusive or there will be no matching funds. That brings another element to the need for each individual agency being both responsible and competitive per contract.

Finally, we don’t know if Gov. Barbour will list two, three or four items on the Special Session Agenda, but we do know this, if the “Yellow Dogs” win Tuesday, they will be howling even louder whenever the Special Session gavels in.