As reported in the Sun Herald, on July 29, former Governor Ray Mabus and Governor Haley Barbour took some digs at each other on the stump at the Neshoba County Fair.
From the article
“I don’t understand why it takes 61 percent more money to run the Governor’s Mansion now than it did with the last governor (Ronnie Musgrove),” said Mabus, one of a long string of complaints he ticked off about Barbour’s policies.
At the press swarm after his speech, Barbour said: “When the governor has a wife who lives with him, it costs more than when you don’t have a wife” – a dig at Musgrove’s, and perhaps other former governors’, highly publicized marital problems.
The other former Governors got in on the act . . .
Former Democratic Gov. William Waller Sr. (1972-76) heaped praise on Barbour, opining that “if he doesn’t run for president, we ought to re-elect him by acclamation.”
Waller bashed the Legislature, saying it should have term limits and warning the audience “if we don’t watch them, they’ll build another beef plant,” referring to a legislative boondoggle that spent $50 million in tax dollars on a failed cattle processing plant.
Former Gov. William Winter (1980-84), told the crowd that Mississippi must focus on public education if it is going to prosper.
“We used to get by with second-rate education, because we had a second-rate economy that didn’t rely on skilled labor,” he said. “We got what we paid for.” He received a standing ovation.
