A leader with ‘barbed-wire guts’
JACKSON — Just as Richard Nixon said “the press won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore” after he was defeated for California governor in the 1960s, Democratic House Speaker Billy McCoy now could borrow Nixon’s bazooka and aim it at Mississippi Republicans.
Since he announced a week ago he is not running for reelection to the House, hungry Repubs won’t have McCoy to kick around.
The crusty, blunt-spoken McCoy had become the symbolic whipping boy for the GOP political machine in its attack strategy to not only take control of both houses of the Legislature, but in at least one Republican’s race for statewide office, to seek brownie points by beating up on the veteran Northeast Mississippi legislator.
A GOP Web site, FireMcCoy.com, had been dedicated to ousting targeted Democrats it believed vulnerable and whose defeat would scuttle McCoy’s reelection as speaker. Now they will have to find a new name for the site.
Sun Herald
6/2/11
Magnolia Tribune
