A Republicans Lament

A 2024 Book by Bill Crawford

In the few brief years when Mississippi had two effective political parties, a book called “A Republican’s Lament” might have been about missed opportunities for the state GOP to outmaneuver the other party, and those reading it might have fond memories of races past when you faced the enemy, but you respected him.

Bill Crawford’s Book, “A Republican’s Lament: Mississippi Needs Good Government Conservatives,” begins there but spends most of its time in a climate where there was only one effective party in Mississippi, and he laments missed opportunities for his own party to do what was best for Mississippi. It’s a book where he tells the truth, but it won’t win him many allies among old friends.

There was a period between about 1970 and 2010 when Mississippi politics were neither too hot nor too cold. I call it our “Sweet spot.” We began to escape from the sins of the past and began to consider new solutions for the future. Mississippi, which had been a one-party state since before the Civil War, experienced a time when two parties found ways to exist, confront, and cooperate with each other before sinking back into one-party politics again. Bill Crawford’s new book, A Republican’s Lament, covers that era from the perspective of Republicans that arose in Mississippi in between The Southern Strategy and The Tea Party and offered Mississippi some real solutions, even when we didn’t avail ourselves of them.

1975 was one of the most storied gubernatorial elections in Mississippi history. William Winter and Maurice Dantin sought the Democratic nomination but lost to a relative unknown named Cliff Finch. In the General Election, Cliff Finch and Henry Kirksey faced off against a rising Republican named Gil Carmichael. A young man, driving and writing speeches for Carmichael is where Bill Crawford begins his political career and where he begins his book.

By all accounts, the Finch Campaign was a clown show, and Carmichael countered it with very solid and real proposals. It’s said that every Democrat in Jackson switched sides and voted for Carmichael, but Mississippi never had a Republican Governor, and many people considered it impossible. The election results surprised everybody, as Carmichael won forty-seven percent of the vote.

In the early days of the GOP in Mississippi, guys like Thad Cochran, Trent Lott, Gil Carmichael, and Jack Reed believed in a very different sort of conservatism than the Dixiecrats who came before them and the Tea Party Republicans who came after them. These are the days when Crawford cut his teeth as a speech writer, political operative, journalist, and publisher. He was often the voice of a new school of thought in Mississippi, pushing for new concepts in responsible government and the fresh idea of a “Right-Sized” government advocated by Gil Carmichael.

In the middle of the book, I consider two chapters considerably more important than the rest. Both were about education. Kirk Fordice, for all the things he did wrong, put Bill Crawford on the College Board, and that was the perfect choice. Crawford became a visible part of the two most important issues in the history of higher education in Mississippi: The Ayers Case and University Consolidation.

Some people will resent even mentioning University Consolidation. There were times when even old friends were angry with Crawford about it. In the poorest state in the Nation, we remain woefully overstretched regarding higher education. Crawford’s experience as a banker made him the perfect man for this task, even though, at the time, we didn’t have the political will to do what he recommended. Turning our backs on the problem didn’t solve it, and now it’s back, bigger than ever, and people are beginning to reconsider what Crawford said at the time.

I was in a position to know nearly everyone involved in the Ayers case, including Alvin Chambliss. I knew guys on both sides who spent most of their careers working on this case. They had to change the defendant's name about four times before it settled.

Representing Ayers, Chambliss proposed that the state of Mississippi intentionally underfunded its three Historically Black Universities for racist reasons. The State of Mississippi’s defense, as orchestrated by Bill Goodman, was that, while Historically Black Universities in Mississippi were valuable and wanted, single-race universities were as problematic when it was Mississippi Valley State as it was when it was The University of Mississippi.

When it became clear that Mississippi should reach a settlement built around the agreement reached by Louisiana in a similar case, Crawford was brought in to use his financial experience to draft a plan that made the settlement digestible by the state legislature so they would sign off on it and we could get it done. Sitting in a room with Chambliss, Goodman, and Ruben Anderson, this is what was eventually signed.

Crawford makes an argument for the “Right Size” tactic for good government put forth by men like Gil Carmichael, Hayley Barbour, and Thad Cochran, as opposed to the “Starve the Beast” plan put forth by the Tea Party at the time and carried on by the Maga Republicans we have now. This was the era when I began to wonder if there was a place for me in the Republican Party anymore.

Crawford, having announced his retirement but very likely writing more than ever, is calling people in the book by their names, including some people currently serving the State of Mississippi. There will be backlash. Shad White is already calling him an “aging white liberal,” and he hasn’t even read the book yet. I’ve read Shad White’s book. If you’re only going to read one of these, get Crawford’s “A Republican’s Lament.”

I was involved in Mississippi politics for twenty years and then avoided it for twenty more years. I have a small but remarkably complete library about how Mississippi governs itself. In the interest of full disclosure, Bill Crawford is my churchman and my friend. Crawford likes to end most of his political essays with an appropriate passage from the bible. I do genuinely believe his faith shapes his political activism and always has.

A Republican’s Lament mentions a lot of names of people I think about often and miss a great deal. Mississippi will not likely see their kind again. It’s a reasonably short read at just under 200 pages, published by the University Press of Mississippi. I hoped to have this review done a week ago, but a funeral happened while I was working on it. There’s a very real market for this kind of writing. Copies of it should begin showing up at bookstores any day now if they’re not there already.

In Jackson, Lemuria Books will hold a book signing event with Bill Crawford in conversation with Lloyd Gray of the Phil Hardin Foundation on Thursday, October 17th at 5:00pm. Signed hardcover copies are $28.00.