Scott Colom, Coming on Strong in Mississippi

 

I'm usually focused on North Carolina races. Today, I'm fairly obsessed with Mississippi District Attorney Scott Colom, who appears to be making a lot of headway against Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, the former agriculture commissioner who got appointed to Thad Cochran's seat when he stepped down, survived a special election, and won her first full term in 2020. She's a MAGA-bot.

You get a quick -- and fairly indelible -- impression of Colom from almost any of his reels and videos, and there are a lot of reels and videos. Here's just one that hits a lot of character traits, remarkable for how he introduces his family, who are downright charming. Also funny. They're genuine. The whole family seems as solid as seasoned oak, and Colom comes across as "all-American striver" for the good and the just.

 

He says in another video that his father, who's a Republican, ran once for state treasurer and campaigned for Ronald Reagan. His mother, also accomplished, served as a sitting state judge. Colom won his district attorney race in north Mississippi in 2015, quickly established a reputation for successful prosecutions, and was himself named to a Federal district judgeship by President Joe Biden in 2022. Why didn't that judgeship happen? Because Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith could -- and did -- block his nomination from going forward. Colom is now running to unseat her. The Great Wheel turns!

The national Democrats have certainly noticed him. Chuck Schumer and DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand praised him when he announced. Schumer attended a fundraiser for Colom in DeeCee. But so far the DSCC has left Mississippi out of its $40 million "investment" fund. Colom has complained a bit about that, but he's also turned the snub into something like a rallying cry. He has raised good money, $2.8 mil by the last filing. But Hyde-Smith has a million more. The best sign is that Colom outraised Hyde-Smith in the 2nd Quarter. There may be wind at his back. Or maybe a wave.

The attack lines against Colom will emphasize the letter he signed in 2021 opposing efforts to criminalize transgender people and gender-affirming health care. "Too liberal for Mississippi!" That oldie. "Probably a Communist!" He did receive support from none other than the George Soros-funded Mississippi Safety & Justice PAC, which spent heavily in support of Colom's 2015 DA campaign. I applaud George Soros for spotting talent. Frankly, if Colom stays very much on message about the economics of life in Mississippi -- as he seems to be doing -- I doubt very much that red-baiting is going to work as well as it used to. With the outrageous prices of everything, who has time to worry about ... did you say "communists"? What is this? 1957?

Some Democratic liberals possibly harbor a grudge against Colom, because as District Attorney he recused himself from the Ricky Ball police-shooting case. It was the standard outrage -- a white police officer manages to kill a Black teenager during a routine traffic stop. Rather than charge the cop, D.A. Colom kicked the case to the state's Attorney General. (I sympathize with that decision.) The officer was subsequently indicted for manslaughter by a grand jury, but the Republican Attorney General of Mississippi dismissed the charge in 2020. You can see why people get upset. Colom later told Mississippi Today that he regretted transferring the case to the Attorney General's Office, with its sad and maddening outcome. The blasted fruit of his own recusal.

One poll puts Hyde-Smith ahead by 6 points. But the Colom campaign's internal polling puts them dead-even. So Colom is getting a fair share of coverage on the Left side of the media right now. I finally decided to pay attention today. 'Bout time.

Testing the Flippability of a Very Red Mountain County

 

“We have to get righteous people in in order to get righteous decisions.” 

--Dylan Castle, Republican candidate for the Macon Co. Commission 

 

Janet Jacobs Greene

 

If what that candidate said doesn't shiver your spine a little, what in the world is the matter with you? If there's one thing none of us need -- except nuns, possibly -- is a man with a direct pipeline to God who also wants to be in charge. Are you kidding me? 

Alex Perri's profile of all six county commission candidates down in Macon County (no, five candidates, because the sole Republican incumbent running for reelection this year refused to sit for an interview with the Smoky Mountain News) is fascinating, not because I have any property or other interests in Macon County but because the Republican CoCommish candidates are an interesting study in weather-vaning. You can tell which way the wind's blowing. It's entertaining to watch them tack.

All three Republican candidates -- two are first-time candidates running for open seats -- are strongly opposed to data centers. All three want to put the cap on Flock cameras too. Except for the youngest Republican (quoted above), they take pains to seem moderate. Not a MAGA opinion in sight (except for a smidgen from pastor Dylan Castle, who's also the youngest candidate and the most "led by God."

Macon currently has a 1-3-1 arrangement: one commissioner from District 1, three from District 2, and one from District 3, although all five commissioners are elected countywide. It's a Republican scheme to change this arrangement to five single-member districts. Democrat Terry Bell is running explicitly in opposition to the single-member plan, "arguing at-large voting keeps commissioners accountable countywide." Fair point. (As it was in the county of Watauga when state Sen. Ralph Hise decided to give the county commission to Republicans via restructuring and gerrymandering.)

The three Democrats on the Macon ballot look like a strong group, especially Janet Jacobs Greene, the 70-something former school board member and former county commissioner who went into the ministry in the United Methodist Church and has retired from that. She's totally credible as a bridge-builder and a long-range planner. Her Democratic running mates are also mainly impressive, like Terry Bell, who retired from a long teaching career in 2009, "then went to work the next day for Macon County government, where he spent five years shepherding more than $50 million in school construction projects for the county manager. He retired for good in 2020."

Russ Lunn, the Democrat running against Republican John Shearl -- the only incumbent, the one who refused to be interviewed -- is more inscrutable. Lunn calls attention to the stewpot that Macon has been recently over hot-button issues like bailing out of the Fontana Regional Library system and proposed data centers and Flock cameras. According to Lunn the five ruling Republicans have been opaque in their decision-making, unaccountable, always voting a lockstep 5-0 on every issue, a unanimity that they've apparently worked out in advance, always in closed session -- they have a lot of closed sessions. Russ Lunn is a master of understatement. He says he's running because the "tone" on the current commission is "disagreeable." When ordinary citizens make complaints, they get angry arguments instead of action.

Macon County has been DJT country. He won the county in 2024 with 68% of the vote. So while a complete or even a partial red-to-blue flip seems an awfully tall order, I'm going to be watching Macon as one of my bellwethers for a building blue wave. There's also Democrat Caleb Brown, running for the House seat (Dist. 120) that the popular Republican Mike Clampitt left vacant by his untimely death. Brown is running against Republican Carl Gillespie, who was appointed just months ago to the seat. 

Richard Ojeda Delivers What Democrats Want -- A Fighter

Richard Ojeda

 

The DCCC added the 9th Congressional District to its "Districts to Watch" list all the way back in August, but I didn't wake up to the flip possibility until Thomas Mills highlighted Democrat Richard Ojeda as a comer a couple of weeks ago. I've actually been following Ojeda for years on social media but hadn't paid attention to his candidacy for Congress. Ojeda's a very verbal critic of hypocrisy and malfeasance. He projects an intensity of integrity. That, combined with a born-to-the-plow appreciation for the working class and for rural people, helped him get a West Virginia Senate seat in 2016. He's what my father would have called feisty. And by all (social media) appearances, he's giving this campaign all he's got. Against incumbent Richard Hudson.

Hudson rose in Republican ranks as a party operative. He worked for GOP Chair Robin Hayes for some four years (before the arrest and sentencing) and then became Virginia Foxx's first chief of staff. He went on to work for a couple of Texas Republican congressmen before coming back to NC with a wealth of political know-how, to run for Congress successfully against Democratic incumbent Larry Kissell in 2012. Hudson has been easily reelected six more times (in fluctuating districts, because gerrymandering) and rose this year to head the NRCC -- making him the chief congressional candidate recruiter. In any other year Hudson would seem invulnerable.

This is not any other year.

Richard N. Ojeda II is a retired U.S. Army major, educator, and longtime social-media political commentator. He served 24 years in the Army, including deployments to Korea, Honduras, Jordan, Iraq, Haiti, and Afghanistan, and served as a paratrooper before retiring as a major. He won his WVa Senate seat with almost 60% of the vote, in the heart of the southern coalfields. He's firmly of a place and one of the folks. As a state senator, he became nationally known for his outspoken support of West Virginia teachers during the 2018 teachers' strike, advocating higher teacher pay and improved public-school funding.

In 2018, Ojeda ran for Congress in West Virginia's heavily Republican 3rd District. Although he lost to Republican Carol Miller, the campaign made him a nationally recognized Democratic figure, particularly because of his working-class, pro-labor message and unconventional personal style. He subsequently made a brief run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, thought better of it, and stopped.

Since then, Ojeda has maintained a substantial social-media presence, regularly releasing direct-to-camera videos on politics, government, veterans' issues, working-class concerns, and current events. The message in every one: "I'm your fighter. Send me."

This is the video message Ojeda made for DJT after the president threatened to mobilize troops against Minnesota many months ago: 

https://www.facebook.com/RichardOjeda2020

https://ojedafornc.com/

https://www.instagram.com/ojedafornc/

https://x.com/ojedafornc

https://www.youtube.com/@OjedaforNC

 

3rd District Campaign

 

Smarter people than me keep mentioning a possible earthquake of a red-to-blue flip in NC Congressional District 3, where conservative urologist Greg Murphy is in his 4th term in Congress. (The DCCC has had its eye on the 3rd Dist. all year.) Murphy's a hardliner against abortion rights and once tweeted, “No one forces anyone to have sex,” in an online argument he was having with a liberal over the Dobbs decision, which threw abortion rights under the bus. Murphy later deleted the tweet.

The 3rd District encompasses much of eastern North Carolina, including Greenville, New Bern, Jacksonville, and the Outer Banks.

Raymond E. Smith Jr.

 

Murphy's opponent in November is Raymond E. Smith Jr. He's an impressive candidate on paper, a former member for two terms of the NC House representing Wayne and Sampson counties and a member at large of the Wayne County Board of Education. He likes to go by "Dr. Raymond E. Smith," displaying a degree he earned the hard way. He has a Doctorate in Education Leadership. Leadership and civic service run in his family. His father was a Marine and served with distinction, and his mother was herself an 18-year veteran on the School Board. Raymond Jr. is a decorated Gulf War combat veteran, former military policeman, and a statewide transportation planner for the NCDOT. 

He recently got a huge boost. The Congressional Black Caucus in DeeCee endorsed him, which means more than just money -- and the money ain't nothing to sneeze at -- for there's tactical support as well. “It means access to resources. It means that our base can be energized by the thought that they have a legitimate candidate in this race,” Smith said.

But fundraising for Smith has lagged. "GOP incumbent Greg Murphy is trouncing Democratic challenger Raymond Smith Jr. in #NC03 in money battle. Murphy raised $390K to Smith's $107K, and in terms of available cash Murphy entered July with $2.7 million to Smith's less than $74K" (Bryan Anderson tweet). 

Congressman Greg Murphy

 

The elections Smith has been in, starting at his homebase in Goldsboro:

2018 -- 1st election to NCH-21, took 52.65% of the vote.

2020 -- reelection, took 53%.

2022 -- did not run for reelection to NCH-21 but elected to run for NCS-4 in the Democratic primary against incumbent Democratic Senator Toby Fitch. Fitch got 54.5%; Smith, 45.5%.

2023 -- ran for Mayor of Goldsboro and lost by six votes. That's the kind of loss that can actually energize and count as a kind of moral win

Though he's well known in Goldsboro, he's attracted little media attention in places like Jacksonville and New Bern. Smith's Facebook presence is as stiff as his portrait on his website, so I can't tell how much energy his campaign has. Comes down to enthusiasm leading to volunteer boots on the ground to help with registration and voter contact. I don't see evidence, but I hope it's there.

 

We Got the Message, Senator

 

Based on Fetterman's appearance for DJT last night at the "DJTpaloosa" in Dallas, I'd hazard that Dems now need five new seats in the Senate instead of just four, because Fetterman was really sending an unmistakable message to his fellow Dems : "Don't count on me."

We've been there, done that, with Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Many of us still drinking milk of magnesia over him.

In addition to the new seats in North Carolina, Texas, Maine, and Ohio, we're going to need either Iowa or Alaska too. Or, hell! throw in both of them for extra measure. 

I wrote about the rise of Fetterman back in May of 2022, when he was a new curiosity on the cusp of beating Conor Lamb in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary for US Senate. He'd go on to win that Senate seat. His term will be up in '28. Back in '22: "John Fetterman looks like a lumberjack auditioning for the lead in a stage production of Shrek. Unconventional, working-class to the bone, with populist instincts, pugilistic, and rough as a cob."

Now I'd just explain him as unstable. Not safe to lean on.

The Gilded Age -- "More DJT Every Day!"

 

Sept. 2017. Photo Alex Brandon/AP

 

I'm interested right now in the theory -- we have to call it a theory -- that more DJT every day means more independents voting Democrat. DJT says he wants to make this election a referendum on himself, and so do smart Democrats. Polling and the pundits suggest that more showcasing of ego and excess will mean the actual slow death of MAGA. Which appears to be why some Republican Congressional candidates are quietly hoping DJT never comes to their districts.

The big "DJTpaloosa" down in Dallas becomes an acid bath for rational Republican candidates and operatives. They know very well that showcasing the bluster and bloviation of the cult leader at this particular time does no one any good. All the gold gilding in Michaels won't cover DJT's detachment from working people's reality, so absorbed by his own search for glory and cash, not necessarily in that order. Oh he's banked billions. And doesn't seem to have a clue what people actually worry about. It's not the same things that DJT sez we ought to be focused on, like triumphal arches and big ballrooms and gold coins and punishing Canada for some goddamn reason and getting us bogged down in the Persian Gulf with higher everything. DJT's bragging on himself in this present reality becomes real-time evidence that he doesn't give a shit about anybody but himself -- and possibly a few relatives. 

Isn't it a red flag that DJT actually said that the "only reason" that a community that opposes a data center will "end up being backwards and poor” (Monday, August 31, 2026, on Truth Social)? All indications are that large parts of MAGA are saying back a maybe quiet "fuck you." The uproar over new data centers and their proliferating burden on both the environment and taxpayer money is not the doing of intellectuals. It's an uprising among the very people who've voted for DJT, probably twice. Who would have guessed even three months ago that the public costs of Artificial Intelligence would become a big political issue before the election, with Republican leaders scrambling to react to their voters' opposition to new warehouses for large electric appliances? Data centers are being banned in many NC counties with Republican majorities, or moratoria are stopping development until rules can be written. Public hearings are crowded with working people, not intellectuals.

I looked for Virginia Foxx's name in the long speaker-list for the DJTpaloosa and couldn't find her. Congressman Richard Hudson is speaking, the only member of Congress from NC, and otherwise it's candidates like Laurie Buckout -- recently banned from a gambling site for betting on herself -- and the struggling Michael Whatley, who's got nothing else left but prostrating himself. I wondered if Foxx would even go to Dallas. I checked her Facebook page. She doesn't mention anything about DJTpaloosa or Dallas, but clearly not out of any attempt to distance herself from the man. She's always gushing about DJT's hugely successful and miraculous agenda. She recently served up this baloney: "This has been the most productive Congress since 1949!"

Said like a true accolyte who fears no failure. How out-of-touch that is will soon be tested in the 5th District of North Carolina, and everywhere else.

 

The Unpredictable Surprises of November 3rd

"If you’re a Republican in Congress, even if you’re running in a district Trump won by eighteen points, even if your polls have you ahead, brace yourself – you may find yourself staring a hard reality in the eye on election night."

--Carter Wrenn on Substack, Sept. 4, 2026 

 

I love it when a respected conservative operative, who was Jesse Helms's political guru for years, plays Cassandra for his side. You know who Cassandra was -- Priam's daughter who always knew when disaster was coming. No one ever believed her. That was her curse. Carter Wrenn's playing that part for Republicans. More than prophet, Wrenn knows politics and can see history straight. Among many other political achievements, Wrenn managed Ronald Reagan's winning campaign in the North Carolina primary of 1980, upsetting Gerald Ford. 

Wrenn predicts in a roundabout way that turnout -- lack of turnout -- will be the Achilles heel for Republicans this November. Lack of turnout can erase an 18-point paper advantage very quickly.

Which is why the surprises of November 3rd are pretty much unpredictable. Less than two months to go to find out. 

The Berger Perplex

 

Last Thursday, Phil Berger Jr. announced on X that he would not be running for reelection in 2028. What? First Phil Berger Sr. bites the dust in the March primary. Now Number One Son Phil Junior announces he's going to be off of the state Supreme Court when his current term expires in '28.

Before we can begin to clap his exit, the dern Carolina Journal, the organ of the John Locke Foundation, immediately understands that Junior has his eye on the Chief Justice seat currently occupied by Rumpelstiltskin Paul Newby, the most highly partisan chief justice in our lifetime. In other words, last Thursday what Phil Junior was trying to say on X was "I'm not going to run for this seat on the Supreme Court, but for a wholly different seat -- the most important seat."

Symmetry. Berger first ran ten years ago in 2016 for the Supreme Court seat that Paul Newby was vacating so that he could run for Chief Justice. Berger has a practice of following in his master's footsteps. (Newby is required by law to retire at age 76. He'll be 73 in 2028, which means he would have to retire in the middle of that 6-year term. So tell me they haven't worked this all out in advance.)

Berger's reputation as a Republican partisan comes from his refusing repeatedly to recuse himself from deciding cases in which his own father, Phil Berger Senior (the about-to-be-former President Pro Tem of the NC Senate), was a defendant (who stood to benefit at least politically from the decision). The crucial Harper v. Hall redistricting decision, which had thrown out the Republicans' 2021 General Assembly districts as unconstitutional gerrymandering; the Voter I.D. case; the Leandro school funding case. Occasionally, when he's been challenged for his family relation he's referred the question of recusal to the other justices, and they always vote 4-2, "Hell, no! Junior doesn't need to recuse himself, because Daddy as a defendant is only a defendant because he was acting in his official capacity as leader of the Senate." 

It was a regular Berger family duopoly of power.

A reminder of how Phil Jr. got hatched:

First, he ran in 2014 for the seat vacated by Congressman Howard Coble. He was backed by wads of money and the full-bore influence of his father, but Phil Junior lost to Mark Walker (of noted memory). Lost the Republican primary when a lot of pundits thought he'd win.

Following quickly that humiliating defeat, Phil Junior got himself appointed to an administrative law judgeship. In 2016, he took the next step and challenged Judge Linda Stephens for a seat on the Court of Appeals and won. That was the same year Trump arrived. Plus Junior benefited from a last minute legislative stunt that Phil Senior pulled off in the short session of the General Assembly the summer of 2016. He got the law changed as regards random "ballot order," insuring that candidates that belong to the same party as the sitting governor (Pat McCrory) get listed first on the ballot. Berger beat Stephens by a slim margin, 22,099 votes. He quit the seat in 2020, to run for the Newby seat on the Supreme Court. You could say the boy exhibits ambition, and he's in a hurry.

Reasons Not To Be a College Professor Right Now

 

Peter Hans, President of the UNC System

 

A.I.  

I retired as a college professor in the nick of time (well, 26 years ago, but still). I taught a lot of advanced composition, coaching students in three basic writing challenges: the personal essay, in which a student tells his own story; research, usually tracing and characterizing the pop culture reaction to major national stories of importance; interview, telling someone else's story. I think I was good at it.

But what the hell would I do now with A.I. unleashed on the world? My teaching method -- having every student in my office once or twice a week to review their drafts and make suggestions -- made plagiarism almost impossible. I don't think any of them would have dared hand me something someone else wrote. But A.I. not only makes easy plagiarism possible. It makes it almost inevitable.

Say a student has chosen to research press accounts of the Lindberg baby kidnapping in 1932. My students used to go to the library and pore through old magazines and read the New York Times on microfilm. But now? I dare you to impersonate a student and ask Chatgpt how mass media characterized Lindberg before and after the kidnapping and whether there was any nay-saying about the national hero and his tragic loss. You'd get a publishable essay, with all the links to sources. Research paper done!

A.I. is going to change all of education.

 

Peter Hans  

It's one thing for Silicon Valley to mess with individual achievements based on long and good work; it's wholly another thing when the president of the UNC system -- which includes AppState -- acquiesces to witch-hunters on the Right and mandates a new university-wide policy that all faculty class syllabuses are now public records and will be posted up online for the convenience of politically motivated groups looking for anything that doesn’t match their viewpoint.

One man mandated the new policy -- not the General Assembly, but the UNC System President himself, Peter Hans. Single-handedly. All by himself. He didn't even get the agreement of the UNC Board of Governors. Hans is so clearly in his position because the Republican super-majority in the General Assembly wants him there, and he intends to please them in the continuing harassment of higher education. Hans was himself a one-time Republican political operative who worked as a senior policy advisor to senators Laugh Faircloth and Richard Burr and became a campaign consultant for Elizabeth Dole. 

In October 2025, the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project tried to use their fishing license— public-records requests -- to target some 70 UNC-Chapel Hill courses, "particularly courses dealing with race, gender, sexuality and related subjects." Some administrators pushed back, averring that instructors' syllabi were not public records. So in December 2025 -- three months after the Heritage Foundation went fishing -- President Hans announces the new policy that all course syllabi are public records and must be posted online for the convenience of stalkers and revenge-addicts. 

Here's what the new policy requires of teachers -- in addition to the usual week-by-week outline of reading assignments. I consider it onerous as well as ominous:

1. Course name and description. 

2. Goals, objectives, student learning outcomes and expectations. 

3. An explanation of how the professor will approach grading, including a scale, a percentage breakdown of major assignments, and attendance and participation expectations. 

4. All course materials that students will have to purchase. 

5. A statement indicating that the inclusion of diverse scholarly perspectives does not imply endorsement of those perspectives, but rather is an attempt to develop critical thinking.

I'm glad to be out of the system.