Democratic ads great strategy,
but ignore hard facts

By By Sid Salter
August 19, 2004
As the saying goes, friends come and go but enemies accumulate. That truism is being most effectively played out in the political theatre that is developing over the Mississippi Medicaid Reform Act of 2004.
This time, the state's Democrats are beating their Republican counterparts to the political punch. The decision by new state Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Dowdy to launch a series of attack ads against a few Republican lawmakers and Gov. Haley Barbour on the Medicaid issue is smart politics. Barbour's losing political friends over the Medicaid issue and new political enemies are accumulating.
Enough blame to share
The Democratic ads targeting Barbour and Republican lawmakers Sens. Tommy Robertson of Moss Point, Travis Little of Corinth and Alan Nunnelee of Tupelo along with state Rep. Greg Snowden of Meridian seek to place the sole blame for the Medicaid program cuts on Republican shoulders.
For Dowdy, that marks an aggressive, politically smart debut to his tenure as the leader of the state's Democrats. It's hardball politics, something some Republicans believed the state's Dems were no longer able to practice.
The Medicaid cuts were implemented in a ham-handed, unorganized fashion. The original letters to the recipients informing them of the cuts were insensitive and frightened recipients and their families and that was before public health advocates fanned the flames.
Barbour and the Division of Medicaid have done a lousy job explaining their claim that Medicaid recipients won't be hurt by the cuts. The political liability for Barbour and legislative Republicans is real and volatile.
More than that, the Medicaid cuts enacted targeted the most vulnerable Mississippians the poor, the disabled and the elderly. Bad politics, bad policy.
Democrats pushed cuts
But the Dowdy-engineered advertising campaign ignores a couple of solid facts inarguable facts that some slick advertising won't obscure or change.
The Medicaid cuts became reality in Mississippi with the strong support of Democrats in the Legislature. The Medicaid Reform Act passed by a strong bipartisan majorities 43-8 in the Senate and 82-32 in the House.
Democrats more than share the blame for the Medicaid cuts. That's the truth that Chairman Dowdy isn't telling you in his advertising campaign.
Robertson, Little, Nunnelee and Snowden are no more or less responsible for the Medicaid cuts than are Democratic legislators like Reps. Steve Holland of Plantersville and Leonard Morris of Batesville, who apparently suffer from political amnesia as they attack Barbour.
Holland, a key lieutenant in the House leadership, spoke firmly in favor of the bill on the floor of the House. Then, when the political flack began flying, Holland adopted the convenient political position that Barbour somehow "made" the House approve the Medicaid cuts.
Another bedrock truth ignored in the Democratic ads is that the reason Medicaid has become such a fiscal albatross to state government is that former Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove expanded the Medicaid program exponentially during his administration with the full consent of the Democratic Party majority in the Legislature.
Legislators and party chieftains alike who refused to support additional revenue for Medicaid while exponentially expanding Medicaid spending sound rather foolish now claiming that all Medicaid's fiscal ills can be traced to one Republican governor and the minority party's legislators. That's just a lie.
Dowdy would be better served advertising the final ugly truth: More tax revenues or less Medicaid services.
That's the bottom line.
Sid Salter is Perspective editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. Contact him at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com.