Acolleague described this past week’s televised debate between Tate Reeves and Brandon Presley as a “hot mess.”
That’s about right.
Though I didn’t yawn during the hourlong faceoff, the back-and-forth accusations of lying from the Republican incumbent and his Democratic challenger did get tiresome.
I’m not sure when candidate debates became so uncivil, but clearly that’s now the norm.
The candidates talk over each other, interrupt each other, are insolent to each other and, in every which way they can, try to paint their opponent as, above all, dishonest.
Both Reeves and Presley had a script they intended to follow, although it was more obvious in Reeves’ case.
He had two messages he wanted to drive home — that Presley lies about the incumbent’s record and that the Democrat is corrupt for taking campaign donations from the employees of a solar company that came before the Public Service Commission, on which Presley has served for the the past 16 years. I lost track of how many times Reeves repeated, “Three public service commissioners have gone to jail in the last 30 years for doing the same thing Brandon Presley did.”
It is a bit ironic that Reeves seems so offended by an opponent stretching the truth when he nestles himself inside the arms of Donald Trump, who as both president and candidate has set fabrication records that may never be broken.
As for the donations from the solar company’s employees, a Republican on the PSC, Brent Bailey, has also been a beneficiary. Like Presley, he says that there is nothing illegal about the donations, since the solar company does not meet the definition of a “public utility,” from which contributions to PSC members are barred.
To avoid the appearance of impropriety, it might have been better if Presley had returned those contributions. Reeves, though, would be hardly the one to make that type of “squeaky clean” argument, since the Republican has a long track record of receiving big-dollar donations from companies and individuals with multimillion-dollar state contracts.
On the issues, there wasn’t much new light shed from the debate.
Reeves and Presley remain far apart on Medicaid expansion, although the governor has at least felt compelled to try to provide a rational explanation for turning down $1 billion a year in federal funding that 40 other states are gratefully accepting.
Reeves used to think that saying “Medicaid expansion” and “Obamacare” in the same breath was all that he needed to do. Now he argues that more people on the Medicaid rolls would be bad for hospitals because, according to his administration’s research, a third of the new enrollees would be leaving private insurance to get on the government-provided coverage.
Even if there would be that much switching, my back-of-the-envelope math says the hospitals would net out better. The extra they received from two-thirds of the new Medicaid enrollees would be much more than whatever the hospitals lost from the one-third whose reimbursement rates declined.
Presley and Reeves do agree on one thing: that there’s enough surplus in the state treasury to afford even further reductions in taxes. They disagree, though, on what should be cut.
Reeves still wants to eliminate the already modest state income tax. Presley wants to reduce or eliminate the high sales tax on groceries. Their preference illustrates as well as anything their priorities.
Although all wage earners benefit from lower income taxes and all shoppers benefit from lower sales taxes, the level of benefit varies by economic class. Income-tax cuts are the most advantageous to those who are well-off, while sales-tax cuts most help those who are not. In a state in which the majority of the people live paycheck to paycheck or worse, cutting the sales tax on groceries would do the most good for the most people.
If Tuesday’s debate did anything to move the needle, though, it probably had little to do with the issues and more to do with the candidates’ personalities.
Being on stage is not a strength for Reeves’. He has an arrogant, privileged air that does not translate well to an audience that’s unsure about him. Presley does connect, though, with the undecided when he talks about growing up poor and losing his father at a young age. He is comfortable talking into a camera, and he comes across as much more empathetic than the incumbent.
Likability may be overrated, but it’s worth at least a few percentage points in a close election. Reeves was wise to give Presley just one crack at being on the same stage with him.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
