…Lee Jarrell Davis of Seminary, Mississippi.
The final scoreboard shows us…
House Dist. 102 - R
8 of 8 precincts reporting (100%)
DAVIS 1,568 62%
ARRINGTON 967 38%
…62%. Technically, not quite 2/3 — but not a loss either. A win is a win and I’m sure the Davis camp will take it.
So, now it’s official — long-time legislator/businessman versus former radio guy. I’m really tempted to do a Nick Bakay-like “Tale of the Tape” segment — but then again I’d probably end up saying “advantage: Lee Jarrell Davis” on each point and never say “advantage: Rick James”.
Sooooo… let the diplomacy continue. Rick now knows it’s a showdown versus the incumbent. It was the most likely scenario.
If Rick is to win, he might want to take a lesson from Derek Arrington — don’t start off with the tone Hattiesburg is tired of the same old politician (an indirect swipe at Lee Jarrell — basically how one Arrington ad began). If that’s the case, how come Arrington lost? (Never met Derek — but I hear he’s a pretty sharp character — so I’m sure we’ll see him again running for another office.)
True, this was just Round One and a vote by the party faithful — but the numbers show a lot of folks like Davis and appreciate his service in the last term — especially in the realm of tort reform. For those of you who say, “If only Mississippi had an open primary system, he might have lost,” I hear ya. I wish we had open primaries, too. But there’s no time to play “What If?” For Rick and Lee Jarrell, it’s a game of “What Now?”
Time to bring up that “full-scale attack” theme again. If Rick hasn’t bought ad space in every available medium — and that means radio, TV, billboards, yard signs, newspapers and even his own campaign website (I just Googled “Rick James Mississippi House District 102” only to find old news articles and even my first entry on this matter back in April!… no campaign website) — he might want to invest some money in advertising right about now.