Keelan Sanders, executive director of the Mississippi Democratic Party and Terry Cassreino, communications director for the party, sat down recently with The Meridian Star’s Editorial Board to discuss what’s new with the part and the upcoming gubernatorial election.

Here are excerpts from that interview.



The Meridian Star: Right now you all are extremely busy with the upcoming election, what are some of your new initiatives or new angles that you are working on?



Terry Cassreino: Going into the 2007 election cycle, the Mississippi Democratic Party is at a point in its history where it hasn’t been in several years. I think it has a lot going in favor of itself. For the first time ever, we’ve got a full staff of professionals working at the party, we have a finance director, two field representatives who work with the county organizations and help organize volunteers. This wasn’t in place four years ago and the fact that we have the staff we are in a position to do more for the party in a support structure than what the party has been used to in past elections.

One of the things is that we are publishing a quarterly newspaper, The Mississippi Democrat, that we distribute to our members and donors around the state. We printed 10,000 copies of it. It gives our members a pretty good overview of what we are doing and helps get the message out. That has been a problem with the Democratic Party for a long time. When I joined the party in September as communications director, for a long time the Democratic Party sat back and let the Republican Party define who we are and now what we’re doing today is we’re in a position to get our message out and communicate our ideals and what the party stands for and supports, and we can communicate how we differ from the Republican Party.

We are the only party that is actually working to improve the life of the common, working men and women in Mississippi, and not just them, but everyone. We have everybody’s interest at heart.

These are the issues we stand for: consistent full-funding of education, reducing the sales tax on groceries, increasing the tax on cigarettes, complete Medicaid funding. These are issues that affect everyone in Mississippi, not just one particular segment and it would make life a lot easier for every Mississippian. I think we will see the results of our communication come November.



The Star: How do you get back to that Southern Democrat strong-hold? How do you get the folks back who decided to leave the party for whatever reason?



Sanders: There are a number of different ways to do it, but the main one is education through the messaging and the additional volunteers that we are working with because our whole position is who better to influence or to talk about issues with you than your neighbor. That is more likely to get you to go out and vote and get you more interested in the process.



Cassreino: It all comes down to communicating and educating the public about what we stand for and what issues we back. We believe we’re correct on the issues and we believe issues we stand for would make life better.



The Star: How do you overcome the perception that many Mississippians have that Democrats are too liberal on issues like abortion?



Cassreino: We’re not afraid to listen to other opinions and to listen to what other people have to say. We try to be open-minded about issues and we try to look at the big picture and we invite everybody to share their opinions. You look at the party and look at people who are attracted to the party, blacks, white, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans. You go to any county Democratic Party meeting and you look at the people who are there and its usually a vast array of different people with different opinions. That’s what makes the Democratic Party so strong and when people take a look at that, it is more representative of the United States as a whole.

The U.S. has always been called the melting pot and the party is too. You have to respect other people’s opinions. You can’t expect to shove one view point down someone’s throat.



Sanders: That national party’s emphasis on abortion is that government or anybody else shouldn’t dictate to a woman what she can do with her body. It’s the woman’s choice so no matter what a person’s belief or conviction about that it is still that individual’s right to choose what they would like to do. It’s not about dictating to the person.



Cassreino: The Republicans have exploited one or two big issues and they do it because it’s easy, it’s an easy emotional crutch and it’s an easy emotional issue. People will flock to that and Republicans realize that they can stir up the masses. It all comes down to message and communication. We have got to explain to people why we stand where we stand and that these are cheap issues. It’s the easy way out.

If you’re going to look at something that will change the life of people in the United States, for instance, you have a strong public education system. You put all your money in and fund a strong educational system and educate the people and you won’t have the problems with crime and you won’t have the problems with abortion and you won’t have the miscellaneous problems that Republicans latch on to.



The Star: There was so much back and forth about education funding in the last Legislative session. To some Mississippians, it came off as ugly party politics. How do you combat that?



Cassreino: The big picture with the education issue is the last time the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which is the basic state funding source for state public schools, was fully funded was in 2003. Granted, it was an election year, but it was fully funded and the person who funded it was Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat.

He was the one, along with the education leaders, who pushed this through the Legislature in the opening days of the session. For the last three years, Democrats led by House Speaker Billy McCoy, a Democrat, tried to get them to repeat what was done in the 2003 session. But, for three years, we had a Republican governor who fought it. He opposed it and he lobbied people to kill it. He said we can’t afford it.

Well we can’t afford to fund education but we can afford to fund more beds in the correction system and all these other things that if you are really serious about trying to reduce crime, you start by laying a solid foundation by fully funding education where everybody in Mississippi will have an equal chance.