Guv Candidate Looking Across Aisle?

Courtesy Panny Flautt Mayfield

Possible Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Luckett denied he is working with a Republican strategist on fundraising.

by Adam Lynch
June 22, 2009

Not surprisingly in a state where innuendo can be more common than facts, rumors are swirling around connections that a Democratic contender for the governor’s mansions might have. This time, though, the rumors are about probable candidate Bill Luckett and possible connections with conservative Republicans—connections he denies.

This story line began with a June 2, 2009, e-mail from Luckett’s legal assistant Robin Rushing to a media company interested in working for Luckett’s campaign that fell into Democratic hands and, ultimately, to the Jackson Free Press. The e-mail is cc’d to both Luckett and Republican strategist Quentin Whitwell.

Whitwell has strong conservative credentials. He co-founded The Talon Group, a Repubilcan government-relations fir, with conservative strategists Steve Janzen and Chip Reno. Last year, Jackson law firm Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes bought The Talon Group, and the law firm’s new government-relations division employs Reno, Whitwell, and Janzen, as well as government advisers Yvonne Horton and Aimee Boudreaux Garner.

Luckett opened the “Progress for Mississippi” PAC to fund what could prove to be his upcoming gubernatorial campaign, but his out-of-the-gate effort was initially confusing to some political watchers. Luckett, a Clarksdale attorney who owns Madidi restaurant and Ground Zero Blues Club with actor Morgan Freeman, was rumored to have hired Whitwell, to help raise money for the PAC. Whitwell worked for failed Republican presidential candidate John McCain last year, and is the chairman of the Mississippi Tort Claims Board, an appointment granted by über-Republican Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour.

Luckett, however, flatly denied rumors that he is working with Whitwell on funding his future race for governor: “Quentin is not working with me. He’s not contractually connected with me.” He added that “a number of Republicans” have approached him to run for the state office. “They say they’re Republican, but they’re looking for a better Mississippi. I don’t check pedigree. Quentin and I met on a non-partisan effort to get some legislation passed on charter schools in the Delta. I didn’t grill him on his political affiliation. I haven’t been looking under the sheets or anything.”

The June 2 e-mail to one of the principles of the media firm—which supports many Democratic candidates—did not mention Whitwell or state why he was copied. The e-mail made it clear that Luckett is not yetting seeking a media firm because he is in the early fundraising stage. "Presently, Mr. Luckett is focusing on Progress for Mississippi, a political action committee whose mission is to identify and develop policy issues impacting Mississippi for the 2011 gubernatorial race - with an eye towards support of a Democratic candidate. While Mr. Luckett hopes to be that
candidate, he is still undecided in regards to an official bid. So, at least for now, his focus is on fund-raising for Progress for Mississippi."

Sources say Garner is also doing research work for Luckett’s future Republican opponent current Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant. The Brunini Web site describes Garner as “play(ing) a role in Phil Bryant’s successful campaign for Lt. Governor” and as “serv(ing) as his finance director.”

Angela McMillen, executive director of American Association of Political Consultants, said firms rarely pit two employees on both sides in the same race.

“It would be kind of odd if that would happen, because of the confidentiality issues,” McMillen said.

Out-of-state money is key to winning the governor’s mansion in 2011, be the challenger Democrat or Republican, say strategists.

“To know how to win a statewide seat in Mississippi, you have to look at what Barbour did when he raised $13 million or $14 million. He couldn’t do that just in the state of Mississippi. He had to go out of state,” said Marty Wiseman, director of the Mississippi State University’s Stennis Institute of Government.

“The national Democratic Party has strong fundraising money right now, and I believe that Haley Barbour is right in thinking that the upcoming political battles are going to be in governor’s mansions, and Democrats may be seeing it that way, too. Governor’s seats will be fought over as hard as we have ever seen them, and if the national Democrats put out the word that Luckett can win, he’s likely to have a lot of money coming in.”

Barbour, after two terms as governor, must bow out of the next gubernatorial election due to term limits. Barbour is one of Washington’s most influential lobbyists and a prominent defender of corporate immunity to lawsuits, and successfully imported partisan Washington politics to Mississippi in 2001, riding a combined wave of Richard Nixon’s “southern Strategy” and Sen. Newt Gingrich’s K-Street money-saturated behemoth into the governor’s mansion.

Republicans dominated Washington politics for 12 years, but the party’s popularity is waning everywhere except in the politically segregated South, and the GOP hopes to hang onto the state’s executive branch with Bryant’s help.

But some local Democrats fear that if out-of-state Democrats perceive Luckett to be reaching across the aisle in his fundraising, it could injure his out-of-state fundraising attempts. Even Texas fundraising powerhouse Jeff Hewitt, a Democrat named “2007’s Rising Star” by Campaigns & Elections Magazine, said few Democrats have ever managed it.


“If that’s what’s happening, it would be an unusual move, considering that obviously, in a state like Mississippi, you need to raise significant dollars out of state and elsewhere to have the money to compete,” said Hewitt, co-founder and partner in general and fund-raising consulting firm Fero Hewitt Global.

“In our business, in that insular political world, that’s very unusual. It doesn’t happen very often. Other than Dick Morris or Bill Clinton, I can’t think of a good example of somebody doing work for both sides of the aisle.”

But that’s not an issue, said Luckett, who insists Whitwell is not working for the political action committee and is neither a member, an employee or under contract to him for anything.

Whitwell also denied any employment under Luckett, calling him “just a friend."

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