Clarion-Ledger's David Hampton: GOP talk radio attacks on Speaker McCoy "laughable"

Clarion-Ledger Editorial Director David Hampton has a column out today about Speaker Billy McCoy's retirement.  Here's the highlight:

(McCoy's) counter to Barbour's power has been beneficial for the state, especially in protecting funding for education.



That has resulted in some brutal, partisan attacks on McCoy, especially on GOP-dominated talk radio. He has been characterized as a wild, free-spending liberal obstructionist. That is not only inaccurate, but laughably so.



Make no mistake, McCoy is a Northeast Mississippi populist Democrat. He is a fiscal conservative, but is attuned to the concerns of working-class voters. He was a key player in creation of the state's four-lane highway program, one of the most important economic development projects in decades. But he also has been a committed supporter of public education and health care.

Hampton's characterization of McCoy's politics is dead-on, and would fairly summarize the difference between Mississippi Democrats and Republicans. Both are fiscally conservative, but Democrats are far more concerned with the economic and educational interests of working and middle class Mississippians than Republicans, who continue to be the party of big business (just take a look at BIPEC ratings and the Mississippi Manufacturers Association's efforts to control the House Speaker's race).

Another McCoy editorial: Daily Journal's Lloyd Gray says "McCoy's career refutes the caricature"

Lloyd Gray has an editorial up praising McCoy's tenure in the legislature and shooting down the Republican criticism McCoy has faced on talk radio and the like. The whole editorial is well worth a read. It sums up what has happened to Mississippi politics over the last eight years, a period during which we've seen markedly increased and sharpened partisanship. It's the closing line, though, that I'll quote here:

(McCoy) is leaving more or less on his own terms. In doing so, he leaves a legacy of accomplishment that makes the caricatures painted by the McCoy mockers look mighty lame.