WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host) Two weeks after the Midterm Elections, the country is getting ready for some new management. With us again to talk about what's next is political analyst Otis Sanford. Welcome back.
OTIS SANFORD: Thank you, Chris. Good to be with you.
BLANK: Some of the biggest news this week came from your home state of Mississippi, Otis. On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate race was finally called for Scott Colom, the first Black Mississippi senator since the Reconstruction Era. This was a race that the media virtually ignored until the votes were being counted. What did the pundits miss about Mississippi?
SANFORD: Well, I think the number one thing they missed was the determination by voters in Mississippi to to vote for change. And I think they also missed the fact that Scott Colom is an outstanding candidate.
BLANK; You know, given the state's history with race, what do you think really tipped the scales here? Is it that more Black voters are now going to the polls in Mississippi, or did something happen substantially to white conservatives who have always voted Republican?
SANFORD: It's a combination of all of that, Chris. I think, certainly, there were more energized Black voters, especially young people. They had a strong turnout, but it was also a lot of white voters looked at their pocketbooks, and like everybody else in the country, they saw that they were struggling with gas prices, grocery prices, while Donald Trump and his family and his friends were enriching themselves. And people said enough is enough. And they said it in Mississippi. That's what happened here.
BLANK: Well, here in Tennessee, Democrats pretty much wrote off our U.S. Senate race. When Bill Hagerty's Democratic opponent, Marquita Bradshaw, gets 42% of the vote without even campaigning, it seems like there was a missed opportunity here for Democrats. Could Tennessee still be in play in four years, the next time we have a Senate race?
SANFORD: Oh, I think it can, and I agree that there was a big missed opportunity here to run somebody who was willing to do the hard work and get some help with the voter turnout. Just like the congressional candidates should have had more support and more help getting the vote out. If they had, the Democrats would have won those seats as well.
BLANK: And you pointed out in a recent column that Shelby County Democrats can sometimes be their their own worst enemies, especially when they can't rally around one of their own like Rep. Justin Pearson. Locally, do you see that as a leadership problem, or is that just sort of the independent nature of liberals? And how do how do they address that?
SANFORD: We have a unifying leadership problem. We don't have enough unifying leaders who have the quality to gather people together and say, "We need to go in this direction. We need to support this. We need to mobilize this electorate. We have a lot of people in this community who identify as Democrats, [but] nobody is stepping up to be that unifying leader. They have that in Georgia. They have that in Mississippi now. We don't have that in Shelby County or in Tennessee, where the Democrats are concerned.
BLANK: Well, turning locally for a minute, data centers are in the news every day now. More are being built, whether you like it or not. City leaders are working on new regulations for them, but many residents are unhappy with the progress. Do you like anything you're hearing right now about some of these proposed regulations that are working their way through the Memphis City Council?
SANFORD: I do think that when we talk about making sure data centers pay property taxes, personal property taxes, and even contribute additional monies to help the communities where they are located, I like that. I also like the fact that there should be some specific requirements about where these data centers should go, and not be a burden or a problem or a health concern for a lot of residents. So the location of these places need to be more strategic and more thoughtful.
BLANK: We did see Mayor Paul Young say no recently to PILOT tax incentives for a a data center at the old Fred's headquarters. You know, Memphis has always been very generous with its tax incentives, and this seems like a political rather than an economic move on the part of Mayor Young. Would you say that?
SANFORD: Well, I think it's a combination of both. I do think it was political. Mayor Young knows that the data center issue could be an albatross around his neck next year as he runs for re-election. But I also think it was a prudent decision. We should not be giving PILOTs to data centers. PILOTs should be awarded for people who bring in a lot of jobs. There are not a lot of permanent jobs associated with data centers. And so I think the mayor was absolutely right to do this. He certainly was right to tell the public that he's doing it, but it was also a political move as well.
