John Davis Consulting

Labor Day Forecast 2024: Look for Divided Executives and Legislators Checked by GOP Courts

September 2, 2024       Vol. XVII, No. 8       1:13 am

Great News! Extremists checked by divided government!

The best way to give you an idea of what to expect on November 5, 2024, is to remind you about what happened 28 years ago on November 5, 1996. Here’s a summary:

On November 5, 1996, voters in North Carolina chose GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole for the White House and conservative firebrand Jesse Helms for the US Senate. But then, the same voters on the same day elected Democrats to all 10 state executive positions, including progressive Democrat Jim Hunt for governor. Then, the same voters who elected Senator “No” (Helms), passed a $1.8 billion bond for public school construction projects and passed a Constitutional amendment giving the Democratic governor veto power for the first time in state history.

Wait, it gets better. On that same day, November 5, 1996, North Carolina voters elected a Republican majority to the state Supreme Court, a Democratic majority to the state Court of Appeals, a Republican-led House of Representatives (Speaker Harold Brubaker), a Democrat-led state Senate (President pro tempore Marc Basnight), and split the 12-member Congressional delegation right down the middle, six Republicans and six Democrats.

At the federal level in 1996, Democratic President Bill Clinton won a second term, but had to contend with a Republican-led House of Representatives (Speaker Newt Gingrich) and a Republican-led US Senate (Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott). Clinton also had to deal with a 7-2 Republican-appointed US Supreme Court (Republican appointees: Chief Justice Rehnquist, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas. Democratic appointees: Ginsburg and Breyer).

So, now you know what to expect on November 5, 2024. Extremists on the left and right will be checked by divided government. That’s great news on this Labor Day 2024!

Republicans will dominate judicial branch no matter what

US Supreme Court: In 2024, there is a 6-3 Republican-appointed majority on the US Supreme court. That will not change this November, no matter who is elected to the executive and legislative branches in DC.

NC Appellate Judiciary: Likewise, there is a 5-2 Republican-elected majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court, and an 11-4 Republican-elected majority on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Democrats have no chance of winning a majority on the state’s appellate courts in November due to limited opportunities. There is only one NC Supreme Court race (Democrat Allison Riggs vs. Republican Jefferson Griffin) and three Court of Appeals races. For profiles see State Board of Elections Judicial Voter Guide here.

North Carolina General Assembly

State Senate & House: Republicans have become masters at gerrymandering state Senate and House districts to their advantage and successfully litigating the constitutionality of their maps. Per Dave’s Redistricting site (click left column “Partisan Lean” under Districts), Republicans have an advantage in 26 of the 50 Senate districts. Republicans can win the 30 seats needed for a supermajority if they hold their districts and pick up four more from the five competitive districts or 19 Democratic-friendly districts.

Per Dave’s Redistricting site (click left column “Partisan Lean” under Districts), Republicans have an advantage in 69 of the 120 House districts. Republicans can win the 72 seats needed for a supermajority if they hold their districts and pick up three more from the three competitive districts or 48 Democratic-friendly districts.

Regarding fairness in mapmaking, those standards were set by Democrats long ago.

NC Governor & Council of State

NC Governor & Council of State: Here in North Carolina, a divided government picture is unfolding. If the election were held today, Democrat Josh Stein would win the keys to the governor’s office, good news for the Democrats, but, as noted above, there is no scenario whereby Democrats can win the majority of seats in either the North Carolina Senate or House of Representatives.

You can expect big turnover on North Carolina’s 10-member Council of State, with at least seven new executives in the offices of Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Labor Commissioner, and Auditor (incumbent appointed).

Democratic Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, first elected in 1996, is certainly favored to win her race for another term, as is six-term Republican Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler. They are well-know, highly regarded North Carolina leaders. Republican Mike Causey, Commissioner of insurance, also has an advantage thanks to experience gained in two successful statewide races.

The other down ballot statewide executive races feature Democrats and Republicans who are relatively unknown statewide. As North Carolina is a swing state where neither party has a statewide structural advantage, those races are simply too-close-to-call.

Although Republican presidential nominees have won all but one race in North Carolina since 2000 (Obama 2008), Republican gubernatorial nominees have lost all but one race in North Carolina during the same time frame (McCrory 2012).

Welcome to North Carolina, the nation’s #1 state for ticket-splitting (and basketball).

NC Republicans may have buyers remorse in governor’s race

Mark Robinson, Republican candidate for governor, has a big problem. Republicans.

Per today’s Real Clear Politics (RCP) polling average, Democrat Atty. Gen. Josh Stein is leading Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson by 48.2% to 39.5%. Polls used in the RCP average include those sponsored by conservative groups like Carolina Journal (John Locke Foundation) and FOX News.

Robinson’s weak support among fellow Republicans can be clearly seen in the results from the Carolina Forward North Carolina poll released August 12, 2024. The poll shows Trump and Harris tied at 46%. In the governor’s race, the poll shows Robinson losing to Stein 36% to 46%. Here’s why:

• Trump has 91% Republican support; Robinson only 69%
• Trump has 42% Independent voter support; Robinson 29%
• Trump has 40% women voters; Robinson 30%
• Trump has 60% rural voters; Robinson 45%

Robinson’s own unchecked words are his Achilles Heel. Throughout July and August, videos of Robinson preaching in churches have been featured in TV attack ads in which he makes politically insensitive statements like, “Christians are called to be led by men, not women.”

Perhaps the most self-destructive TV ad is one in which Robinson implies that women are to blame for unwanted pregnancies because they “weren’t responsible enough to keep their skirt down.”

Although there is still time for Robinson to recover, at the starting gate it appears that his own party is having buyer’s remorse regarding his candidacy. Odds favor a Stein win.

The only existential threat to our democracy

On September 10, 2024, at 9:00 pm Eastern, the National Constitution Center will host the 2024 ABC News Presidential Debate. If there is a clear winner, one or the other will establish winning momentum. But it doesn’t end there. I was certain in 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape surfaced on October 7, that Trump could not recover politically from his lewd comments about women. It was over.

But then, on October 28, Hillary Clinton’s winning momentum was dashed by a letter to Congress from FBI Director James Comey reminding voters that she was suspected of having kept classified documents on her personal email server. That she may be as dishonest as many suspected.

On November 5, 2024, American voters are more likely than not to choose divided government in defiance of the doomsday prophets on the left and the right who foster political intolerance and legislative gridlock by proclaiming that those who disagree with them are an existential threat to our democracy. The only existential threat to our democracy are those who foster political intolerance.

Happy Labor Day 2024!

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Add John Davis to your agenda this fall: www.johndavisconsulting.com

Democrats Demoralized as Republicans Unite and Revel in Trump’s Heroic Defiance of Assassin’s Bullet

July 17, 2024       Vol. XVII, No. 7       1:13 pm

A bullet changes everything

Trump bloodied but unbowed; an iconic image for the ages. Surrounded by Secret Service agents, blood dripping down his face, his clenched fist raised in defiance of an assassin’s bullet. Victorious.

As we saw last night at the GOP convention in Milwaukee, Republicans, including all former primary opponents like Ramaswamy, DeSantis, Scott, Burgum, and Haley, are now unified behind Trump. Enthusiastic about their prospects of winning the presidential race this November. Emotionally committed to doing the hard work of winning the 2024 presidential race. Sacrificial hard work.

Democrats demoralized

Meanwhile, Democrats are demoralized. Discouraged by polling numbers that show their aging and often befuddled leader is running behind Trump in the battleground states (the only polling that matters in the race for 270 Electoral College votes). Per today’s Real Clear Politics average, Trump is leading by 5 points or greater in North Carolina (+5.4), Nevada (+5), and Arizona (+5.7); leading in the “blue wall states” of Pennsylvania (+4.5), Wisconsin (+3) and Michigan (+1.3). Leading in Georgia (+3.9).

Democrats are devastated by the realization that if Biden’s trendline continues, the GOP will win it all. The White House. The US House and Senate. More state executive and legislative races. Behind the scenes, respected Democratic insiders continue to work to replace Biden and Harris with a ticket more likely to reenergize the party faithful and stop the attrition of major donors. A winning ticket.

Many Democrats have become like Rep. Adam Schiff, D-CA, the censured architect of numerous failed attempts to bring down Trump, like his Russian collusion conspiracy theory and his partisan attempt to impeach and convict Trump of Abuse of Power, who told an audience of contributors in East Hampton, NY, last Saturday, “I think if [Biden] is our nominee, I think we lose.” Per New York Times, Schiff said, “And we may very, very well lose the Senate and lose our chance to take back the House.”

Democrats know they are in deep trouble when they lose the confidence of their own leaders like Schiff, who just today released a statement calling on Biden to step aside. And then there is the loss of major donors like Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, and Abigail Disney, heiress to the Disney family fortune, who said she will not donate to Democrats until they dump Biden.

Now this, a new poll released today by AP reveals that 65% of Democrats say Biden should withdraw from the race so Democrats can pick a winning ticket. It’s over for Biden.

J.D. Vance speaks tonight

Meanwhile, back in Milwaukee, Republicans have a nearly-martyred-now-heroic presidential nominee who has chosen a running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-OH, who has the conservative bona fides and small-town life experiences that make him the politically perfect Trump vice presidential nominee.

In anticipation of Vance’s prime time keynote address tonight, here are a few bio notes:

• Vance is a 39-year-old Ohio venture capitalist, who said of the verdict against Trump in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, “This verdict is an absolute miscarriage of justice.”
• Vance is one of the principal investors in Rumble, the online video and web hosting platform used by conservative social media sites like Truth Social, owned by Trump.
• Vance was raised in rural Kentucky and blue-collar Ohio by a “blue dog” Democrat grandmother who owned 19 handguns and who nurtured a deep Christian faith.
• Vance wrote the best-selling book, Hillbilly Elegy, which prompted The Washington Post to call Vance, “the voice of the Rust Belt.”
• Vance, a Marine, is an Ohio State University graduate, summa cum laude.
• Vance is a Yale Law School grad, where he served as an Editor of The Yale Law Journal.
• Vance is married to attorney Usha Vance, daughter of Indian immigrants. They have three young children. They met while students at Yale Law School.
• Vance is a US Senator, elected in 2022

NOTE: If you are thinking that two years in the US Senate is an inadequate foundation of federal level experience for vice president, consider that Barack Obama announced his campaign for the presidency on February 10, 2007, two years after he was sworn in as a US Senator on January 3, 2005.

On Monday night in Milwaukee, and again last night, the GOP convention featured “everyday Americans” who spoke about their challenges to provide for their families due to inflation and their concerns about the immigration crisis, particularly as it relates to crime and drug overdose deaths. Their voices were as powerful as the best of the seasoned Republican leaders.

Tonight, J.D. Vance will speak to working class Americans, too many of whom are struggling to make ends meet. Struggling to overcome circumstances, like the consequences of chronic poverty and dependency, that Vance believes are problems rightly laid at the feet of government and its elite enablers. As with the first two nights at the convention, Vance’s story will be profoundly personal.

On Thursday night, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump will speak. There will be unending joyful cheers and many tears as Republicans unite and revel in Trump’s heroic defiance of an assassin’s bullet.

A bullet changes everything.

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Add John Davis to your agenda this fall: www.johndavisconsulting.com

Will Biden Give Vice President Kamala Harris the Advantage of Running as President Kamala Harris

July 8, 2024       Vol. XVII, No. 6       12:13 pm

With Harris the Democratic nominee, Nikki Haley may be Trump’s best pick

It’s over. President Joe Biden will likely soon announce that he will no longer seek a second term in the Oval Office. The CNN debate on June 27 confirmed what everyone already knew. Biden does not have the physical strength and mental acuity to be a competitive presidential candidate for the next four months, much less the strength and acuity to serve as president for another four years.

The problem Biden faces is that the 51.3 million viewers who watched the CNN debate (per Nielsen) cannot unsee what they saw. And it was not just a bad night as he and his loyalists insist, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Further, the comparatively scant 8.5 million viewers who watched Biden’s 22-minute Hail Mary interview Friday with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos cannot unsee what they saw. Biden failed to catch the game-winning pass in the endzone with no time on the clock. It’s over.

The downward spiral begins

And so, the downward spiral begins. As they always do, family, White House and campaign staff will circle the wagons this week. There will be strategic conversations throughout each day seasoned with denial and defiance. There will be breaking news of desperate dealmaking with party leaders.

This week, we will see a growing number of Democratic leaders, including senators who served with Biden for decades, announce publicly that the time has now come for Joe Biden, a national leader with over 50 years of service in Washington, DC, to take a final bow and walk off the field.

By week’s end, the viability of Biden’s reelection campaign will be so severely degraded by Democratic defections that the president, his family and staff will be forced to accept the inevitable.

You will know when the acceptance stage has been reached when the White House announces that the president has canceled all further campaign events. That the president is planning a major announcement during a nationally televised, prime-time address to the nation.

A week from now, as Republicans are arriving in Milwaukee for their convention, Biden may even steal Trump’s thunder by announcing not only that he is not running, but that he is resigning the presidency to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to campaign for election as President Harris.

Imagine that. At the same hour former president Trump is accepting the GOP nomination for president, President Kamala Harris is giving her first nationally televised prime-time address.

Political drama at its highest. Democratic swagger restored. Downright Trumpian.

Of course, if Harris were the Democratic nominee for president, running as President Harris, Trump would certainly counterpunch by picking Nikki Haley as his running mate.

Family time in Delaware, memoirs and presidential library

I know of no man who has demonstrated his love for family over a lifetime more than Joe Biden. He commuted to work by Amtrak from Delaware during his entire Senate career so he could be home with his sons every night. He stands proudly by his son, Hunter Biden, no matter the weaknesses.

Biden’s limited number of years of good health for time with his family in his beloved Delaware argues insistently for a decision to not seek a second term. And, if Biden does not seek another term, he can prioritize his work on his memoirs while his memory is good and oversee the conceptualization of his presidential library.

(Note: It took President Barack Obama four years to write his memoirs, A Promised Land. And the formal opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center, located in Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago, is not until the late fall of 2025. That’s nine years after his administration.)

Bottom line: If Biden does not seek a second term, he can go ahead and enjoy the pleasure of retirement years with his family in Delaware and make sure he is remembered the way he wants to be remembered through his memoirs and presidential library.

More importantly in 2024, if Biden does not seek a second term, and resigns the presidency to allow Kamala Harris to campaign as President Kamala Harris, Democrats just may unite enthusiastically behind a ticket that has a better chance of defeating Donald Trump in November.

Imagine that. A Harris-Cooper (NC governor Roy Cooper) ticket vs. a Trump-Haley ticket.

Is this a great country or what!

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Add John Davis to your agenda this fall: www.johndavisconsulting.com

If Biden Fails To Win CNN’s Presidential Debate Tonight, He Will Not Likely Be The Nominee

June 27, 2024       Vol. XVII, No. 5       11:13 am

Biden must convince Democrats that he can defeat Trump

If President Biden fails to win CNN’s presidential debate tonight in Atlanta, he will not likely be the nominee chosen at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August to take on former president Donald Trump. If Trump fails to win tonight, he will still be the Republican nominee chosen in Milwaukee in July.

The reason tonight’s debate is a must win for Biden can be seen in new polling results released today by Gallup revealing that “nearly twice as many Republicans (79%) are pleased with Trump being the GOP nominee as Democrats (42%) are with Biden leading their party’s ticket.”

The number one priority of Democrats in 2024 is to defeat Donald Trump. If, after tonight’s performance, the most influential Democratic insiders are persuaded that President Biden simply lacks the physical strength and mental acuity to be competitive against a street brawler like Trump, they will have no choice other than to initiate the process whereby Biden announces he will not seek a second term.

The Democratic Party needs a winning national ticket; they need a ticket that can re-energize the Democratic base, stop the erosion of heretofore loyal Democratic constituencies like minorities and young voters, and a ticket that can win a majority of Independent voters.

Most Americans say Biden lacks presidential leadership qualities

Biden’s politically influential numbers, like job approval and favorability, are dismal. Per Gallup’s new study, 56% of Democrats would prefer another candidate. Biden’s favorability rating is 37%, “his lowest since 2007.” The same survey shows Trump’s favorable rating at 46%.

Looking only at the favorability ratings among partisans towards their presumptive nominees, 91% of Republicans view Trump favorably; 81% of Democrats view Biden favorably.

On the question of who voters think “has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have,” the Gallup results show only 38% agree with that statement as applied to President Biden; 46% agree that former President Trump has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have.

Among Independents, Trump leads Biden by 43% to 35% on the question of who has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have. And on the issues, Independents say that they agree more with Donald Trump (46%) than Joe Biden (34%) on the issues that matter most to them.

Note: It’s critical for you to know that the new Gallup survey was conducted after Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and through June 23.

Most Americans say Biden is “too old” and “too liberal”

Simply put, Biden’s biggest problems are he is seen by most Americans as too old to be president and too liberal. Per Gallup, an overwhelming 76% of Americans are either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” that Joe Biden is too old to be president (including 44% of Democrats). Comparatively, only 38% of Americans feel the same way about Trump’s age.

As to ideology, 56% of Americans say President Biden is “too liberal.” Comparatively, only 44% of Americans think Trump is “too conservative.” As to Independents, 56% say Biden is too liberal, while 43% say Trump is too conservative.

Everywhere you look, there are flashing caution lights about Biden’s competitiveness. Today’s New York Times polling averages show Trump ahead of Biden in every battleground state, including Wisconsin (+1), Michigan (+2), and Pennsylvania (+2). Trump is ahead of Biden by four-points-or-greater in the battleground states Nevada (+4), Arizona (+4), Georgia +5), and North Carolina (+5).

Per today’s Real Clear Politics polling averages, former President Trump leads President Biden 47.4% to 44.2% in polls conducted in the same seven battleground states.

If Biden loses tonight, look for President Harris and chaos in Chicago

The bottom line is that President Biden has failed to gain traction in his race for a second term and must be replaced as the party’s nominee if he fails to win tonight’s debate in Atlanta. Trump is simply too strong a contender for a challenger weakened by age who has lost not only the confidence of the American people, but who has lost the confidence of his own party.

If Biden chooses not to seek reelection, then Democrats face the politically fragile matter of the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris is even weaker than Biden and also must not be the party’s nominee. No Democrat wants to see a repeat of the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton race of 2016.

Vice President Harris absolutely must be in on any deal in which she helps select and promote the ideal Democratic Party ticket in exchange for something really big, like a lifetime appointment.

Of course, the biggest barter exchange that Kamala Harris could demand is the opportunity to serve as president the last five months of the Biden administration. Biden could resign the presidency, thereby ushering Harris into the Oval Office as America’s first woman president. A Kamala Harris presidency would certainly energize Democrats.

(If Harris becomes president, the odds are as good as not that North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper would be on the short list of those likely chosen by President Harris to be Vice President. They became friends when both served as Attorney General of California and North Carolina respectively. She has been in the state six times this year.)

If the President-Kamala-Harris-in-exchange-for-her-enthusiastic-support-of-a-Democratic-Party-winning-ticket scenario plays out, Democrats still have to get past what could be a chaotic convention.

No Democrat wants to see a convention in Chicago in August like the one 100 years ago. That’s when in 1924 the Democrats finally nominated John Davis, a prominent lawyer and diplomat from West Virginia, after 103 ballots. The convention, the longest in US political history, was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City from June 24, 1924, to July 9, 1924. Davis was defeated by Republican Calvin Coolidge that November.

If President Biden fails to win CNN’s presidential debate tonight at 9 o’clock EST in Atlanta, he will not likely be the nominee chosen at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Add John Davis to your agenda this fall: www.johndavisconsulting.com

Why Biden-Harris Cannot Defeat the “Terrifyingly Competent Trump 2024 Campaign”

May 29, 2024       Vol. XVII, No. 4       1:13 pm

Trump “martyred by Biden White House”

In April, Vanity Fair, a magazine of liberal culture, fashion and political opinion, published an article titled, Inside the Terrifyingly Competent Trump 2024 Campaign. As to Trump’s potential, the article posed the question, “How worried should you be?” Answer: “Very worried.”

The Vanity Fair article describes the Trump campaign as “ a professionalized operation focused on one thing: winning.” The winning message? Per the article, prior to Trump’s 91 indictments, he was a “one-line artist singing a tired tune that the 2020 election was stolen.” Now, thanks to all those felony charges like the “hush money” case in New York today, the article says that Trump has recast himself “as a political martyr being prosecuted by the Biden White House.”

When Trump looks into the mirror every morning, that’s who he sees. A political martyr being persecuted to the full extent of the law by liberal autocrats bent on forcing conservatives into ideological servitude through centralized “Woke” authoritarianism. We will teach your children as we please and no you don’t have a say. We will cancel you, shame you publicly and label you a racist if you dare have an opinion contrary to our “Woke” worldview.

MAGA voters see political persecution of Trump by the weaponization of the judicial system on multiple levels, federal, state and local. All reminiscent to MAGA voters of the Russian collusion fiasco during Trump’s first term. Corrupt FBI officials exposed who, per a three-year investigation, had a “predisposition to open an investigation into Trump;” inept FISA court judges who approved wiretaps based on “unvetted and unverified” reports from “politically biased sources.”

When MAGA voters hear Democratic prosecutors plead their cases against Trump, all they hear is  House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-CA, whose arguments for impeaching Trump were so devoid of substance that they not only failed to get a single Republican House member to vote for the Articles of Impeachment, they failed to even get the unanimous support of fellow House Democrats.

No Democrat has done more to undermine the legitimacy of legal claims against former President  Trump than Rep. Adam Schiff. The same Adam Schiff who claimed, “incontrovertible evidence” that President Trump had committed an impeachable offense yet persuaded only one Republican senator (Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT) to vote against Trump of the twenty needed for conviction.

In the mid-May 2024 CBS News/YouGov poll, 78% of Republicans said Trump is “Not guilty” of falsifying business records to hide “hush money” paid to Stormy Daniels in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential race. Why? Because Trump supporters look at judges and DA’s like Juan Merchan and Alvin Bragg in today’s “hush money” case in New York City with plausible skepticism; each as just another Adam Schiff engaged in political persecution by prosecution.

Plausible skepticism for all Trump indictments

Adam Schiff laid the foundation for today’s plausible skepticism among Republicans for any and all litigation aimed at Trump the day he chose to ignore Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s caution to the Washington Post, “unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that [impeachment] path.”

Because of Democratic abuse of congressional investigative and impeachment power, Democrats have lost the moral authority to have their legal claims against Trump respected. They exploited and discredited the judiciary so systemically in their attempt to bring down Trump that even if they get a guilty verdict in the “hush money” trial, all MAGA voters will see is their persecuted revolutionary leader martyred by corrupt judicial officials wearing “Woke” armbands.

As Trump gets stronger politically thanks to his 91 felony charges, the Biden-Harris ticket is getting weaker. In an April study of the history of presidential job approval, Gallup compared President Biden’s 38.7% job approval at the Q13 mark (three years of the first term plus one quarter ending March 31) to other presidents since Eisenhower. Eisenhower had the highest job approval at the Q13 mark of 73%, followed by Reagan, Nixon, Clinton, and George W. Bush (the younger), all with job approvals in the mid-to-low 50s. Everyone with a job approval at 50% or higher at the Q13 mark won a second term.

Of the four presidents with Q13 job approval numbers in the mid-to-low 40s, three lost their race for a second term, including George H.W. Bush (the elder), Trump, and Carter. President Obama, with a Q13 job approval of 46%, managed to improve enough by election day to win.

President Biden is at the bottom of the Q13 job approval list of all presidents since Eisenhower with a job approval of 38.7%, nowhere near the 50% range needed for reelection.

So, as the jury begins deliberations in Trump’s “hush money” trial in New York City today, remember, it’s likely to take more than a guilty verdict for the Biden-Harris ticket to defeat the “Terrifyingly Competent Trump 2024 Campaign.” The political reality is that whether the verdict is guilty, not guilty or a hung jury, Trump will use the outcome to raise more money than even his Fulton County, Georgia mug shot.

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Check John Davis’s availability to speak this fall at www.johndavisconsulting.com

NH Gov. Chris Sununu on Why Fellow Anti-Trump Republicans Will Support Him No Matter What

April 16, 2024       Vol. XVII, No. 3       2:13 pm

“I’m supporting not just the president, but the Republican administration.”

Many Democrats are having a difficult time understanding why so many Republicans are continuing to support Donald Trump for president despite his seemingly endless list of alleged transgressions. However, having watched politics my entire life, it’s as simple as the rhetorical question, Do you really think that Republicans should have allowed Hillary Clinton to win the White House and pick those three US Supreme Court justices who tilted the court to the right and overturned Roe v. Wade?

In other words, it’s ideological; it’s about conservative notions of right and wrong that are far more important than the elected officials carrying the flag in the front of the parade. Here is an example:

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire does not like Donald Trump. After the January 6, 2021 rioting at the US Capitol, Sununu issued a statement saying there is no doubt “that President Trump’s rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection.”

Last year, Gov. Sununu enthusiastically endorsed former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley against Trump in the GOP primary race. And just this past Sunday, on ABC’s “This Week,” Sununu reiterated to George Stephanopoulos his conclusion that Trump was complicit in January 6.

So, why is Sununu now enthusiastically supporting Trump? The answer is in these select responses, edited for brevity, to questions from the interview Sunday with George Stephanopoulos:

GS Question: Will your support for Donald Trump continue even if he’s convicted in Manhattan?

Gov. Sununu: “Yeah, look, this — this trial is not going to have major political ramifications; people see it more as reality TV.”

“No one should be surprised by my support.” “I’m supporting not just the president, but the Republican administration.”

“For me, it’s not about [Trump] as much as it is having a Republican administration — Republican secretaries, Republican rules, a sense of where states’ rights come first, individual rights come first, parents’ rights come first.”

“At the end of the day, [many in America] want that culture change of the Republican Party, and if we have Trump as the standard bearer — we’ll take it if we have to. That’s how badly America wants a culture change.”

In his final question, George Stephanopoulos asked Gov. Chris Sununu if he would continue to support Trump for president even if he is convicted in the classified documents case and the Manhattan hush money case, and even though Sununu believes that Trump contributed to the “insurrection” on January 6 and lied about the last election being stolen.

Gov. Sununu replied, “Yes, me and 51 percent of America.”

Trump leads Biden in the states that matter most

Forty of the 50 states are predictable. They have voted for the same party in at least the last four presidential races. We know Vermont is going to vote for the Democratic nominee and Wyoming for the Republican. Only ten states, including North Carolina, have flipped parties in their presidential choice since 2008. That was the year North Carolinians voted for Democrat Barack Obama. North Carolina has voted Republican ever since.

Nationally, the Real Clear Politics (RCP) polling average shows Trump at 42% in a five-way race. Biden has 40.2%; third-party candidates Kennedy (9.3%), West (1.6%), and Stein (1.5%). In a two-way race, Biden and Trump are tied at about 45% each. We are truly an equally divided nation.

But national polls are irrelevant to the Electoral College, where 270 votes are needed to win the presidency. Biden has a predictable 226 votes; Trump 219. They will need to make up the difference in the seven battleground states in order to get to 270 votes.

Polling in the seven battleground states, where it matters the most, shows Trump leading Biden in all but one. Here is today’s RCP spread in each state: Arizona (Trump +4.5%), Georgia (Trump +3.8%), Michigan (Trump +2.8%), Nevada (Trump +3.2%), North Carolina (Trump +4.0%), Pennsylvania (Biden +0.1%), and Wisconsin (Trump +0.6%).

To understand why Trump is leading Biden despite his many trials and tribulations, consider Gallup’s latest poll showing that the most important problems facing the nation are immigration and the economy. Per RCP, only 32.2% “Approve” of the job Biden is doing with immigration; only 39.7% approve of how Biden is handling the economy.

Gov. Sununu summed up why fellow anti-Trump Republicans will support him no matter what when he said this past Sunday on ABC, “It’s not about just supporting Trump. It’s getting rid of what we have today. It’s about understanding that inflation is crushing families. It’s understanding that this border issue is not a Texas issue. It’s a 50-state issue, right, that has to be brought under control.”

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Check John Davis’s availability to speak at www.johndavisconsulting.com

Despite Trump’s Caustic Criticism the Nation’s Legal System May Be His Best Hope for a Second Term

February 29, 2024       Vol. XVII, No. 2       9:13 pm

Running Against “The System” is Right Out of Trump’s 2016 Playbook

Next Tuesday, March 5, 2024, former president Donald Trump will win North Carolina’s GOP presidential primary, as well as the presidential nomination contests in all other Super Tuesday states, including Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. He has already won Iowa with 51%, New Hampshire with 54%, South Carolina with 60%, and Michigan with 68% of the vote.

Trump is winning because MAGA Republicans, now the dominant GOP voting bloc, think he’s the best candidate to go to Washington and break a fixed system; a system they believe is rigged for insiders at the expense of the working class. It’s the same “rigged system” Trump railed against when he defeated insider Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Looking back to the March 15, 2016 GOP presidential primary in North Carolina, Donald Trump won with 40% in a 12-candidate field. He went on to defeat Hillary Clinton in the North Carolina General Election contest by 49.8% to 46.2%.

Great insight into Trump’s upset victory can be found in a July 2016 post by liberal activist Michael Moore titled Five Reasons Trump Will Win. Moore predicted Trump would win the presidential race, carrying the states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, because of working class anger against “the system.” Appearing on Meet the Press, October 2, 2016, Moore said, “A lot of people are angry. And they see Donald Trump as their human Molotov cocktail that they get to go into the voting booth on November 8th and throw him into a political system that has made their lives miserable.”

Now, eight years later, Donald Trump is still winning presidential primaries and caucuses with his pitch that “the system” is corrupted against the interests of MAGA voters. Last week, on February 24, Trump spoke at the Black Conservative Federation’s annual gala, claiming that he, like Black Americans, had been discriminated against by the “legal system.”

“I’m being indicted for you, the American people. I’m being indicted for you, the Black population. I am being indicted for a lot of different groups by sick people, these are sick, sick people,” Trump said to the Black conservatives, referring to his 91 felony charges (44 federal charges and 47 state charges).

The Legal System is Likely Why Trump Will Either Stay or Go

The fact is, barring a health crisis, the legal system is the most likely reason Donald Trump will either get out or stay in the presidential race before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 15-18, 2024.

For instance, Trump may drop out of the presidential race due to a financial crisis, like a business decision to file for bankruptcy, resulting from millions in penalties owed, like the $454 million from the New York civil fraud verdict in February, and Jean Carroll’s $83 million defamation judgment.

But then, the legal system may also be the reason Trump is in a position to stay in the presidential race. He may win his appeal to have the “egregious fine” (his lawyer’s words) of $454 million deemed “excessive” and therefore unconstitutional under the 8^th Amendment to the US Constitution.

The legal system could also give Trump a favorable ruling in the attempts by state officials in Colorado, Maine and yesterday Illinois to have Trump disqualified from the state’s ballot based on their determination that he participated in an insurrection on January 6, 2021.

At the US Supreme Court hearing on February 8, liberal Justice Elena Kagan signaled a likely favorable decision for Trump when she raised the question, “What’s a state doing deciding who other citizens get to vote for for president?”

The legal system may derail the Georgia election fraud case if the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is disqualified for lying about details of when her affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade began. The case alleging that Trump and 14 others conspired to overthrow the 2020 presidential race may be postponed until after the November elections.

And the legal system may dismiss the criminal case charging Donald Trump with the mishandling of classified documents based on his claim of presidential immunity. Trump says he cannot be prosecuted for what amounted to an “official act” while serving as president. Presidential immunity is also a reason Trump insists that he cannot be prosecuted for anything he did or didn’t do leading up to and during the January 6 rioting at the US Capitol.

The legal system is why the United States has not merely survived our 248-year experiment in self-governance, it is why we continue to surmount obstacles to equal rights and universal fairness under the law for all Americans.

The legal system is the last great hope for American ideals

The legal system is the last great hope for American ideals, especially the ideal of equal protection under the law. One of the most celebrated landmark cases in the history of the nation’s highest court began when a high school dropout named Clarence Earl Gideon, who had lived a life of homelessness and larceny, wrote a petition to the US Supreme Court on prison letterhead with a pencil arguing that he was denied a constitutional right to counsel.

The landmark case, Gideon v. Wainwright, was a 9-0 ruling in 1963 that a poor defendant is entitled to representation in state court under the Sixth Amendment and that states could not deny them that right under the 14th Amendment.

But the constitutional ideal of equal protection under the law is for very wealthy Americans too, even foul-mouthed, narcissistic Americans like Trump who can afford to spend $76 million on attorney fees in the last two years, per a February 2, 2024 Associated Press analysis of Federal Election Commission filings.

Ironically, the very system that Trump decries as unfair is the system that is now his best hope for staying in the president race. His political and personal fortunes are now in the hands of a legal system that despite his degradation has stood the test of time.

Since the first meeting of the US Supreme Court in New York City on February 2, 1790, the court has overruled only 235 of its 30,863 decisions ending with the 2023 term. For emphasis: only .0076% of the US Supreme Court’s decisions have been overruled by a subsequent decision.

The integrity of the legal system of the United States is based on the fact that a billionaire former president with an MBA from Wharton like Donald John Trump will be treated no more or no less fairly than a penniless petty thief who dropped out of high school like Clarence Earl Gideon.

Despite Trump’s caustic criticism, the nation’s legal system may be his best hope for a second term.

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Check John Davis’s availability to speak at www.johndavisconsulting.com

See Raleigh Kiwanis Speech here.

Like Lemmings to the Sea Republicans Follow Democrats Off the Cliff with Mayorkas Impeachment

January 31, 2024       Vol. XVII, No. 1       2:13 pm

Partisan Impeachments are a Fool’s Errand  

Last night, just after midnight, 18 Republicans and 0 Democrats on the US House Homeland Security Committee voted to advance two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, accusing him of  “breach of trust” and “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.” And just like that, a fool’s errand of another partisan impeachment began.

If there is any doubt of the foolishness of a partisan impeachment, look no further than this day four years ago, in January 2020, when the entire nation was engrossed in the first impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Although Trump was the third president to be impeached (Andrew Johnson, 1868; Bill Clinton, 1999), he was the first to be impeached solely along partisan lines.

When Rep. Al Green, D-TX, and a growing number of House Democrats began to push for Trump’s impeachment, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, pushed back. “Unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country,” she told The Washington Post.  On a partisan impeachment Pelosi said in an interview with CNBC, “Many people would think it’s being done for political reasons.”

But angry Democrats bent on taking Trump down at any cost persisted. Rep. Al Green, D-TX, said the quiet part out loud during a July 2019 interview with NBC News, “I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will get reelected.”

In September 2019, Speaker Pelosi relented. It was a big mistake.

Zero Republican Support for Articles of Impeachment

In December 2019, there were four votes in the US House on the two articles of impeachment, Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress. Not one single Republican voted with the Democrats either in committee or on the floor.

The US House Judiciary Committee voted twice on December 13, 2019, once for each of the two articles of impeachment. The result both times was 23 Democrats and 0 Republicans.

Then, on December 18, 2019, the full House voted to approve the two articles of impeachment. The vote on Article 1, Abuse of Power, was 229 “Yea” and 197 “Nay.” The total number of Republicans voting “Yea,” was 0. The vote on Article 2, Obstruction of Congress, was 228 “Yea” and 198 “Nay.” The total number of Republicans voting “Yea,” was 0.

By way of contrast, in 1998, 31 US House Democrats voted with the US House Republican majority for the impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Clinton’s trial ended with ten Republican Senators joining 45 Democratic senators in voting Clinton “Not Guilty.” That’s bipartisan consensus.

In 1974, the US House voted 410-4 for an impeachment inquiry against President Richard Nixon over the Watergate Scandal. That’s 242 Democrats and 188 of 192 Republicans. Bipartisan consensus is why Nixon resigned.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi was right when she warned her caucus that unless there was something “compelling and bipartisan” that they should not go down the impeachment path.

Only One of 53 Republican Senators Voted “Guilty”

In January 2020, Democrats went to trial against President Trump in the US Senate needing 20 Republican Senators to vote with the 47 Democrats to reach the required 67 for a conviction.

The chief prosecutor was Rep. Adam Schiff, D-CA, lead impeachment manager. His pleas were impassioned. Do the right thing. For the sake of the country. When the vote was counted, only Sen. Mitt Romney, R-UT voted with the Democrats. Schiff’s vindictive anger and fatal egotistical assessment of his persuasive skills were unmasked. The fool’s errand of a partisan impeachment revealed.

Rep. Adam Schiff, as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is the same representative who wrongly insisted that then-President Trump was guilty of collusion with the Russians during the 2016 campaign for president. “You can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence,” Schiff said to Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

It’s no wonder Rep. Adam Schiff was censured by the US House on June 21, 2023 for abusing his trust by spreading false allegations, behaving dishonestly and dishonorably, lying and distorting the facts regarding the Russian Collusion debacle and President Trump’s first impeachment.

The only political consequence of the impeachment trial turned out to be good for the embattled President. Per Gallup polling conducted during the heat of the trial (January 16 to 29), Trump’s job approval had “risen to 49%, his highest in Gallup polling since he took office in 2017.” The poll also found that 52% of Americans favored acquitting Trump, to only 46% in favor of convicting and removing him from office. (Trump lost reelection due to Covid and losing suburban women who were turned off by his foul-mouth and his narcissistic tantrums, not because of the partisan impeachment.)

By the time President Trump delivered his third State of the Union address on February 4, 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so infuriated that she ripped her copy of the speech as she stood behind the President. She had struck out. No Russian collusion. No obstruction. No impeachment conviction.

The next day, February 5, 2020, the Senate acquitted President Trump on both articles of impeachment. It was a partisan impeachment from the start.

Hopefully, GOP Speaker Mike Johnson will remember Democrat Speaker Pelosi’s fool’s errand of a partisan impeachment in 2020 and can stop the misguided members of the Republican caucus from making the same mistake with the Mayorkas Impeachment of 2024.

Otherwise, like lemmings to the sea, House Republicans will tumble off the same political cliff Democrats found themselves at the bottom of after their disastrous Trump impeachment of 2020.

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Check John Davis’s availability to speak at www.johndavisconsulting.com

Rare Dual Conservative Dominance on US & NC Supreme Courts Likely for Years to Come

May 31, 2023       Vol. XVI, No. 3       10:13 am

Dozens of federal and state precedents will be overruled

Conservative Through 2028: This is a unique era in which both our federal and state Supreme Courts are solidly conservative at the same time, and are likely to stay that way for years to come.

The NC Supreme Court is 5-2 conservative. Conservatives will have an advantage on the state Supreme Court for a minimum of the next five years.

Not including Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby, two Republican Justices, Berger and Barringer, do not have to stand for election until 2028; two Republican Justices, Dietz and Allen, do not have to stand for election until 2030. That guarantees the court will be a minimum of 4-3 conservative through 2028. But it’s more likely to stay 5-2 conservative through 2028.

By law, Republican Chief Justice Newby faces mandatory retirement at the age of 72 in May 2027. If there is a Democratic governor, a Democrat will be appointed Chief Justice, leaving the state’s  high court with a four-seat Republican majority: Justices Berger, Barringer, Dietz and Allen.

However, odds are that the North Carolina General Assembly will change the mandatory retirement age from 72 years to 75 years before Chief Justice Newby faces required retirement in 2027. If that happens, Republicans will be guaranteed a 5-2 majority through 2028. Maybe even more.

The only justices to stand for election in 2024 and 2026 are the two lone Democrats, Justices Morgan and Earls respectively. Morgan has announced that he is not seeking another term next year. A GOP win would mean the court would become 6-1 Republican through 2028. (Context: Democrats enjoyed a 6-1 majority on the NC Supreme Court in 2020.)

New GOP-Friendlier Maps Certain: You can count on new federal and state maps soon. That means the 14 congressional districts will shift from 7 Republican friendly, 6 Democratic friendly and 1 tossup, to possibly a 10-seat Republican-friendly delegation with 1 tossup seat and 3 safe Democratic seats. Safe Democrats: Rep. Adams, Metrolina Region; Rep. Foushee, Triad; and Rep. Ross, Triangle.

The Republican General Assembly will also likely gerrymander new legislative districts that will guarantee GOP super majorities for the remainder of the decade. And you can count on the 5-2 GOP-majority NC Supreme Court to rule that any new GOP-gerrymandered districts are constitutional.

On April 28, 2023, the 5-2 Republican NC Supreme Court overruled last year’s 4-3 Democratic NC Supreme Court’s decision against GOP-gerrymandered maps. They have also overruled the Democrat-majority court’s ruling against voter-ID law.

The governor has no veto authority over anything to do with reapportionment, and the US Supreme Court is no longer taking partisan gerrymandering cases. So, Republican-friendlier maps are inevitable.

US Supreme Court on a Conservative Tear: The US Supreme Court is 6-3 conservative, and on a precedent-altering tear. Last year, they overturned abortion rights, struck down a New York law that limited guns in public, rejected Maine’s ban on state aid to religious schools, and sided with a coach over a right to say a prayer on the 50 yard line after the football game.

Before June is over, the court is likely to overturn a 2003 ruling allowing race to be considered as a factor in college admissions in cases involving policies at UNC and Harvard. The court will also likely rule conservatively on a religious liberty issue, whether a website designer is required to design a wedding website for a same-sex couple despite religious convictions against homosexuality.

All in all, a unique conservative era on the state and federal Supreme Court, both at the same time, and likely for years to come.

If you are conservative, break out the champagne. If you are not, my only recommendation is Goody’s Extra Strength Headache Powder.

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis

Check John Davis’s availability to speak in 2023 at www.johndavisconsulting.com

Fifty-Year Search for First Black Cast to Compete in the Mississippi High School Drama Festival

February 16, 2023

Marion Central Dramatics Club 1969

In honor of Black History Month, I would like to depart from my political commentary and tell you a personal story about my experiences while teaching sixth grade English from 1968 to 1970 at an all-Black school prior to integration in Marion County, Mississippi. The rural county school, named Marion Central, had a high school wing and an elementary school wing separated by an enclosed walkway.

One day, the Marion Central High School Dramatics Club teacher came to my elementary school classroom and asked me to help with the school play. She had found out that in addition to English, I majored in theater at William Carey College in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

I went to see my principal, Mr. Odell James, to ask permission to work with the high school drama group. After several days, Mr. James informed me that he had worked out a schedule that freed me up three days a week for one hour each day to work with the cast of five 15-year-old high school sophomores on a one-act play called The Clod.

After six weeks of rehearsing the 20-minute play three days a week, building set pieces like a stairway with a banister handrail, perfecting makeup for age, and collecting props like a potbelly stove, an oil lantern, and a pistol, we finally presented the play to the student body. They loved it.

I was so impressed with the quality of the acting by the cast and their commitment to getting everything right, that I decided to try to enter the play in the Mississippi High School Drama Festival. The drama festival was a statewide competition of one-act plays that began with eight regional contests. The eight regional winners competed in the finals for statewide drama awards.

Unfortunately, in 1969 Mississippi public schools were still completely segregated. Black schools did not compete in the Mississippi High School Drama Festival. Black and White sports teams did not compete against one other. Teachers at White schools were members of the Mississippi Education Association. Teachers at Black schools were members of the Mississippi Teachers Association.

Nothing to do with public schools was integrated in 1969 in Mississippi. Those were still the days of White Only and Colored Only water fountains and bathrooms in public places like the Marion County Courthouse. Nonetheless, I got permission from the high school principal, Mr. Rosevelt Otis, to send the application to the regional competition along with the $25 entry fee.

Our application was accepted. We did not know if the contest officials knew Marion Central was a Black school, or whether we would be allowed to compete when they found out. What we did know is that we had a competitive one-act play, and we were going to show up at the regional competition.

Not only did Marion Central dare to show up on the day of the regional competition, but Marion Central, the only Black school competing, defeated 14 white schools in winning First-Place Best Actress, First Place Best Actor, and First-Place Best Play.

Winning the regional competition qualified Marion Central to compete in the Mississippi High School Drama Festival Finals at Mississippi State University in Starkville, Mississippi, located 200 miles away in Northeast Mississippi. The only hotel that allowed Blacks at that time was the Holiday Inn, which is where we stayed. It was such a broadening experience for the students.

None of the kids had ever been that far away from home. None had ever stayed in a hotel or ordered dinner from a menu in a restaurant where they were served by a White waitress.

The next morning, we sat in the back of the university auditorium and watched the first four of the eight regional winners present their plays. After lunch, it was our turn. Contestants were allowed 10 minutes to set up their set pieces and 20-minutes for the play. With curtains closed, we wheeled out the cast-iron potbelly stove and the stairs with the banister rails. The lantern was lit. The curtains opened.

The other schools didn’t know what to expect. The White students had never seen a cast of Black students perform a play. I knew what to expect. We had worked nearly three months perfecting the acting, timing, makeup and staging. I held my breath for 20 minutes. The performance was flawless.

When the awards ceremony was held late that afternoon, Marion Central won First Place Best Actress, Second Place Best Actor and Third Place Best Play. We drove 200 miles back to our rural, South Mississippi county with three of the seven awards presented at the 1969 Mississippi High School Drama Festival Finals. We were so excited. So proud to be from Marion Central.

And now, for the rest of the story

In January 1970, Mississippi schools were required by court order to integrate. No more delays. It had been fifteen years since the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Mississippi had spent the entire time fighting integration and no time planning for the inevitable. Now they had to integrate. Right then. No more litigation.

During the Christmas holidays, the county superintendent notified all of the teachers and administrators that we were to attend a meeting in the White school gymnasium to find out where we would be teaching now that we had to integrate.

When I arrived, all the teachers from the White school were sitting on the gym bleachers together at a distance from the Marion Central teachers. The superintendent and the four county principals were standing behind a table on the gym floor with a cardboard box on top of the table.

The superintendent began by introducing the four principals. He introduced the White principals as Mr. and Mr., and then introduced the two Black principals as Roosevelt and Odell. I was shocked that he would insult our principals in front of everyone in such a disrespectful way. But then I could tell by the way he carried on, that he had no idea that what he did was insulting to Mr. Roosevelt Otis and Mr. Odell James. His introduction of White and Black principals was customary at that time in the Old South states that had been aligned during the American Civil War of 1861-1865.

After the introduction of the principals, the superintendent began the meeting by saying that they had not made any plans for integration, and that in order to be fair, each principal would take turns drawing names of teachers out of the cardboard box until all names were drawn. He said that we would go with our principal to that school from January through May until they could sort things out in the summer and get better organized for the fall of 1970.

The principal who drew my name was Mr. Mabrey, a tall, lanky principal with a weathered face and raspy voice. Mr. Mabrey was principal of Bunker Hill, an all-White, first through eighth grade school in a white wooden building located on the White side of the county.

The first day the newly assigned Bunker Hill teachers met with Mr. Mabrey, he informed us that no plans had been made for integration, and that in order to be fair, each teacher, in order of seniority, would take turns writing their initials on the blackboard out by the names of the classes they wanted to teach. He started with teachers who had taught over 25 years, then 20 to 25 years, and so on.

As I had only been teaching since 1968, I had to take what was left on the blackboard. My teaching assignment from January 1970 through May 1970 was the following: 8th Grade American History, 7th Grade Science, 8th Grade Girls PE, 6th Grade Boys PE, and two Study Halls.

Over the next few years, students and teachers were scattered by integration and eventually many of us lost touch. I got into political work through the Marion County DA, Maurice Dantin, who ran for governor in 1975. Eventually, I developed a professional interest in political analysis, which took me to over half the states in the country and almost four decades of living in North Carolina.

I had forgotten their names

As the years went by, ten years, twenty years, forty years, I forgot the names of the five sophomore students I directed in the one-act play, The Clod; that all-Black cast of high school students to who won three of the seven awards at the Mississippi High School Drama Festival Finals in 1969.

However, as poet Maya Angelou said, you never forget how people made you feel. Those five sophomore students, along with my sixth grade English students and the rest of the faculty and administrators, have always made me feel so proud to say that I was from Marion Central.

In 2019, the year of the 50th anniversary of the Mississippi High School Drama Festival of 1969, I started thinking about those five cast members every day. I wanted to catch up with them. To see how their lives turned out. I tried to no avail to remember their names. It had simply been too long.

Then one day, I remembered that The Columbian-Progress, the newspaper in Columbia, the county seat, had written a story about the Marion Central Dramatics Club winning top honors in the state drama festival. I went online and found a website that for $5 would give me access to a list of all the newspapers that had Internet-based searchable archives. I paid the $5 with my credit card and held my breath as I scanned the list for The Columbian-Progress. I was so excited to see that it was on the list; that it had a searchable archives dating back to 1955.

I clicked on the link to The Columbian-Progress archives and typed in the search box, “Marion Central Dramatics Club state champions.” I pressed enter. I wanted so badly to read the story, to see if I remembered everything correctly. To see the names. Then, there it was. The Columbian-Progress, Thursday, March 27, 1969. The headline read, “Marion Central Dramatic Club Takes Three of Seven Awards.” There they were, the long forgotten names of the cast. “The cast includes Etta Watts, who won the coveted Best Actress Award, E.J. Youngblood, winner of the Second Best Actor Award; Odell James, Jr., Sammy Whalum, and Willie Parker.” Now I had their names!

I decided to start by tracking down Etta Watts, thinking that the guys would have been more likely to leave the county in pursuit of jobs or the military. I went to the White Pages website and typed in, “Etta Watts, Columbia, Mississippi.” When I hit enter, about a dozen names came up. Lots of names with the last name Watts, but none with the name Etta. Then I noticed that for an extra nine dollars you can get cell phone numbers. I decided that I would get the cell phone numbers and send text messages with hopes someone would reply who could help me track down Etta.

I’m not sure why I chose the name I chose for the first text message. Her name was not Etta, and her last name was not Watts. But I sent a text message to that person that read, “My name is John Davis. I directed Etta Watts in a play at Marion Central in 1969. Just wanted to catch up. Are you Etta Watts?”

I waited. Five minutes; 10 minutes. A half-hour. An hour. Just as I was about to give up and try a different name, I received a reply to my text message. The reply read, “I am her daughter. Here is her phone number. She’s anxious to talk with you.”

I called Etta right away. The last time I had talked to her she was 15 years old. Now she was 67 years old. I’m sure we talked for at least a half hour before ending with her agreeing to help me track down the four guys in the cast. That led to equally wonderful phone calls reminiscing with three of the other four cast members. Willie Parker, who had been a professional truck driver, had passed.

I sent everyone copies of the news stories about the play in The Columbian-Progress. I was able to find copies of The Clod on Amazon and sent it to everyone. Over the next two years, we stayed in touch by text. We wished each other happy holidays. Easter, Christmas, New Year’s Eve. We sent texts of concern if the national news carried a story about a storm where we lived.

The Reunion

Last fall, Etta called me and asked me if I would come to the 50th High School Class Reunion for her class; to say a few words. She wanted me to tour the old school, now called East Marion, with her and Odell James, Jr., the only other member of the cast who would be there. She said that another cast member, E.J. Youngblood, had died, and that Samuel Whalen was not well enough to attend.

And so, I packed my suitcase and drove 813 miles to Columbia, Mississippi for one reason and one reason only, to tell the Marion Central graduates how blessed they were to have Marion Central as the foundation for their lives, and how proud I have always been to say that I was from Marion Central.

On Saturday morning, the day of the banquet, Etta, Odell and I toured the school. The stage in the gymnasium was exactly as it was over 50 years ago in 1969 when I worked with them as high school sophomores on the school play.

Then, I instinctively turned and looked up to the top of the bleachers in the gym, remembering exactly where I sat with my sixth grade students when the entire community came to the school on the first anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to honor Dr. King.

Some moments you never forget where you were.

I spent the rest of the day with Etta, her husband and family at their country home. The garden. The chickens. The flowers. A lifetime of memories in pictures on the walls. The Marion Central yearbook.

That night, I spoke at the banquet and reminisced with students about life at Marion Central and the early days, months and years after integration. The sons of Mr. Otis and Mr. James were there.

The next morning, a group of us went to church at Shorts Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, to worship together and hear Pastor Rev. Johnny Porter, a member of the 50^th reunion class. She did an amazing job of inspiring us all to be our better selves.

After church, we said our goodbyes and I began my two-day drive back to Raleigh.

Maya Angelou, the world-renown African American writer who taught at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem for more than 30 years, said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I have always felt so proud to be from Marion Central.

END

Thank you for reading the John Davis Political Report

John N. Davis