NESHOBA COUNTY– Mississippi’s Giant Houseparty is all about tradition, fun, and of course, politics.
So when the candidates for Attorney General were ready to take the stage, it was business as usual. Banners and fans in hand, every seat in the Square filled up.
Republican candidate Mike Hurst took to the stage and began with a little background, before stating why he should be the next Attorney General for the State of Mississippi.
“We need a guard dog against federal regulation, not a lapdog for the Obama administration,” says Hurst, referring to his opponent and current Attorney General Jim Hood.
Hurst says Hood sold the office out to Hollywood when he stated that he would like another four years in office to continue pursuing a lawsuit against the mega search engine Google.
But beyond claiming why he should be the next Attorney General, Hurst questioned Hood’s spending habits, saying that Hood had spent over $209,000 dollars in credit card charges from campaign funds that were not itemized. Hurst admits that this looks suspicious, but he hopes that isn’t the case.
“So I challenge my opponent to disclose what that campaign money went to,” says Hurst, “Otherwise our campaign finance laws mean nothing because you could put your entire campaign on a credit card and no one would ever know how campaigns spend their money.”
In his turn at the podium, Attorney General Jim Hood referred back to his lawsuit against Google, combatting the point that the office had sold out.
“Kids are buying drugs online in their homes,” says Hood, “and they (Google) know it, because they plead guilty to it.” Hood says while in office he’s returned over 3 billion dollars back into the state.
