Election season brings to mind one of state's greatest politicos and past battles

Thinking about the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 7, when Mississippi chooses officials ranging from coroner to governor, I recalled a true aficionado of state politics, Charles Pittman.

My father, the late reporter Charles Gordon, covered and devoured those happenings for decades for newspapers in McComb and Jackson. I believe that Pittman places a close second to my dad in his enthusiasm for the Mississippi political scene.

Now 75-years-old, Charles and his wife, Kathy, live in Tennessee near their daughter and grandchildren. Pittman timed his retirement to the day his last boss, then-Gov. Haley Barbour, left office in January 2012. “Our hearts will always be in Mississippi. We have a framed picture in our living room that says, ‘It’s hard to be humble when you are from Mississippi,’” Charles chortled.

Pittman’s public service career includes the thrill of victory and the pain of defeat in elections; association with a man named Presley (not Elvis); creating a famous slogan for a candidate whose last name rhymes with “truck”; logging 50,000 miles on his own truck campaigning for one candidate; as aide to an ex-congressman; lobbying for a trade group; and handling public relations and other services for two state agencies.

The facet of Pittman’s life that brought him as much joy as being elected a state senator in 1979 came as a member of “Mississippi’s Original Singing Senators,” a group of crooning lawmakers that performed for 15 years at dozens of venues. The group included Videt Carmichael of Meridian, Billy Thames of Mize, Tim Johnson of Madison, George McLeod of Leakesville, John White of Baldwyn, Terry Jordan of Philadelphia and Billy Hewes of Gulfport. They last jammed in 2003 at the Capitol for a Senate reunion.

Pittman, who graduated in political science from Delta State University, was bitten musically as a kid when he attended an Elvis Presley concert in Clarksdale. He asked for a Sears-made “Silvertone” guitar for Christmas and began performing and even wrote 17 songs. Charles sang the national anthem at the 1983 Egg Bowl football game.

Back to that nonmusical “Presley” guy. Pittman recalls a young Brandon Presley — the Democratic nominee for governor this year — helping then-Democrat Amy Tuck put up campaign signs in 1999 when she ran for lieutenant governor.

“Brandon was a campaigning machine back then, never met a stranger and I’m sure he has not changed,” Pittman said. “I have helped Democrats and Republicans get elected during my 40 years of political campaigns. The individuals I support are what’s most important to me.”

With his long view of Mississippi politics, Pittman opined that Republican “Haley Barbour was the best governor in the history of Mississippi, hands down.”

Possessive of a creative mind, one of Pittman’s supreme triumphs was the bumper sticker he devised for Tuck’s campaign — “Me and My Truck Are For Amy Tuck.” That “caught on like a Mississippi grass fire in summertime,” Pittman laughed.

He gave a nod to the late Lt. Gov. Evelyn Gandy, who advised Tuck that “she would have to come up with something that would make it acceptable for men to remain ‘manly’ and support a woman at the same time … When I showed my idea to Gov. Gandy and Amy, all they could do was smile.”

Pittman’s political prowess appeared in his 1982 bid to unseat legendary U.S. Sen. John Stennis. He got 33,651 votes, the most ever by a Stennis opponent. The Republican nominee was Barbour, who fell to Stennis in the general election.

Said Pittman: “That’s how I met my friend Haley Barbour. He was the first Republican I ever met.”

— Mac Gordon is a native of McComb and a retired newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Election season brings to mind one of MS greatest politicos and past battles