Yesterday before word of Wilson (RICO) hit, duckweedpond and Dragoman briefly introduced us to Dot Benford, a Jackson talk-radio personality who apparently aims to succeed Frank Melton as mayor. Well! My next news was a barrage of emails from Jackson, where it’s fair to characterize the reaction as “aghast.” I also received two Clarion-Ledger pieces from August 2007 (no longer available at the C-L, excerpts follow the jump) depicting a candidate who out-wiggies Frank Melton at his worst.
One correspondent explains, “The race for Hinds County Tax Assessor was crowded with candidates and to everyone’s alarm, Dot Benford ended up with the most votes and ended up in a runoff with Charles Stokes, the mayor of Utica. You have never seen so many terrified NE Jackson white people scramble to raise money for a black candidate (Stokes). The Jackson Mayor’s race will be just as crowded if not more so.”
Another forwarded email begins, “This is very scary. Read the part of the email below where Eric Stringfellow describes how crazy this lady is. She has said that the first thing she is going to do is ‘go into Northeast Jackson and Downtown and raise all the assessed values to reflect true appraised value’ because that’s where all the white people live and do business, and that ‘she will fire all white employees of the Tax Assessors office’. No joke. She is so wacked out that she went up to the Tax Assessor’s office after the primary election …, thinking that meant she had won it outright, and told all the white employees not to come back the next day. Seriously.”
And this: “I think she’s dangerous. A friend who was there told me she offered to ‘pop a cap’ on a little 70 something year old white lady during a meeting once. She called me a white whore because I corrected her for disrupting one of our meetings and violating our by-laws.”
An August 24, 2007, Clarion-Ledger story by Leah Rupp carried this graphic:
CAMPAIGN HISTORY
Dorothy Benford has run for public office in Mississippi for more than two decades. Her campaign history and incidents involved with those campaigns include:1985 Jackson City Council: Ward 3; Democrat.
1988 U.S. House of Representatives: 2nd District representative; independent
1989 State Highway Commission: Central District; Democrat (though no candidate had to declare a party affiliation in the nonpartisan special election)
1990 U.S. House of Representatives: 2nd District representative; Republican
1992 U.S. House of Representatives: 2nd District representative; Republican
1993 U.S. House of Representatives: 2nd District, Republican
1999 State House of Representatives: District 65; Democrat
2001 Jackson City Council: Ward 4; Democrat
2003 Hinds County Tax Assessor: Democrat
2006 U.S. House of Representatives: 2nd District; Democrat
Campaign incidents:
1988: Accused of listing people backing then-incumbent U.S. Rep Mike Espy without their knowledge on campaign fliers. Benford had maintained the list was meant to reflect individuals who supported her efforts to get a job as 2nd District U.S. Rep. Mike Espy’s chief assistant in Washington — a job she did not get.1987: Filed an affidavit in October alleging Jackson City Councilwoman-then Doris Smith punched her in the chest at an NAACP function. Smith denied the allegation and a peace bond was dropped.
1988: Fined in November for reckless driving after mowing down Espy’s campaign signs on Election Day.
May 1988: Found guilty of assaulting Mike Alexander, then-Mississippi campaign coordinator for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, in May and of contempt of court for not remaining quiet during the proceedings. She was fined $25 on the misdemeanor assault charge and $50 for contempt of court.
September 1998: Found guilty of malicious mischief for smashing Alexander’s windshield with a sledgehammer. She also was fined $1,000. She later filed charges against Alexander, who was found innocent.
1992: Involved in an altercation with Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes. Benford filed disorderly conduct and assault charges in Jackson Municipal Court against Stokes, who maintains he didn’t touch her. The case was moved to County Court. The outcome was not immediately available.
The story expands:
In a little more than 20 years, Dorothy Benford has run unsuccessfully for at least 10 local, state or federal public offices. …
Benford, former director of the United League of Mississippi, has been a character in state and local politics since the mid-1980s, at times switching parties.
She’s defined herself as a political consultant, employee of the state Department of Archives and History and a former teacher.
Mostly, though, Benford is known for her tactics during campaign seasons past – especially during her 1988 bid for then-incumbent 2nd District U.S. Rep. Mike Espy’s seat.
The controversy started with campaign literature that listed several Espy supporters as switching to Benford’s side – several without their knowledge – and ended with Benford getting arrested on Election Day. She was charged and fined for reckless driving after mowing down Espy’s campaign signs in Yazoo City yards. Espy responded by hiring two bodyguards to travel with him.
The same year, Benford was convicted of malicious mischief for smashing the automobile window of Mike Alexander, a Mississippi campaign coordinator for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. …
There was some mudslinging in Benford’s 2003 campaign for tax assessor as well, Barnes said. In the runoff, Benford told voters if elected she would clean out the office, he said.”It wasn’t that I – and this office – wasn’t doing a proper job. … It was that this office wasn’t black enough,” said Barnes, who is white. “That was an insult to the voters.”
Both Benford and Charles Stokes are black. …
This year, Benford’s campaigning efforts have been quieter. She has run radio spots throughout the campaign season touting a good relationship with the county supervisors and uses signs asking voters to “re-select” her. …
One forwarded email, datelined mid-morning of August 14, 2007, and inviting “Tax Assessor Voter” to a luncheon for Charles Stokes that day at the Capital Club, urges (emphasis mine) “Join both Democrat and Republican friends around noon for a delicious buffet. We’ll gather in the Tinsley Room and meet the candidate for this extremely important public office. (Please feel free to forward this invitation to interested parties on your email list),” and adds “Here’s what C-L columnist Eric Stringfellow recently wrote (in the nicest possible terms) about Ms. Benford.”
Just before Dorothy Benford announced her City Council candidacy in 1985, she paused, excused herself and walked past the cameras and out of the Council chambers. She returned wearing a neck brace. Then she explained why she was the best candidate and what she would do if elected.
It was never clear whether the brace was a prop designed to elicit sympathy or whether she had been injured – no one asked.
Maybe it was just one of Benford’s eccentricities, a list that is as long as the one chronicling Benford’s attempts at public office.
During her varied futile campaigns, she has also been a Republican congressional candidate as well as a Democratic congressional candidate. For this election cycle, she is asking Hinds County voters to “re-select” her as tax assessor. And this could be Benford’s year, which is frightening. …
Benford, so colorful that she has been banned from the Democratic Party offices, got 10,183 votes or 28 percent. Stokes, also a Hinds County sheriff’s deputy, collected 4,356 or 12 percent.
Benford got 32 percent of the vote two years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to oust Mike Barnes. …
What is Benford’s appeal? “She’s persistent. She’s on the radio and she works hard,” said Derrick Johnson, a political consultant. “Plus she was in a race in which none of the other candidates distinguished themselves.” …
Well, since they didn’t trust her to assess their property taxes, I hope Jackson voters won’t trust Benford to run the city either. But just to be on the safe side, maybe her opponents should look up Mike Espy and cadge the phone numbers of two seasoned bodyguards who recognize her.
yikes! I saw a bumper sticker last football season that read “Pray For Jackson.” I think that we should follow those instructions.
I read most of this. Either way, I think I would enjoy a drink with Benford. My favorite is when she ran her car onto someones lawn to take out Espy sign’s. She’s a shoot first, ask questions later type.
Gad! She’s more of a nut than I realized. Thanks for the informative post, lotus. I’ll be sure not to “re-select” her as mayor.
From lotus’ post above:
” ’she will fire all white employees of the Tax Assessors office’. No joke. She is so wacked out that she went up to the Tax Assessor’s office after the primary election …, thinking that meant she had won it outright, and told all the white employees not to come back the next day. Seriously.”
And this: “I think she’s dangerous. A friend who was there told me she offered to ‘pop a cap’ on a little 70 something year old white lady during a meeting once. She called me a white whore because I corrected her for disrupting one of our meetings and violating our by-laws.”
From Ben Cole’s comment in yesterday’s post(the demise of Jim Hood’s wind vs water case):
“Moreover, everything that happens in our beloved state has a racial tendril.”
My impression is that it’s Democrats she irritates the most which has made me wonder if she isn’t in the employ of some nefarious Republican cabal.
I wondered the same thing, dwp– a hired spoiler a’la Charles Evers.
My impression is that Ms. Benford doesn’t do what anyone else, including some nefarious Republican cabal, tells her to do. My impression is that she owns her own voice and her own behavior.
She’s a regular caller to most talk shows on WMPR (90.1 FM) in Jackson. Tune in for Charles Evers’ show on Wednesday night or one of the other talk shows and you’ll probably hear her. She was alleging misdeeds in the tax assessor’s office the last time I heard her.
I also remember an incident with one of the TV stations a few years back when they tried to interview her on one of her campaigns and she refused respond, drove off, with her passenger giving the one-gun salute to the camera.
My impression is that she’s stone bonkers.
Keep in mind that when he ran for mayor and was elected, Melton had strong support from whites in Northeast Jackson.
So many good people have worked so hard so long to open ALL the doors for ALL Mississippians … and then along comes a Dot Benford or a Tomie Green or a ….
Well, most of what is written is true, but taken out of context. Miss Benford is a real pro-active canidate. She was raised in an era , when blacks and women were treated as second class citizens. Miss Benford never took backseat to anyone whether they were racist or sexist, when she stood up and opposed people treating her with disrespect, she responsed in a intelligent manner, when they didn’t respond to intellect, she then communicated with them in a languange they were familiar with a old fashion ass-whipping. Mike Espy made a promise to hire Ms. Benford to head his office, he later on broke his promise to her. Remember Mr. Espy was selected to the Clinton cabinet and left the position in disgrace because of corruption. The blacks of jackson and hinds county fail to realize she is a true champion of the people.
Miss Benford has strived to bring fairness to the poor, and disenfranchised people of jackson. The city of Jackson is a crime ridden carcasse of a city.The black politicians are Uncle Tom sellouts, look at JSU, look of JPD being used as security guards for Madison county you can travel 12 miles north to Canton Ms, and see that a conspiracy to undermine Jackson’s economic resources, the tax assessors office had 24 white employees none of them black, but the county was 60% black. I personally beleive that Mississippi is a hellhole for blacks, thats why I left the state vowing never to return,FYI Ms.Benford is my mother, and i am proud of her. you may not like how she presents the truth, but it is the truth… Wake up.
as for Lotus and Ben Cole responses. WHERE were you during the woolworth lunch-counter sit-ins,where were you two, when Medgar or Charles Evers tried to get you vote, protest and get involved with the black communities. I question if you are black, or a white , i am black. Racism is directed toward blacks, Mississippi whites are notorious for being racist. So when you write your one liners,attacking Ms. Benford, when all she and other black leaders ask for fairness…Hmmm, you sound like a racist to me.
Hey, Dwite: Were you at the Woolworth sit ins? Did you ever meet Medgar Evers?
One good marker of a racist is someone who interprets any disagreement (or for that matter, anything) as being about race.
Instead of thinking about whether you’re speaking to racists, you need to consider whether you are projecting.