Google Public Data and Mississippi's jobs numbers

Some interesting jobs data here:



I can't help but notice something right off: There's the obvious Katrina bump in unemployment. But if you look closer, you'll see that things were getting bad even before Katrina, even as the national economy improved.

Speaking of Katrina, take a look at the comparison between Louisiana and Mississippi:



Interesting, huh?

Turnout very light in Hinds runoff

It appears as though voter turnout in today's Hinds County judicial runoff will be a fraction of what it was on Nov. 2nd. The only race on the ballot is the race between Special Circuit Judge Melvin Priester and Brent Southern to replace retiring County Judge William Barnett.

Priester came close to winning the seat outright on Nov. 2nd, and would presumably be the winner of today's runoff. However, with turnout as low as it currently is (I was the 18th voter at Eudora Welty's Precinct 1 at lunchtime), it's up in the air.

My hunch is Priester pulls this out, due to his GOTV efforts.

Checking in

So, I absolutely nailed the election predictions.  Every. Single. Last. One.  Don't have a read on the Priester-Southern run-off yet, but I'm thinking Priester was just too close not to pull it off.  That being said, I've seen plenty of run-off elections where the leader in the general election loses.  That usually happens because those who voted for one of the other candidates voted as much against the general election leader as they did for their candidate.  (Charlie Ross comes to mind....)  I think Priester is well-liked, and will most likely pull it out.  I don't expect a landslide either way, though.

That brings me to another matter, which I'm mulling over and am not ready to fully post about: what changes will Judge Tomie Green make to the Hinds County Circuit Court when she takes over as Senior Judge in January?  We already know she's moving into Yerger's current office and courtroom.  I hope she takes her modern audiovisual equipment with her, as the acoustics in "the big courtroom" are horrible.  (Ask anyone who was there for the special venire in State v. Stanley Cole.)  But what about the substantive changes? The senior judge in Hinds has some rather interesting powers.  She can, for instance, split the circuit into a criminal and a civil division.  She also has appointment power over the Public Defender.  She can also substantially influence the appointment of special circuit court judges by the Supreme Court. 

I also may have my hands on something concerning a former public official who's no longer with us.  We'll see.

So that's what's bouncing around my mind at the moment.  I'll post on it soon.

Election predictions

 It's Election Eve 2010, and the above picture is of the boxes going out from the Hinds County Courthouse.  There are several contested races here in Hinds County, and I'm going to take a crack at predicting them.  Here we go:

U.S. Representative, 2nd District:  Bennie Thompson over Bill Marcy
U.S. Representative, 3rd District: Gregg Harper over Joel Gill

Mississippi Court of Appeals, District 2 Position 1 - Tyree Irving over Ceola James

Hinds County Circuit Judge, District 1 - Jeff Weill over Ali Shamsiddeen and Bruce Burton (no runoff)
Hinds County Circuit Judge, District 4 - Bill Gowan over Malcolm Harrison

Hinds County County Court Judge, District 1 - Brent Southern and Melvin Priester head to a runoff
Hinds County County Court Judge, District 2 - Houston Patton over Bridgett Clayton and Henry Clay
Hinds County County Court Judge, District 3 - Bill Skinner over Michael Williams

Guess we'll see how good I was at this tomorrow evening.