Word: mabus
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...seven-piece band served up a bouncy rendition of the once popular tune Ain't No Stopping Us Now. In the steamy hotel ballroom, Democratic partisans lifted a rhythmic chant: "Mabus, Mabus, Mabus." On the podium, Mississippi's new Governor-elect let out a short celebratory whoop, then slowly declared, "Change has come." He repeated his campaign theme, "Mississippi will never be last again...
...assertions were not entirely outlandish. Raymond Mabus Jr., a wispy, cocksure state auditor, had spent four years in a zealous crusade against public corruption during his first term in public office. Then, in an iconoclastic campaign for Governor, he railed against the decadence of "old- time politics and the oldtime politicians." Last week, at 39, he was elected one of the nation's youngest Governors and the leader of an awakening movement to free Mississippi from its long-standing image of lethargy and backwardness...
...Mabus' opponent, Jack Reed, stressed many of the same themes. Reed, a progressive, respected businessman who served on the state board of education, got 47% of the vote, more than any other Republican since Reconstruction...
Along with Mabus, Mississippi voters swept a whole team of young, fresh- faced reformers into the statehouse. Mike Moore, 35, a county district attorney who until recently was scarcely known outside his Gulf Coast habitat, was elected attorney general, the youngest since 1912. Pete Johnson, 39, a third-generation politician who counts a grandfather and an uncle among former Mississippi Governors, was elected state auditor, replacing Mabus. Said Johnson: "This has been a mandate that Mississippians want to see our state move forward." In other rites of passage, John Stennis, 86, has announced his retirement after 40 years...
...Mabus announced that his first business will be to raise the pay of schoolteachers to the average of the other states in the Southeast, $23,100. That will cost the state close to $165 million, and he proposed, perhaps unrealistically, to fund the hike without raising taxes. His brashness alone might go a long way toward restoring his state's pride. When asked which state would serve as his model for education reform and economic development, he replied, "The one state that people ought to look at is Mississippi. We're gonna be an inspiration...