Nelson: For Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, it all started in Memphis
Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were young, politically ambitious, and determined to advance their careers by coming to Memphis for the Young Republican National Convention in 1977.
Michael Nelson
Columnist
Michael Nelson is contributing editor and columnist for The Daily Memphian, the political analyst for WMC-TV, and the Fulmer professor of political science at Rhodes College. His latest books are “Clinton's Elections: 1992, 1996, and the Birth of a New Era of Governance" and “The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2018.”
There are 110 articles by Michael Nelson :
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March 2023
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August 2020
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OpinionTen weeks from Election Day, does Biden have a chance in Mid-South?
One convention down, one to go, and one question on many people’s minds: Who’s going to win the presidential election? -
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OpinionNelson: ‘Are you really the Republican or Democrat you think you are?’
Two online quizzes want to help you find out which party is truly aligned with your beliefs. One questionnaire is better than the other, but both might surprise you.
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Nelson
Opinion‘He was Memphis’ Indiana Jones, Marco Polo, P.T Barnum and James Bond’
Richard Halliburton spent his short life “living poetry instead of writing it.”
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OpinionNelson: Can the Democrats win November Senate elections in Tennessee and Mississippi?
Stranger things have happened. Heck, Ronald Reagan carried New York – twice.
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Nelson
OpinionOpinion: Are historians trying to cancel Andrew Jackson?
Eighteen cities bear his name as do counties in 22 states. Fourteen presidents have gone to his home to pay homage. But stock in Jackson's historical reputation, which has been declining for several years, just took another major hit.
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July 2020
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Nelson
OpinionOpinion: Conservatives should wear masks, but liberals make it unnecessarily hard
One of John Stuart Mill's arguments in “On Liberty” is often reduced to this sentence: Your freedom ends where my nose begins. Never has that way of putting it seemed more literal, noses being the coronavirus’s main point of entry into our bodies.
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OpinionNelson: How is the Aug. 6 election screwy? Let me count the ways, part 2
Local elections are always a mess. Here are ways they’re especially messy this year.
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OpinionOpinion: How is the Aug. 6 election screwy? Let me count the ways, Part 1
Local elections ought to be straightforward affairs for voters. Here are six ways our leaders always deny us this right – three today and three tomorrow.
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Nelson
OpinionHow Memphis helped win the Battle of Vicksburg, and the Civil War
Historian Donald L. Miller’s spellbinding book about the campaign is titled “Vicksburg,” but it could just as easily have been called “Memphis.”
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Nelson
OpinionFred Smith helps make Washington’s NFL team do the right thing
The team name in question, of course, is Redskins. It has been a standing insult to our country’s first peoples since the team was created in 1933.
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OpinionNelson: Strickland should be an agent of restraint
Public safety includes not taking actions that risk turning up the city’s temperature at a volatile time. In those moments the mayor needs to be an agent of restraint.
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June 2020
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OpinionNelson: In these conflicted times, Mississippi shows the way
"Nuance and process are the boring but essential virtues we need to make good decisions about matters like state flags, Confederate monuments and public holidays."
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Nelson
OpinionHow the Supreme Court saved the day for a Memphis family
A year ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court gave the green light to the new owners of Kimbrough Fine Wine & Spirits. But their victory may be Pyrrhic.
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nelson
OpinionWe survived 1968. We’ll thrive in 2020
Wonder why you don’t see Memphis in the national news? Because when a city doesn’t bleed that city doesn’t lead.
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Nelson
OpinionWe lack what the Mid-South needs – two-party competition
With Republicans in the driver’s seat in all three Mid-South Senate elections, are there competitive contests anywhere else on the ballot? The short answer: No.
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Nelson
OpinionNever mind how we’re going to vote. What are we voting on?
Believe it or not, something important is on the August ballot.
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May 2020
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Nelson
OpinionSports betting is coming to Memphis, in the right way at the right time
And if the lottery board were less greedy, the state would actually make more money.
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Nelson
OpinionWhen the Civil War siege of Corinth ended, the conquest of Memphis began
Even though Corinth was a small town of about 1,200, its location made it the key to controlling the western half of the Confederacy and its most important city, Memphis.
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Nelson
OpinionTennessean for vice president? No, but how about the Supreme Court
With no current Tennessee Democrat available to fulfill Biden’s pledge to choose a woman VP, how about his other promise: to “appoint the first black woman to the Supreme Court”?
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OpinionNelson: Who casts Tennessee’s electoral votes, and why it matters now
“Faithless electors” – those who were elected to support the nominee of their party, then voted for someone else – have been rare. In the 13 presidential elections from 1964 to 2012 there were six. But in 2016 alone, there were seven faithless electors.
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April 2020
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Arts & CultureNelson: Memphis Massacre or Riot? What a difference a word makes
One reason riots and massacres can be hard to tell apart is that they usually begin and end in roughly the same way. It’s what happens in between that tells the tale.
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OpinionNelson: ‘Enemy of the People’ tells us what we need to know about this pandemic
“An Enemy of the People” has been a theater staple for more than a century, but the play has never been more timely. A 2018 production in China was suppressed by the government because audiences were cheering the doctor who is the play's protagonist.
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OpinionNelson: What do Trump and Tennessee’s Democratic Party have in common? Disdain for constitutional democracy
The Democratic voters of District 90 were going to have a choice in August about their nominee for state representative, which is what constitutional democracy is all about. But the state party’s executive committee denied them that choice by striking John DeBerry’s name from the ballot.
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OpinionNelson: Rhodes takes the liberal arts to prison
The Women’s Therapeutic Residential Center (WTRC) at the West Tennessee State Penitentiary isn't like the jewel-like campus near Overton Park. But for students in this program, it’s an oasis of a different sort.
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