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 “Trump: The First Two Years” and “The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2018.”
64 articles by Michael Nelson :
When his song “Green Onions” was racing up the charts, Booker T. Jones was a freshman at Indiana University Music School, coming home every weekend so the MG's could seize the moment by recording an album.
When the presidential debate is held in Tennessee next year, will Joe Biden face off with Donald Trump? The new book “Barack and Joe” presents the potential Democratic nominee as a “rare blend of moderate thinking and immoderate decency.”
The Legislature made the decision — unique among all the states in the country — that sports betting will be an online-only activity. Tennesseans and tourists won’t need to go anywhere in particular to gamble. They’ll just need their phones.
The founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, Ibram X. Kendi will speak at the National Civil Rights Museum and the University of Memphis. His honesty is an invitation to frank discussion and open debate.
Baseball romanticists often argue that part of the game’s charm is that it is played off the clock. In theory, they like to marvel, a game could last forever. Speaking literally, no game ever has. It just seems like most of them do.
Of the Ghosts of Politics Past that voters turned away, the first was the 79-year-old former mayor, Willie Herenton, who resigned the office in the middle of his fifth term in 2009.
In a country where Election Day almost always falls on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, what possible sense does it make to have our local election on a Thursday in October?
Debates between presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain were held at Belmont in Nashville and Ole Miss in Oxford. Belmont has applied to host another one next fall. Ole Miss thought better of it.
Once you start ignoring the Constitution in order to achieve some immediate political goal, you are placing it in jeopardy. The right way to make changes is to follow the rules of the amendment process spelled out in Article V of the document, which has already happened 27 times in our history.
Las Vegas, like Memphis, is still Elvis' town.
Four of the first six federal officials to be impeached by the House of Representatives were Tennesseans, including the first president ever indicted for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Tennessee’s Andrew Johnson.
Mississippi Republicans nominated Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, their weaker candidate for governor in Tuesday’s runoff primary. Hood, the state’s four-term attorney general, sailed to victory with 69% of the vote in his party’s Aug. 6 primary.
Memphis decided to bring the best of the urban past into the vitality of the urban present in a minor league ballpark.
The city was the site of two battles during the Civil War, but the worst one came afterward.
Modern-day progressives like to think that progressives from earlier eras were, like them, enlightened about everything. It ain’t so now and it wasn’t so then.
Positive Physics reaches about 13,000 students a year in 50 states and 76 countries. Memphis teacher Jack Replinger writes the problems. Memphis computer scientist Anthony Fizer maintains the site.
Memphis theaters have reasonable prices, easy access and, above all, superb talent. When you see a play at one of these venues, you are seeing the theatrical equivalent of the Memphis Grizzlies. Not a team playing in the NBA finals. But definitely major league.
Kustoff’s career has mostly centered on federal offices, but if he’s open to another path to advancement, it might be the time for him to start focusing on Tennessee-specific issues that a candidate for governor will have to address.
The roughly 75 golfers who qualify will play all four days. If there's a golfer you want to see on Saturday or Sunday, you can count on him being there.
Mild inaccuracies mark the play. To which I say, so what?
Joe Biden recently suggested maintaining civil relations with even the most difficult people is important to accomplish anything in Washington. The problem? He chose as an example ardent segregationist James O. Eastland, who represented Mississippi in the Senate from 1942 to 1978.
Here's a collection of 13 terrific innovations in our language, plus a longer list of major annoyances in contemporary use.
It’s called the music business for a reason, and from the beginning, Sam Phillips’ never-ceasing struggle was to make records he loved while keeping his shoestring operation financially solvent.
We’ve gone from being the nation’s most-expensive airport for travelers to its 28th most expensive. And flights cost less than $10 more from Memphis than at the 20 next-cheapest airports, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Our history of cross-racial voting calls into question whether Memphis might not be ripe for a redistricting of city council and county commission districts that intentionally makes them racially diverse instead of solidly black or solidly white.
Sign up for our morning and evening editions, plus breaking news.