Nelson: Jefferson, Hamilton, Sinatra — and AutoZone Park
Memphis decided to bring the best of the urban past into the vitality of the urban present in a minor league ballpark.
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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August 2019
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Opinion Nelson: Who’s smiling after Mississippi’s GOP runoff? Democrat Jim Hood
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.
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September 2019
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Opinion Nelson: Tennessee’s sad history with impeachment
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.
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Opinion Nelson: A tale of two cities, and both belong to Elvis
Las Vegas, like Memphis, is still Elvis' town.
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Opinion Nelson: Enact the ERA and abolish the electoral college? Sure. But do it the right way
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.
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Opinion Nelson: Mid-South hosted 2 presidential debates in ‘08. How about 2020?
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.
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October 2019
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Opinion Nelson: April may be the cruelest month, but October is the most annoying
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?
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Opinion Nelson: The ghosts of politics past – four of them – paid a visit to Memphis last night
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.
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Opinion Nelson: Baseball must change to keep fans
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.
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Opinion Nelson: ‘How to Be an Antiracist’ author brings his provocative ideas to Memphis
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.
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OpinionNelson: How badly will the state louse up sports betting?
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.
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Opinion Nelson: Biden and Obama were a ‘two-man wrecking crew’ against a divided America
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.”
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November 2019
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Guest ColumnistsNelson: From Stax to the White House, Booker T. Jones embodies Memphis soul
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.
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Opinion Nelson: Biden’s strangely valid point about Tennessee’s two President Andrews
In addition to both being Andrews from Tennessee, Jackson and Johnson were among the earliest presidents to be the targets of assassination plots.
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OpinionNelson: Fred Smith doesn’t know it, but he inspires my students
The FedEx founder’s story is one every Memphian of a certain age has heard. But it’s a story – like the Christmas story – that never gets old. And like that story, it lies at the intersection of history and legend.
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December 2019
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Opinion Nelson: A prize-winning author revisits his troubling time in Memphis
Gay, black and much, much more, Saeed Jones defies prevailing stereotypes.
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Opinion Nelson: Lamar Alexander has one more job to do
The senator has focused relentlessly on education and health policy, working to enact the sort of important legislation that Congress is supposed to deal with instead of attacking or defending the president’s conduct.
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Opinion Nelson: Why Tennessee is no longer the mother of presidential contenders
In none of the past three elections – 2012, 2016, and now 2020 – has anyone given a thought to the possibility that the next president might come from Tennessee.
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OpinionNelson: Will Steve Cohen’s grandstanding keep him off the impeachment prosecution team?
The Memphis congressman is the fourth most senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, which wrote the two articles that are the basis of the Senate trial. But Cohen’s peers tend to regard him as a grandstander rather than a team player.
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January 2020
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Opinion Nelson: Joe Hanover’s mother couldn’t vote – until he became a Tenn. legislator
Even more remarkable than Hanover’s role in suffrage ratification was the rest of his life.
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Opinion Nelson: NBA Commissioner David Stern embraced Memphis. Here’s why
Stern cared deeply about both civil rights and bringing the NBA to mid-size cities where the basketball team would be one of the biggest things in town. For Stern, that combination equaled Memphis.
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Opinion Nelson: Alexis de Tocqueville came to Memphis – for better and worse
In 1831, the French traveler watched a federal agent load a band of Choctaw Indians onto a ship for transport to Arkansas, a vanguard of the Trail of Tears. “In the whole of this spectacle,” Tocqueville observed, “there was an air of ruin and destruction, something that felt like a final farewell with no returning.”
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Opinion Nelson: We know who’s going to win the Tennessee primary. But we’re probably wrong.
You can find FiveThirtyEight.com predictions more than a month in advance of the Tennessee primary and nearly two weeks before votes are cast in the Iowa caucuses. How much faith should we have in these forecasts? Not a whole lot.
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Opinion Nelson: DNC superdelegates no longer very super
New rules governing the Democratic National Convention means Tennessee will have 73 delegates (1.8% of the 3,979 total delegates), and 64 will be pledged to support one candidate or another.
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February 2020
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OpinionNelson: Super Bowl LIV is over. Get ready for Super Tuesday IX.
One of the most prominent shakers and movers in the effort to create Super Tuesday in 1988 was then-Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter.
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