A steady flow of mostly positive economic news for Memphis and Shelby County – coupled with the solemn and tasteful commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination – was overshadowed at times by political bickering and grandstanding in 2018.

Will he or won’t he?

I am willing to give the nearly 500,000 Mississippi voters the benefit of the doubt.

So much for civility, consensus and racial harmony.

“Everything is not about race,” Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant boldly proclaimed this week while struggling to defend an indefensible comment from the person he handpicked to be an interim U.S. senator.

“People make choices. Choices make history.”

The politics of fear and division, playing out at the national level, has literally hit home.

Picture this scenario: A man with a gun is chasing on foot another man, who may or may not be armed.

Taylor Swift may have gotten all the media attention for potentially upping the vote.

What might he have been thinking? And what was he saying?

If you believe the polls, Republican Bill Lee is steamrolling toward victory in the Tennessee governor’s race.

Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn is doing all she can to nationalize her race for the U.S. Senate.