Russell puts himself on the line
By By Buddy Bynum / editor
Dec. 22, 2002
In 1982, Amy Bennett was a campus political coordinator for then-senatorial candidate Haley Barbour when she met a student from Jackson named Randy Russell, who was attending Ole Miss on an academic scholarship.
One thing led to another. They dated, got married, and next year the Russells will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary as Randy, a Jackson ophthalmologist, seeks public office. And Amy, the daughter of Leonard and Barbara Bennett, who ran Small World Day Care Center for years in the Vimville community, will be at his side.
Randy Russell, M.D., 49, is running for lieutenant governor as a Southern Republican conservative and white male who believes his personal and professional record can help bridge the state's racial divide. Indeed he does appear to have lived a life free of racial prejudice.
In a telephone interview the other day, Russell, acknowledges that he's stuck his neck out for many Republican candidates over the years, including Sen. Trent Lott and U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering. In fact, working his contacts in the medical community and elsewhere, Russell was one of the top if not the top fund-raiser for Pickering in the hotly contested congressional race this year.
Follow his star'
Before Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck announced her switch to the Republican Party, Russell was visiting with state party bigwigs, telling them of his own interest in running for lieutenant governor next year. They encouraged him, he says, to "follow his star" and do it.
Russell began to move around the state, getting the word out that he was running. The Tuck announcement came as something of a shock, but it has not deterred him.
He's still running presumably against Tuck, who is expected to seek reelection in the Republican primary and will file official qualifying papers well before the March 1 deadline.
Randy Russell's position is that while Mississippi's Republican officialdom stood shoulder to shoulder with Tuck at her announcement party, the Mississippi Republican Party has not and doesn't plan to endorse a candidate in a primary.
And, while he welcomes Tuck's switch as a further broadening of the party's reach, he is running on the strength of his own character and commitment to conservative principles embraced by the GOP. And he believes his life story including conducing charity medical clinics where 90 percent of his patients are black, advocating abstinence and sponsoring foster care children, and as a major participant in the racial healing mission of Mission Mississippi will appeal to many voters.
Odd man out?
Russell has built a successful eye doctoring practice in Jackson over the past two decades. Once a month, he holds charity medical clinics at no charge to patients. For years, he has been active in a central Mississippi organization of physicians, bringing in GOP speakers and rustling up political contributions for GOP candidates. He is a driving influence behind a foster parenting program that attempts to place babies in foster homes. Most of the babies are African American.
Ironically, just at a time when Russell agrees with the national GOP's philosophy that it must appeal more to minorities, he is in some odd ways on the outside looking in at a party he helped build in Mississippi. The state's top Republicans all appeared with Tuck the other day in a show of welcoming her to the GOP.
As a Southern Republican conservative white male with no racial baggage, Russell said he believes his campaign can appeal to many conservative voters who share his fundamental beliefs.
In some ways, too, Russell is running against a "career politician" mentality. He believes men and women who come from the private sector can exert a positive influence on the shape of the political world.
He sums up his campaign this way:
