Jackson Free Press

Sid Salter has an intriguing bit today on his blog about PR firms under scrutiny by the legislative PEER Committee.

Frontier Strategies the Republican PR firm that we blogged and wrote back a while back. I apologize for the cache link; I'm not sure where the original forum post got off to.

Anyway, this is what Casey wrote in July '04 about Frontier:

Eyebrows at local advertising agencies, and perhaps a few tempers, were raised upon the news that a public-relations and advertising agency recently formed by two well-known Republican operatives is getting lucrative contracts from the state, now led by that well-known Republican, Gov. Haley Barbour. After helping get Barbour elected last fall, campaign spokesman Quinton Dickerson joined forces with Josh Gregory, young Webmaster and editor of the conservative Web site, The Magnolia Report, to form Frontier Strategies. The Clarion-Ledger reported on July 7 that the state was about to reward the young agency most of its $6.4 million marketing contract, leaving agencies that are bidding for the contract, including the GodwinGroup and the Ramey Agency, in the non-crony dust. The two men formed the company in January—in fact, Gregory (a tech consultant for Barbour) registered the agency's Web site, http://www.frontierstrategiesllc.com, on Jan. 15, two days after Barbour's inauguration. The contact e-mail address for the domain is [e-mail missing] Dickerson was a spokesman for Chip Pickering for five years; Gregory has run the Magnolia Report, a one-stop shop for (Republican) political news for journalists around the state, since Brian Perry, the previous editor, left to work for Pickering in Washington.

Previous Comments

ID

114088

Comment

Gosh, about Haley's speed. I'd love to say I'm shocked, but.... BTW-- is this actually illegal? What exactly are they investigating, outside of curious timing and close friendships?

Author

Ironghost

Date

2007-08-20T21:22:31-06:00

ID

114089

Comment

I don't know for sure, but there could be questions of the government giving contracts to a Republican firm, I'd guess.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2007-08-20T21:24:18-06:00

ID

114090

Comment

Would we investigate a Democratic governor giving a plum deal to some of his Democratically minded PR buddies new firm as well? I'm just looking for laws broken, not politics. :)

Author

Ironghost

Date

2007-08-20T21:26:17-06:00

ID

114091

Comment

Well, I assume that's what PEER is going to find out. I don't think the issue is necessarily "Republican minded," as I understand it.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2007-08-20T21:31:21-06:00

ID

114092

Comment

I'm looking for convictions based on breaking laws, as well.

Author

Ironghost

Date

2007-08-20T21:40:59-06:00

ID

114093

Comment

"PEER" stands for performance evaluation & expenditure review.it is joint legislative watchdog committee thats charged with investigating government waste,not just criminality

Author

chimneyville

Date

2007-08-20T21:43:32-06:00

ID

114094

Comment

What if, when Frontier Strategies took over the tourism contract for MS, they didn't know how to do most of the work...properly output print projects, for example? If that had happened, who would have picked up the pieces and done things like proof bluelines and know what they were looking at? Wouldn't it have fallen upon state employees to handle things, thus incurring excess costs not previously incurred with other, larger PR firms? It seems like that would be a good reason to review, if you ask me...

Author

katbird

Date

2007-08-22T10:47:41-06:00