The winds of political change blew across Mississippi at gale-force velocity in November of 1991 leaving in their wake one disappointed young Democrat, Ray Mabus. The calm after the storm produced Mississippi's first Republican governor in over 100 years, Daniel Kirkwood Fordice.  Fordice, a successful businessman from Vicksburg, espoused the traditional, conservative, Republican message throughout the months of 1991, stating to anyone who would listen that Mississippi had to get its financial house in order. On campaign stops and in media interviews, Fordice said, "We are goingto stop spending more money than we are taking in. The law says 'thou shalt balance your budget every year in Mississippi.'"
His idea that Mississippi should be run like a business caught on and Mississippians elected Fordice as their sixty-first governor.
  "I think that we accomplished a lot of what we set out to do," says Fordice one sunny November afternoon in the Governor's Mansion as he looked back over the past eight years. "We made very few promises back in '91 other than to try to do our best and to bring our business expertise, to running government. The first thing that we worked on was returning the state to fiscal responsibility. The state was absolutely broke when we came into office. There wasn't a dime anywhere in any of our reserve accounts when we came into office."
  Two months after he took office, Fordice was forced by statute to cut $75 million in the state's budget in order to begin the process of bringing the state back into financial order - one of his first moves that brought the Mississippi media down on top of him.
  "Anyone that has ever been in business knows that if your revenue, as in the case of the state, is nothing but a guess, and that's what it is - it's an estimate, then why would you ever want to base a budget on 100 percent of that guess," says Fordice. "So, we proposed to base it on 95 percent of what the revenue estimate was and what we got was 98 percent. We are very proud of this happening in that first session.
  That 2 percent difference allowed us to constitute a cash stabilization balance that is commonly known as a "rainy day fund" that now amounts to $240 million. We went from dead busted to $240 million in the bank that stays there. It is for use only in the type of situation that I faced.
  During those first days in office, Fordice and several members of his staff were reading a letter from State Treasurer, Marshall Bennett, that stated the balance in Mississippi's reserve account was a mere $5,333.00.  One of Fordice's young aides looking over the governor's shoulder as the governor read from the letter remarked that he himself had more money in the bank than the State of Mississippi.
  The decisions Fordice and his team made during that first session have paid-off handsomely for Mississippi during the past eight years.  From the first day, with his director of economic development, Jimmy Heidel in tow, the two implemented some vigorous agendas.  To date, more than 193,189 net new jobs have been created in Mississippi  since January 1992 that have generated capital investments of more than $18.3 billion by new and expanding companies. Last year, Mississippi led the nation in business-startup growth and jobs created from those businesses, according to a report by Dunn & Bradstreet.  The Fordice/Heidel machine has been good for Mississippi business, and in fact, other economic development professionals from around the country have used the their formula and approach when trying to improve other states economical development efforts.
  Gaming also arrived in the state during Fordice's watch.  He was against it.
  "The complete story is that I voted twice against gaming in my home county which is Warren County before I became governor," says Fordice. "As governor, I had to forget my personal feelings concerning gaming and how I had voted on it before, because it became law. It became my task as governor to see that no corruption would take place in this industry in Mississippi, like it had in Louisiana. I was determined to put people on that gaming commission that were of absolute integrity.  My thoughts were "why in the world would anyone want that job?" - it doesn't pay anything, it's a thankless task and I feel that you would be suspect if you wanted that gambling commission job. I went out and twisted the arms of three people that I knew could not be compromised or corrupted. And, that's what I did."
  Fordice's  gaming commission appointments have proven to be good choices and Mississippi has been free from any serious scandals in the state's gaming industry.
  "That's a huge contrast with our sister state Louisiana, right across the Mississippi river, that  has been a welter of corruption in gaming," says Fordice. "The Wall Street Journal  has pointed this out as well."
  Other Fordice administration accomplishments and notables:

• The February 1, 1999 edition of Newsweek  reported that Mississippi led the nation in disposable personal income growth rate in 1998 with a 17.6 percent increase in disposable personal income per capita.
•  In a report covering 1997-1998 and for the third consecutive time, Whirlpool Corporation ranked Mississippi's business climate first in the nation.
• To encourage industry to move into Mississippi, Fordice helped to pass a historic tort reform law in 1993.
•  Fordice's administration abolished the capital gains tax on Mississippi investments to stimulate economic growth.
•  Under Fordice's leadership, $42.2 million has been appropriated through Fiscal Year 1999 to increase tourism in Mississippi.
•  Mississippi's export trade increased 39 percent from 1994 to 1996. Exports in 1997 totaled $2.71 billion.
•  Mississippi's civilian labor force and residence-based employment are at record highs, indications that Mississippians have more confidence than ever before in the state's economy.
•  Mississippi's per capita income growth rate has exceeded the national average over the past decade.
•  63 international companies from 16 different countries operate in Mississippi.
•  In 1997, Fordice secured more than $45 million in tax relief for Mississippi families by eliminating the marriage penalty in the state income tax code.
• As a result of Mississippi's sound fiscal policies, Standard & Poor's, one of the largest bond rating agencies in the  nation, awarded Mississippi the first upgrade since 1974 to "AA" from "AA-."