Former Gov. Kirk Fordice and former Attorney General Mike Moore formalized their mutual disdain the day after Fordice took the oath as Mississippi’s chief executive in January 1992.

Today, however, at least in fiscal terms, the state owes both men an almost equal amount of gratitude.

Fordice had operated a construction business in Vicksburg that filled a lot of federal contracts.

Moore, born in Jackson, already had one term under his belt after being elected as Mississippi’s youngest-ever attorney general in 1987.

Charlie Mitchell is executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. Write to him at Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182, or e-mail.

The day after the swearing-in, Fordice called all the other elected heads of executive departments together for a meeting and started giving what amounted to marching orders. Most of Fordice’s dealings with government had been with the federal system in which presidents do, indeed, have cabinet members to do their bidding. The “new guy” didn’t understand that Mississippi elects lots of top-tier state officials independently, including the lieutenant governor. These folks not only don’t answer to the governor, many are positioning themselves eventually to take the governor’s job.

Now Moore was a Democrat and Fordice was a Republican, but their differences ran far deeper. Fordice was “big business” personified. Although Moore had made his name as a district attorney and prosecutor, his No. 1 supporter was rising plaintiffs’ attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs of Pascagoula.

With Moore’s blessing and with Scruggs at the helm of the case, Mississippi sued tobacco companies, seeking to recover for the state treasury all the Medicaid and other public dollars that had been and would be spent treating people with tobacco-related illnesses.

Fordice fought this litigation with everything he had. First, he ordered Moore to drop the case. Then he sought a court order declaring a state couldn’t sue anybody unless the chief executive agreed.

The Constitution, however, is clear. An attorney general is the state’s top lawyer and has the exclusive right to sue anyone, anywhere, anytime, whether a governor likes it or not.

Well, as we all know, Big Tobacco settled with Mississippi in a precedent-setting case for the nation. After an initial payment of $170 million, the tobacco firms agreed to keep paying a share of what they make off smokers for 25 years. Checks have been at least $100 million per year.

Now, while Fordice struck out with Moore, he did win a round with the Legislature. Where lawmakers had been adopting budgets allocating every expected tax dollar, Fordice persuaded them to create a cushion by allocating only 98 percent of estimated income. A reserve or “rainy day fund” would be created in case state income failed to meet projections.

Last week, Gov. Haley Barbour, reacting to the growing gap between what the state expected to receive this year and actual income, ordered a fifth round of budget cuts that will trim this year’s spending to $413 million below the total budget set last June.

Already spent in the budget are this year’s $109 million check from big tobacco and about $100 million of the rainy day fund.

What that means is that all else aside, the state might be looking at a shortfall of more than $600 million — a third larger — if it weren’t for the separate actions of two former officials who pulled in opposite directions during their entire public careers.

Funny how these things work out, isn’t it?