That was unexpected.
No matter who ultimately gets the nod, this looks like a win for Democrats. Maybe they get a beatable nominee and maybe they don’t, but either way this is a ton of money that can’t be spent on actual elections.
Well… yes. Except that I’m not sure I agree that they need to spend much money in the general election to win Mississippi.
I think Cochran can spend nothing at all from here on out and coast to re-election.
Yeah, but a lot of the money spent in the primary came from outside groups: FreedomWorks and the like. So it won’t be spent on actual elections outside Mississippi. I have no illusions about the odds of any Democrat winning a statewide election in that state.
McDaniels would have been a win for Democrats. Watching the Tea partiers celebrate as they sink their own party never gets old.
How so? It was a rather narrow margin, and there may be legitimate questions about whether some of the voters were ineligible (because they already voted in the Democratic primary).
Of course, if McDaniel starts talking up that point in terms that don’t require a Captain Midnight Decoder Ring to translate as “they shouldn’t have let all those nggrs vote”, then by all means call him an asshole.
Any competent Republican can easily win Mississippi under normal circumstances. The circumstances are not normal.
And now a tragic and bizarre side story:
Other accounts say that a suicide note was found, but the contents haven’t been disclosed.
Cue avalanche of batshit-insane conspiracy theories in 5…4…3…
Looks like McDaniels was pretty careful to couch his objections as being to Democrats voting rather than black people. He accuses Cochran of race-baiting (though I suspect his understanding of the term is not widely held.)
So, does Childers have any chance of beating Cochran in November? Any chance at all?
Maybe if McDaniel runs a sore-loser campaign and splits the vote.
Does Mississippi allow that, or would he only be allowed to run a write-in campaign.
He has a fighting chance. Definitely an uphill battle, but there are deep divisions in the GOP. It’s unknown whether McDaniel is actually going to file a lawsuit, or attempt some sort of write-in campaign, or just continue to stamp his feet and cry. Rumors are flying–including some that certain Tea Party supporters may back Childers out of spite.
The Dems are enthused…they smell blood in the water. I expect enough money will come in to allow Childers to make a very serious run.
It helps that the Democratic voters who put Cochran over the top 1)will have a recent memory of making a difference and 2)are seeing echoes of bad-old-times vote-suppression tactics in McDaniel’s desperate attempts to invadlidate the election. Both of these (particularly the latter) will help boost turnout (which has traditionally been a Democratic weak point).
McDaniel is soliciting donations to find a lawsuit. Story here.
“Thanks to illegal voting from liberal Democrats, my opponent stole last week’s runoff election, but I’m not going down without a fight,” McDaniel said in the fundraising email one day after his supporters filed suit to gain access to voter records.
This race continues to make Red Viper v The Mountain look like a slap fight.
I suppose there was a mechanism to prevent such ineligible votes, a few mistakes, and the idea that even a few mistakes could affect a close election. Or is there more to it?
And if there were mistakes, since ballots aren’t tied to voters, what redress could there be other than yet another runoff?
Is the threatened lawsuit based on that “unenforceable” statute?
(I support enforceable regulations to further confidence in electoral integrity! Where I differ from some is that I want such regulations to be motivated by … wait for it … a desire for confidence in electoral integrity.)
The weirdness continues: Thad Cochran Press Call Turns Into Disaster After Caller Asks About 'Harvested' Black Votes | HuffPost Latest News
Cochran held a press conference call.
Charles Johnson, a blogger who paid a black Pastor, Rev. Fielder, for an interview in which the Pastor claimed Cochran paid black voters $15.00 a pop to vote for him, advertised the conference call and got ringers to join the call with the intention of disrupting the call.
And they did.
"…an unidentified caller began asking whether Cochran improperly “harvested” votes from African-Americans like “black people harvesting cotton” amongst other things.
Both Cochran’s opponent, McDaniel, who has refused to concede, and Johnson, the blogger, are raising funds. McDaniel needs the money for his lawsuit against Cochran and Johnson needs it just because he is awesome (according to him).
There has also been a suicide regarding this campaign. One of the two guys who were implicated in the entering of the nursing home to take a picture of Cochran’s wife incident killed himself.
Some think this is all Obama’s doings, too!
So far, the lawsuit threats seem to be “based” (if that word applies) on general allegations that the election was fixed, “supported” (see previous note) by a Gish Gallop of random anecdotes.
It would be entertaining to see McDaniel sue on the basis of a statute that apparently requires the state of Mississippi to have Professor X on retainer as an election judge, but there’s no sign it will get quite that bizarre.
Mississippi is a scary place.