Thursday, April 24, 2014

TEA Party's Last Stand: Mississippi?

McDaniel vs. Cochran
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Republican US Senate incumbent Thad Cochran vs. Republican state senator and challenger Chris McDaniel

This is the fight that will determine whether the TEA Party movement is a viable political force, or a monumental outrage which took down the Washington Establishment, both Republican and Democrat, in Washington D.C.

Cochran has served in the US Senate since 1976, served in the House of Representatives since 1972.

Forty-one year Establishment Republican.

That's a long time to be in Washington.

Since his election, the national debt has soured, under Republican as well as Democratic Presidents.

He has voted in line with the same subsidy system which cannot continue.

What steps has Cochran taken to end the entitlement pillage which is borrowing from our future as opposed to shoring up investments to ensure that future generations are not paying for past pleasures and comforts?

Bryan Fischer called Cochran an invisible Senator, who has done almost nothing, who has made no impact on the US Senate or the country.

Indeed, he is one Senator that even the most connected of avid politicos (and political scientists) would neglect to mention. A lot like the thirteenth President of the United States, for example, or who was the Secretary of State for, well, every Administration from John Adams to the Present.

McDaniel admits that he faces an uphill fight challenging Cochran.

Why is he running? On Fox News 13, McDaniel shared:

"First and foremost, we have to balance this budget. We're spending way too much money. We have to gain control over our spending habits if our republic is going to survive. Perhaps more importantly our Constitution has to be restored. We have to defend the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment. We have to make inroads in making sure that individual liberties are protected, and lastly Senator Cochran voted to fund Obamacare. I am not going to fund Obamacare. I'm going to do my best to get rid of Obamacare once and for all.

The TEA Party Patriots, Freedom Works have endorsed McDaniel, as well as Sarah Palin.

Buffering his Reagan credentials, McDaniel is calling for a restoration of bold colors in the Republican Party, not light pastels.

"I believe that Republicans have to learn to fight again. We have to fight with courage. We have to stand for what we believe."

The interview recognized that incumbent Cochran, like all politicians, is beatable.

"I think Senator Cochran is a nice guy. I truly do."

The truth is, however, we do not need nice guys in Washington right now, especially with a Democratic Party which has become radically progressive under a tax-and-spend socialized chief executive who rules by fiat more than full faith and credit in accordance with the United States Constitution.

"His time has past. . .When he went into office in 1973, the country was only roughly $400 billion in debt. This country is now $17.2 trillion in debt, and $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities."

Wow! To get a grasp on the size of these numbers, if a man spent $1 million a day from the moment that Jesus was born until the present day, a person still would not have spent $1 trillion.

"At some point, we have to learn to be responsible again, and that is something that Senator Cochran has been unwilling to do. We need new leadership, and Washington DC, well, they're not listening."

The part about learning to fight again -- that statement needs to be the rallying cry for the TEA Party movement once again. Voters have to understand, however, that just by sending the right people to Washington, that does not mean that our efforts as voters or activists is over.


Refusing to stand with Cruz, Cochran has raised concerns among TEA Party fiscal disciplinarians, who believe that Cochran is too much "get along to go along."

In comes Chris McDaniel.

State senator McDaniel is the TEA Party favorite, but Thad Cochran admitted that he knows nothing about the TEA Party movement. Mississippi voters know the movement very well, if they are not actively involved.

Bryan Fischer is calling the primary for McDaniel. The polling suggests that the gap has hardly narrowed.

The latest setback, seemingly, against McDaniel rests on his conservative radio show in the previous decade. These hacked and spliced recordings do not reveal a ranting radio host whose every statement will invite upsets and needless distractions, necessarily.

This clip, terribly mixed, tries to expose a "Racist Radio Rant", from the gun control laws in Canada, and his disparagements of Hip Hop. Yet in the midst of the recording, he emphasizes that his upset with Hip Hop has nothing to do with race.

He also called out the liberal-progressive lie that poverty causes crime. Criminals cause crime. In a failed attempt to inject some credibility to the anti-McDaniel smear, the video includes a quote from Aristotle, who wrote: "Poverty causes crime."

Aristotle also believed that heavier objects will fall faster than lighter ones (Galileo actually tested that theory, and disproved it." Aristotle also believed that men had more teeth than women (he was wrong), and that a city could never grow  beyond the shout of a city herald. Not just today, where metropolises define urban regions in the United States, but in Aristotle's day, Athens had grown so large, in spite of the weakness of a town herald to announce news.

Summa summarum: who cares what Aristotle things?

The silly clip also slams McDaniel's support for water-boarding (more humane than allowing terrorists to live and say nothing while other terrorist cells continue to plot and kill).

Another audio clip features McDaniel slamming "libertarians", when in fact he was slamming one libertarian candidate, then criticizing specific policies from a more libertarian-leaning society. The state senator provided an extended explanation on Facebook (not that he really needed to).

The fact that the upstart state senate challenger is attracting such animus bodes well for Mr. McDaniel.

Still, incumbent Cochran has not just national but even state establishment backing, including former Governor Haley Barbour (who pushed tort reform while also salvaging his native state through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina). Cochran and McDaniel have sparred over federal funding related to education (both want the feds out of dictating state education policy, but McDaniel wants fed money out of it, too). On Hurricane Katrina funds, McDaniel sounded unsure whether he would have voted for the package (more likely because the horrendous, wasteful riders attached to such "emergency legislation , i. e. Superstorm Sandy)

These attacks might sway an electorate to remain with the incumbent, as statistics often bear out anyway.

Nevertheless, with a little over a month remaining, McDaniel's momentum may move him up fast enough to take down Cochran in the primary, and chart a way for another TEA Party outsider to shake-up Washington DC status quo complacency anew.

6 comments:

  1. The Teabagger Ball is over. Sweep up the drool and head home, y'all!

    Of the 10 "RINOs" in the House flagged for defeat by the Club for Growth last year, only one faces a primary opponent. With two of their leading Senate challengers' campaigns fizzling, the Senate Conservatives Fund has now decided to back conservatives in House primaries. And after raising only $766,000 in 2013—less than one-third of their 2011 fundraising—FreedomWorks is now backing Republicans who are so safe that they don't need any outside help. Conservative groups are even disagreeing on which races to target.

    2014 is shaping up as the year the Republican establishment is finding its footing. Of the 12 Republican senators on the ballot, six face primary competition, but only one looks seriously threatened: Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi. More significantly, only two House Republicans are facing credible competition from tea-party conservatives: Simpson and Rep. Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania—fewer than the number of conservative House Republicans facing competition from the establishment wing (Reps. Justin Amash, Walter Jones, and Kerry Bentivolio). With filing deadlines already passed in 23 states, it's hard to see that dynamic changing.

    Even the Club for Growth, one of the first outside groups to target Republican members of Congress, has been notably disciplined this year. Last February, the Club encouraged candidates to run against 10 squishy House Republicans, launching a PrimaryMyCongressman.com site featuring the so-called RINOs. Only one qualified challenger emerged. Their PAC is targeting just one Republican senator (Cochran, facing state Sen. Chris McDaniel) and one Republican congressman (Simpson). Meanwhile, they've joined forces with the party establishment in backing Senate candidates Rep. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Dan Sullivan of Alaska. The endorsement of Sullivan is significant, since they backed Joe Miller's losing general-election campaign against Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2010. Miller's running again, but this time they're opposing him in the primary.

    Given the mood of the Republican electorate, it's striking to see the disconnect between the number of conservative Senate primary challenges and the low number of conservatives running against House incumbents. With 211 Republicans running for reelection, only two are credibly being challenged from the right—less than 1 percent. That suggests the hunger for throwing out Republican senators is as much a product of outside intervention as a reflection of genuine grassroots opposition.

    "There are a lot of Ted Cruz imitators that believe all you need to do is make the race national and raise a bunch of money online and get national groups to endorse you and everything will take care of itself," said one conservative strategist, lamenting the quality of prospective challengers. Many national groups, likewise, seem to be overestimating their own ability to reshape a race with a mere endorsement.

    Republicans fear that weak, too-conservative candidates in these races could cost them valuable seats—with control of the Senate at stake. With the exception of FreedomWorks' backing of physician Greg Brannon in North Carolina, most conservative groups have remained on the sidelines in these crucial contests. But that could change if the Georgia and North Carolina races head into runoffs, or if the Iowa nominating fight heads to a convention (if no one wins 35 percent or more of the vote in a primary). For now there's an uncomfortable GOP détente—with neither side tipping the scales yet.

    If outside conservative groups endorse like-minded candidates like Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, Iowa talk-show host Sam Clovis, and Brannon in these primaries, expect a heated ideological battle to break out over the future of the party. But if they pull their punches, it's a sign that even tea-party sympathizers recognize their influence has peaked.

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  3. Thad Cochran, where have you been?

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/24/MS-Republicans-Say-Cochrans-Been-MIA

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    1. Cochran is projected to win. Seems some of the challenger's staff broke into the hospital room of Mrs. Cochran and took pictures of her. Not a bright thing to do. However, the TEA Party had a great day in Texas this week. Matt Bevin in Kentucky was another FreedomWorks supported candidate. His loss to Sen. McDufus could mean that the GOP will lose this seat in Nov. When the incumbent, especially a 30 year incumbent, is running neck neck with a challenger is not a good sign. However, a lot of Democrat incumbents are in the same boat as McDufus. The Republicans could pick up at least 10 Senate seats and I wouldn't be surprised that after the November election if Sen Joe Mancin of W. Virginia didn't switch parties like Sen. Shelby did in 1994.

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    2. Anonymous -- I could not agree with your more regarding Manchin switching to GOP. He has already praised the Koch Brothers, in spite of Reid-Pelosi-Obama hatred. West Virginia is getting redder and redder, and with Shelley Moore Capito winning the US Senate seat, he will be out of place preaching his (and his state's) conservative ideas while remaining a member of a progressively leftist Democratic Party. Don't forget Maine's Independent Angus King, who just endorsed GOP Susan Collins, and declares that he will caucus with GOP if they are the majority in 2015.

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    3. We will know for certain in the next few days whether McDaniel or Cochran advances to the General election.

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