Thursday, June 26, 2014

Poutrageous - McDaniel Loses to Thad Cochran in Mississipi Run-Off

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Previous Related Post:
Locked-Up - Mississippi Courthouse Shenanigans

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The Republican Senate Run-Off Election in Mississippi has turned into a big deal. Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel had been favored to win, but at the last minute Thad Cochran appealed to black Democratic voters who turned out in record numbers to vote AGAINST McDaniel. And thus began another strange night in American politics.

Cochran won the election, but McDaniel has so far refused to concede the race, and there's talk of a write-in campaign, a third party for Teabaggers, an investigation into the election, and general far-right Poutrage.

Make some popcorn and read what happened.

From Time
McDaniel lost in a runoff to the six-term incumbent Cochran by only about 6,000 votes, amounting to less than 2% of the total count. Many of those who pushed Cochran over the top were either Republicans who’d been unmoved to vote in the initial June 3 primary (in which McDaniel narrowly won but failed to secure the 50% needed to prevent a runoff), or Democrats who were inspired to vote for Cochran to prevent a Tea Party victory for McDaniel.
Turnout in Tuesday’s runoff was higher than in Round One, with about 55,000 more ballots cast, many of them by Democrats for Cochran. McDaniel supporters felt robbed; as their candidate took the stage at his election night watch party, the crowd chanted “Write Chris in!”

From Robert Costa in Washington Post
In a bitter and angry speech to supporters in Hattiesburg late Tuesday, McDaniel refused to concede and said, “we are not prone to surrender.” He cited “voting irregularities” and thundered that the “Republican primary [was] decided by liberal Democrats.”
“We’re not done fighting,” McDaniel vowed.
. . . McDaniel has drawn support from national tea party groups as well as conservative stars, including former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Chuck Woolery, the original host of “Wheel of Fortune.”



























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Sarah Palin Word Salad On Facebook
With Friends Like These, Who Needs Liberals?
As we pointed out last week (see: http://t.co/y8T64iZQyR), there were several potentially illegal political games afoot in Mississippi to motivate Democrat voters to “switch” over to the GOP for a day to help save a 42 year Republican member of Congress. On top of that, millions of dollars from out of state liberal billionaires like Mike Bloomberg poured in at the last minute on that same incumbent’s behalf. You have to ask yourself why?
When a primary election is lost fairly, I am all for unifying behind the victor and joining forces to fight in November. When an election is questionable, with potential legal violations, politics MUST be put aside and the irregularities MUST be fully investigated. Regardless of party, we owe it to voters and to democracy within our Republic. The integrity of the vote speaks directly to the integrity of those who serve and the trust we ask the American public to put in our institutions.
I told Chris McDaniel last night that I stand with his effort to get to the bottom of this – he needs to know average, but tremendously concerned, citizens want to make sure the integrity of last night’s results in Mississippi are verified. Voting shenanigans never cease to amaze, but they had better cease altogether for the sake of ethical elections. And any GOP “architect” behind these abhorrent voting shenanigans should be ashamed of this Pyrrhic victory for the establishment.
If we find out it’s true that some of the characters alleged to have masterminded this Mississippi hijacking are the same ones who’ve tried to destroy other Republicans’ careers, they need to be taken to task and only be hired by unethical campaigns. Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us. And if any news organization ignores a free and fair elections issue like this, then whether left-leaning or center right, their silence will speak volumes.
You can read more about this issue from an article last week here:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/18/MS-GOP-Chair-Only-Those-Who-Plan-To-Support-GOP-Nominee-In-November-Should-Vote-In-Runoff

- Sarah Palin


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From "The Marionettes Remain Uncut" by Erick Erickson on Red State
. . . the Mississippi race does crystalize for me the desires of many to start a third party. In essence, tea party activists are the RINOs. A Republican Party campaigning on making the Senate “conservative,” used liberal Democrats to preserve an incumbent Republican and defeat a conservative. The actual conservatives are the outsiders with the GOP establishment doing all it could to preserve its power at the expense of its principles.
. . . Mississippi is a crystalizing election in that sense. Cochran is, for all intents and purposes, a marionette. His strings are pulled by staffers and lobbyists. They drop him onto the stage of the Senate and pull up a string to raise his hand. These puppeteers are so invested in keeping their gravy train going that they will, while claiming to be Republicans, flood a Republican primary with Obama voters to ensure their gravy train continues.

And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. They won fair and square. They changed who the electorate was, which was allowed under the rules.
. . . Unfortunately for the Republican Party the fight continues. And as grassroots activists feel further and further removed and alienated from the party, it will become harder and harder to win. . . . we may just see an irreparable split. Then, and even worse, if party leaders and party base voters cannot reconcile themselves to a common candidate in 2016, God help us.
I continue to oppose a third party. I’m just not sure what the Republican Party really stands for any more other than telling Obama no and telling our own corporate interests yes. That’s not much of a platform.









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