GOP Establishment Turns Out Democrat Voters to Defeat Conservative Candidate

Posted on | June 25, 2014 | 132 Comments

Remember that headline, bookmark this page and circle June 24 on your calendar, because the result of Tuesday’s primary runoff in Mississippi was an ill omen that portends Republican defeat in November.

Check back here on Wednesday, Nov. 5, to see if my helpless sense of dark foreboding doom is correct, but today it seems obvious: If the Republican Party spends money to turn out Democrat voters against a conservative in a GOP primary — the paid professional party apparatus doing this as a deliberate strategy — what message does that send to conservatives, whose votes are crucial to whatever hope Republicans have of winning an electoral majority?

You can read the New York Times analysis of Tuesday’s result in Mississippi and glean whatever “moral of the story” you wish, but my visceral sense of what it means can be summarized in one word: Disaster.

Maybe that’s just me.

Whether what the Republican Party did to re-nominate Thad Cochran was illegal is one question, and Chris McDaniel has vowed to challenge the outcome of the runoff, to answer that question.

However, there is no question at all that what the Republican Party did in Mississippi was wrong — both morally and politically. To seek the assistance of your political enemies in order to defend the seat of a corrupt and ineffective septuagenarian like Thad Cochran? This is not, as some GOP operatives are telling each other, a clever “strategy” for defeating an insurgent challenge; this is lying and cheating — a breach of trust that brings shame to the party, per se.

If Republicans are not trustworthy, if they are not honest, why would any honest person call himself a Republican? Loyalty must be reciprocated in order to have any meaning, and GOP leadership on Tuesday betrayed the loyalty of their party’s supporters.

Contrary to my very deep sense of gloom today, it is still possible that the Republican Party will capture the Senate majority in November, so that Mitch McConnell’s cronies can address each other as “Mister Chairman” again (which is all they care about). Given all the advantages the GOP takes into this mid-term election, it would take an extremely incompetent fall campaign by the Republicans to prevent McConnell from becoming Majority Leader.

Despite my dark mood today, therefore, I cannot predict as a certainty an embarrassing GOP failure in November. All I’m saying is that if everything falls apart for Republicans between now and Election Day, if the Democrats catch all the lucky breaks while the GOP is cursed with misfortune, so that McConnell’s selfish ambition is thwarted and Harry Reid remains the Majority Leader . . .

Well, if that happens, remember June 24 as the point of no return.

Category: Election, Mississippi, Republicans

Comments

132 Responses to “GOP Establishment Turns Out Democrat Voters to Defeat Conservative Candidate”

Who needs the Left? GOP Use Alinsky Playbook in Mississippi Senate Race
June 26th, 2014 @ 1:05 pm

[…] at The Other McCain, veteran newsman and conservative blogger Stacy sadly […]
My response to the GOP pragmatists | protein wisdom
June 26th, 2014 @ 1:22 pm

[…] Adjoran wrote: […]
Wombat_socho
June 26th, 2014 @ 1:34 pm

Poorly.
Garym
June 26th, 2014 @ 2:02 pm

Adjoran and Dana are the Charlie Browns to the GOPs Lucy.
I_Callahan
June 26th, 2014 @ 3:00 pm

No, Dana, it isn’t the main issue. If you concede that there is no real difference between the GOP and the Dems anymore (and I wasn’t ready to until Tuesday’s result), then it doesn’t matter if the GOP is in the majority. The only thing they can do that Dems won’t is approve USSC justices if a GOP president is elected. Which is still up in the air.
That said – the GOP has raised spending just like the Dems. Reagan was the exception, not the rule. They’ll raise spending again if they get the majority.
Adobe_Walls
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:05 pm

A write in for McDaniel would be better than voting for the dem or not voting at all. Obviously voting for Cochran is out of the question.
Adobe_Walls
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:07 pm

That’s just silly there are no where near enough conservatives running for senate to win a conservative majority.
Adobe_Walls
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:10 pm

We’ll be voting from the rooftops before the decades out.
Adobe_Walls
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:12 pm

And the rest of us are freemen also and have every right to despise him and those who helped him run.
Adobe_Walls
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:16 pm

Heritage Action has him at 57%, I won’t vote for any republican below 95.
Quartermaster
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:28 pm

I have a bad feeling that the GOP will not take the Senate.
Quartermaster
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:29 pm

Even when they are really sorry Senators.
Quartermaster
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:29 pm

It’s even higher in NC. One man was told the bidding starts at around 20 million.
Quartermaster
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:30 pm

“Remember that the opposite of the lesser of two evils is the greater evil.”

This statement is utter BS.
Quartermaster
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:32 pm

KY is not a Red State. The fact the state is controlled by Dims pretty much shows that.
Adobe_Walls
June 26th, 2014 @ 4:51 pm

It gets easier over time.
Bob Belvedere
June 26th, 2014 @ 7:45 pm

Bloody beautiful, Jeff.
Bob Belvedere
June 26th, 2014 @ 9:21 pm

Spoken like a true Loyalist.

You’re loyal to a system that despises everything you supposedly stand for, a system that will crush you when you are no longer useful to it. At least the Loyalists of old were offered passage by General Gage to Canada and England, you modern ones won’t be.

As for the term ‘Outlaw’: it is what the Enemies of Freedom and Liberty have declared us to be [ex: ‘fringe groups’ and ‘domestic terrorists’], so we have cheekily embraced it.
Bob Belvedere
June 26th, 2014 @ 9:24 pm

THIS – Bravo, Di.
Bob Belvedere
June 26th, 2014 @ 9:26 pm

I tell you: he’s like a Loyalist reincarnated.
Bob Belvedere
June 26th, 2014 @ 9:28 pm

AND CAP’N KIRK – HE CRAZY!
Mimi Mayes
June 27th, 2014 @ 5:40 pm

Yes. I won’t support corruption. Lwt the country burn down.
Mimi Mayes
June 27th, 2014 @ 5:44 pm

It blows my mind that you & others just brush off corruption, “by any means necessary.”
Nope. I hope Cochran loses.
Mimi Mayes
June 27th, 2014 @ 5:46 pm

I hope the GOP drops dead.
Mimi Mayes
June 27th, 2014 @ 5:51 pm

No, my grandchildren will know the truth: both parties are corrupt to the core. That’s what will cause the downfall of the nation. It won’t be blamed on those who refused to vote for crooks.
Mimi Mayes
June 27th, 2014 @ 5:53 pm

You have NO IDEA how much bigger this last straw was. The GOP has screwed the pooch; many of us are DONE.
Mimi Mayes
June 27th, 2014 @ 6:23 pm

You really do not get it.
Dana
June 28th, 2014 @ 10:52 am

OK, that means that you hope that a Democrat takes the seat, a vote for the Democrats controlling the Senate. Tell me how that helps our country.
K-Bob
June 28th, 2014 @ 8:08 pm

Not any more it isn’t. Stress all you want, but winning the Senate with Progressives in charge is exactly how we got here.

Besides, that’s “conventional wisdom” circa 1973. In the post-Constitutional period of today, that’s like a 168lb halfback from 1945 running on the field with an open-face, leather helmet and old-school pads to face a modern, all-pro defense. Time to adjust to the new reality, because the old tactics led directly to barack.
K-Bob
June 28th, 2014 @ 8:09 pm

I agree. I keep telling folks that “staying home” is what losers do.

Never pass up the chance to exercise the franchise. Write-in is the way to go when the ballot sucks.
FMJRA 2.0: Stuff Like That : The Other McCain
June 28th, 2014 @ 9:30 pm

[…] GOP Establishment Turns Out Democrat Voters to Defeat Conservative Candidate […]
Robert Vaughn
June 29th, 2014 @ 3:48 pm

This happens all the time and if your new to running for office. If your not an insider no matter what the party your an outsider.