The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

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.

 

Comments

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

  1. MCCAIN: GOP leadership on Tuesday betrayed the loyalty of their party’s supporters in Mississippi. | Mississippi PEP
    June 25th, 2014 @ 9:29 pm

    […] Read More […]

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 25th, 2014 @ 9:50 pm

    No candidate is perfect. We should always vote for the lesser evil . Cochran is way more evil than McDaniel.

  3. Wombat_socho
    June 25th, 2014 @ 9:52 pm

    No. And tossing around accusations like that will get you b&.

  4. K-Bob
    June 25th, 2014 @ 10:18 pm

    We had a slim chance to win the Senate in 2014/16. I’d say that’s pretty well been shoved out the door by the Whigs. They’ll have third-party challengers now and Conservatives staying home, and fed-up Republicans voting Democrat.

    This is a very good time to not be a Republican.

  5. K-Bob
    June 25th, 2014 @ 10:30 pm

    What? This election proves there’s no reason to vote for Cochran. He ran as a Democrat. So having him in the Senate just helps the Dems.

    Better to write in a name.

    But it’s really moot. Since ol’ Thadly ran essentially as a Dem, he’s really trying to win the “Second Dem Primary” in November. You know that the “actual” Dem candidate will win that, easily.

    Some think McDaniel could win as an indy/write-in. I doubt it, but crazier things happen. It’s at least worth trying.

  6. K-Bob
    June 25th, 2014 @ 10:35 pm

    That makes no sense at all.

    You don’t “man up” by going fetal.

    The issue isn’t the fact that it’s open, the issue is that Dems who voted in the Dem primary were ineligible to vote in the Republican (and vice-versa). That’s the legal basis for a challenge, and failing to enforce election rules is as stupid as Gore’s decision in 2000.

  7. K-Bob
    June 25th, 2014 @ 10:39 pm

    Putting a Democrat in as the Republican nominee has a lot more to do with that.

    Republican elites have only themselves to blame for the unforced error of handing a red state over to the Dems. Putting a doddering old apparatchik up for election is not a winning strategy.

  8. K-Bob
    June 25th, 2014 @ 10:40 pm

    bampersand?

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 25th, 2014 @ 11:09 pm

    Harry Reid not being majority leader. It is not a huge positive difference (given McConnell would probably win Senate leader) but Reid is that bad.

  10. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 25th, 2014 @ 11:12 pm

    It had reached the point that honorable persons may choose to sit out. I would never vote for the Democrat over even the worse Establishment Republicans, but I agree we have to get an organization together (be it third party or in the party) to take these Establishment tools on and defeat them.

    And Rand Paul is quickly losing me with his x positions.

  11. Blake
    June 25th, 2014 @ 11:24 pm

    Fine, ban me for calling it like it is.

    I find it odd that I’m being threated by someone with the power to ban me, even though my sentiments are in line with the article put up by our host.

    Wombat, if you cannot see that Dana’s sentiments are everything that is wrong with the the “Go TEAM GOP crowd,” then you’ve got a problem also.

    Anyway, just ask me to leave politely and I’m gone. I know it’s not my house and I have no “right of free speech” on this blog.

  12. Wombat_socho
    June 25th, 2014 @ 11:40 pm

    You misunderstand. I’m not threatening to ban you for what you’re saying. I’m threatening to ban you for being an asshole about it. Mind your manners, is all I’m saying. We get all kinds in here, and as long as they don’t start making bullshit accusations and going all ad hominem I don’t much care.

  13. Blake
    June 25th, 2014 @ 11:58 pm

    Wow, you didn’t like being called out, did you? And such language. Sheesh.

    I made one accusation. The second post was an accurate summation of the problems conservatives are facing with the “go team GOP” crowd. If you cannot follow my argument, that’s your problem, not mine.

    (now I’m truly being a jackass, but, hey, I’m admitting it, whereas you need to look in the mirror and think long and hard about who is truly being the asshole here)

    Later.

    Oh, yeah, if you’re ever in So. Cal, let me know, I’ll buy you a beer. If you prefer fisticuffs before the beer, loser buys.

  14. dicentra
    June 26th, 2014 @ 12:42 am

    That was a valid tactic back in the day, but now?

    Step AWAY from the normalcy bias, people! SPOCK HAS A GOATEE! I REPEAT, SPOCK HAS A GOATEE!!!!

  15. How Molly Ball blew it: Establishment Republicans “winning” by bringing in Democrats is not the Tea Party “blowing it.” | Batshit Crazy News
    June 26th, 2014 @ 12:46 am

    […] bright. Either that or you intentionally misled your readers by writing a false story… TOM: Establishment Republicans turn out Democrats to beat Conservative Candidate Rule 5 Monday and […]

  16. dicentra
    June 26th, 2014 @ 12:55 am

    knowing the rules

    The rules are that you can’t vote for someone in the primary if you don’t intend to vote for them in the general. The Establicans suborned illegal voting so that they could keep their good ol’ boys club intact.

    NOT, I emphasize, to push back the Leviathan State, but to feed it truckloads of raw meat, also known as the corpse of the Republic after this lot has done its worst.

    Why don’t you recognize their behavior as unprincipled, corrupt, and vile? Why is it OK for ANYONE — let alone someone wearing a red jersey — to engage in that kind of race-bating?

    At what point do the GOP lose your loyalty? How unethical do they get before you stop apologizing for their reprehensible behavior? How much abuse are you going to take before you realize that he beats you because he’s a malignant sociopath, not because you didn’t get dinner finished on time?

    Screaming bloody murder when your own damn team behaves like the effing MAFIA isn’t childish, it’s what honorable men do.

    You, however, will apologize the Republic into the abyss, which, we’re on the event horizon anyway, regardless of election outcomes.

    But you can’t see that. You think gamesmanship is as good as principle.

    You MUST be a lawyer. If your not, what the hell is your excuse for that piss-poor analysis?

  17. dicentra
    June 26th, 2014 @ 1:05 am

    Voting records are not the whole story.

    What do these guys do behind the scenes? How many conservative measures never make it to the floor because of the Establicans? How many crimes are committed by their fellows across the aisle and they say nothing because they’re besties? How many of them cram pork and earmarks and handouts and favors to cronies and downright UNconstitutional bullshit into bills that are about something entirely different, then vote for the “conservative” bill to fool you into thinking they’re on your side?

    How many times do conservatives like Bachmann and Cruz and Lee get kneecapped by their own party in their efforts to scale back the Leviathan State?

    How many times have Cochran and his cronies done awful, treacherous things behind the scenes — things against the Constitution, against the Republic, and against all human decency but then made sure their voting record looked good to the dupes back home?

    Don’t you understand that the two parties really have coagulated into a single venomous clot of powerlust and greed? Don’t you get that the Establicans hate you far, FAR more than the Dems hate you?

    The dynamic has shifted: it’s the Beltway vs. the electorate.

    Which side are you apologizing for, and which side do you think is a buncha crybabies?

    Think about it. Think HARD.

    Now tell me again why I should vote for another Establican ever again.

  18. Dave
    June 26th, 2014 @ 1:37 am

    Bob,

    I believe that the decade leading up to July 6, 1854 is a better analogy.

  19. Wombat_socho
    June 26th, 2014 @ 1:38 am

    Like I said, the only problem I had was with you accusing Dana of being a paid troll, which is not OK here. You want to blow it up into something bigger, well, that’s on you. Also, your opinion of me as I do my mod job doesn’t bother me, since I don’t answer to you.
    I can’t drink these days, but thanks for the offer.

  20. Dave
    June 26th, 2014 @ 1:45 am

    Sorry Dana, Cochran had an ACU rating of 52% in 2012 and 60% in 2013. Making up “facts” doesn’t help your desperate defense of submitting to our government betters in the name of party. I’ll steal one from the Dims: PUMA!

  21. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:02 am

    No, if that were true their cumulative total would have been higher. The problem was there was no opponent of sufficient stature and funding. If you wanted to seriously challenge Graham, raise $2 million first. That’s a minimum. He had over $7 million and could have raised more. It’s not a cheap undertaking.

    The other problem is that no one in the party was of high enough profile to challenge him.

  22. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:05 am

    Graham campaigned like it was an open seat and he was the underdog (as advised by Strom Thurmond, may he RIP), holding events all over the state from early spring. Although my correspondence with him has been of an adversarial nature, he had my home and email addresses and kept me informed of every campaign stop. I didn’t go (but if a free BBQ had been close enough, maybe), but he kept communicating with everyone he’s ever had contact with.

    He could be beat, but it would take more than a hope and a prayer.

  23. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:09 am

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

    Give Harry Reid the Senate again, and Obama two more Justices like Sotomayor and Kagan and 200 lower court lifetime appointments with no way to stop them, and your great-grandchildren will curse your name as a fool as those judges impact their lives every day.

  24. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:23 am

    I don’t know how they do it in Mississippi, but in South Carolina our rules are the same, and those who voted in the Democratic Primary had their names lined out on the printout of registered voters for the runoff. So they would not be eligible, and everyone would know it.

  25. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:29 am

    Lifetime rating 79.8

    Senate Republican lifetime average 76.5

    Joe Manchin was the highest rated Democrat in 2012-13, with 28 both years.

  26. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:33 am

    I hate to see you go. Your voice is an important one to be heard, and the sum of intraparty debate will be the less for it.

    But if you must leave, be quick about it. Long goodbyes make me sad.

  27. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:40 am

    Who is treating you like dirt, Bob? I’ll give them a piece of my own mind.

    Seems to me Cochran WAS as good as buried, but somebody dropped the ball. Somebody tried to play dirty, and it blew up on them. It’s a bit late for that side to complain about rough politics.

    The rules have been the same in Mississippi primaries and runoffs for over a century. They should be rigorously and fairly enforced. Have you any information they were not?

  28. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:46 am

    When Harold Ickes, Sr., heard that FDR had decided to support Somoza (Sr.) in Nicaragua, he burst into the Oval Office and confronted the President in anger: “But Somoza is a son of a bitch!”

    FDR replied, “Quite so, Harold, but he is OUR son of a bitch.”

    The winner of the primary. Oh, he is absolutely the spitting image of Trent Lott – both were staunch conservatives in the House, and pork gluttons in the Senate. And he will win in November.

    Would McDaniels cast more consistently conservative votes? Without doubt. But you have to win to cast any.

  29. Adjoran
    June 26th, 2014 @ 3:50 am

    If anything, we have a better chance with Cochran – and also Roberts. What if something more comes out tying McDaniels to the nursing home intrusion? There are four people charged with crimes with jail time attached. Neither you nor I have any idea what any of them know, or might say.

    Most Republicans nationally will care far more about retaking the Senate and rebuking Obama than will care about the fate of a flawed challenger to a safe seat.

  30. Da Tech Guy On DaRadio Blog » Blog Archive » Is the GOP establishment taking lessons from Market Basket?
    June 26th, 2014 @ 5:04 am

    […] The only rea­son why House Repub­li­cans hold chair­man­ships and the power and patron­age that comes with it are conservative/?tea party vot­ers that have turned out. If I’m try­ing to win the Sen­ate in Novem­ber the last thing I need to see after a pri­mary elec­tion is this […]

  31. Quartermaster
    June 26th, 2014 @ 6:30 am

    There is no such thing as an unflawed candidate. Cochran is now far more flawed than McDaniel.

    But, the GOPe has now fully revealed what they are.

  32. Quartermaster
    June 26th, 2014 @ 6:37 am

    Were I from MS I would NOT hold my nose and vote for the pig.

  33. Quartermaster
    June 26th, 2014 @ 6:41 am

    I don’t agree with you, but there is nothing wrong with cross-posting a comment to other places. I’ve done the same.

  34. Pablo
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:03 am

    Lieberman, Murkowski. It can happen.

  35. Pablo
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:07 am

    Then that should demonstrate the price that must be paid for using the opposite party as a wedge to drive into your own.

    Live by the sword, die by the sword.

  36. Pablo
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:12 am

    Yup. If the Democrats won you your primary, let them carry you throughout the general as well.

    It is them against us, and them is not Democrats. Them is Washington.

  37. Pablo
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:14 am

    Cochran doesn’t really know whether he’s wearing pants at this point. He’ll move the way his handlers pull his strings.

  38. Rick Caird
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:29 am

    This basically shows, once again, that Democrats and Republicans are two wings of the Sociopathic Party. Right, wrong, good of the country have no meaning. All meaning is wrapped up in “what is good for me, must be OK for the country”.

  39. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:43 am

    What you are saying is that Senator Graham is a politician, and a damned good one. It isn’t much of a surprise that good politicians win elections.

  40. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:47 am

    Rubbish. Senator Cochran was running as Senator Cochran, and his most important vote will be his first one, for Senator McConnell as the Majority Leader.

    I don’t know if I can stress this enough: winning the majority is the main issue! I don’t care how great you think Ted Cruz or Rand Paul are; if they are in the minority, they have less power.

  41. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:53 am

    Cole wrote:

    Cochran, McConnell, and Boehner are just as much a danger to the nation as Pelosi and Reid.

    Pure bovine feces. None of those gentlemen gave you Obaminablecare; that was the Democrats, and they were able to do it, despite solid Republican opposition, because there weren’t enough Republicans in office. None of those gentlemen gave us the stimulus plan or Lucy Ledbetter; those were foisted on us by the Democrats, because there weren’t enough Republicans in office to stop them.

  42. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:55 am

    Very first vote of the session, organizing the chamber.

  43. Blake
    June 26th, 2014 @ 8:55 am

    You cannot drink any more? With all the crap that is going on? Egads, how do you cope?

  44. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 9:01 am

    A rigged game? It was an election, and there’s no evidence that it was somehow rigged.

    Mississippi has open primaries; voters declare the party for which they wish to cast ballots when they go to the polls. Heck, there’s no guarantee that Mr McDaniel wasn’t the recipient of a lot of Democrats’ votes in the first round.

    I don’t like open primaries, but they are the law in many places, and were a good thing in Mississippi. The Democrats controlled Dixie for generations, and without open primaries, probably still would, because everyone would register as a Democrat to have any voice at all in the primaries.

    Good, red state Kentucky, where I grew up, has closed primaries, and despite them being mostly moderates, the Democrats control both the state Senate and the gubernatorial seat.

  45. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 9:02 am

    Well, unless you are willing to engage n an armed rebellion, I’m not sure how you being an OUTLAW is gong to make much difference.

  46. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 9:04 am

    So, then, what are you going to do? If you don’t vote Republican, then your choices are to vote for the Democrat, waste your vote on third party candidates who have no chance, or not vote at all.

  47. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 9:06 am

    Senator Cochran is a free man, and has every right to run for office. He did it, and he won, period. He won by the rather usual method of getting more votes than his opponent.

    Don’t complain that Senator Cochran got too many votes; ask yourself why state Senator McDaniel didn’t get more.

  48. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 9:12 am

    You don’t know that there are any people who voted in the Democratic primary who then voted in the Republican run-off, but even if there were, it doesn’t matter: you can’t subtract their votes, because you can’t identify their votes.

  49. Dana
    June 26th, 2014 @ 9:13 am

    Dicentra asked:

    How many conservative measures never make it to the floor because of the Establicans?

    Dude, Harry Reid is the one who controls the agenda!

  50. Jeff Goldstein
    June 26th, 2014 @ 12:59 pm

    “Somebody tried to play dirty, and it blew up on them.” Let me make this as clear as I can, because I no longer give a shit about being marginalized, which means only that I was principled long before it became fashionable: Dana and others here are advocating pulling the lever for a Republican primary nominee who won the primary run-off by campaigning against Republican principles and with the support only of the putative opposition party. He wishes to be the representative of a party whose members in MS he and his team have asserted are racists. He ran on pork spending, food stamps, and segregation. Anyone who pulls the lever for him because it’s “pragmatic” to do so — because taking the Senate is of foremost importance, regardless of principle — let me ask you this: if it meant keeping the Democrats out of control of the Senate, would you let Haley Barbour bang you in the ass literally? If not, then stop with the bullshit. Liberty is not for sale; this is not a game; and until you take a stand against your abusers, your slave masters, you’re nothing but the GOP equivalent of an Uncle Tom. Me, I’m nobody’s slave. And the last time the GOP controlled the House, Senate, and Presidency — with the same establishment “realists” — we got TARP, enormous debt, bailouts, increased spending, No Child Left Behind, and an extraordinary increase of government. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to repost this comment on facebook. Because I’m so proud of my reasonableness and sober political calculations. And because I don’t like sore losers. Unless they’re named Murkowsky or Lugar or Specter or Crist or Castle or Rove, etc. Cause they know who to play the game right!