GOP Establishment Turns Out Democrat Voters to Defeat Conservative Candidate

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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.

 

132 comments

  1. Well…. when the entrenched don’t value the base then they have to go after the other side’s useful idiots.

  2. I initially thought Lindsey Graham used the same trick to win the SC primary, but he won so overwhelmingly, and truth be told, there aren’t that many democrats in SC.

    Graham won because there were too many challengers and they diluted the vote. If the challengers had taken a straw poll at the beginning and chosen the winner of that to go against the incumbent, I think we would have had a much better outcome.

  3. Remember how pissed off we were when the Democrats tried to change the rules in 2000, to steal the election for Al Gore? Now Chris McDaniel is saying, “Before this race ends, we have to be absolutely certain that the Republican primary was won by Republican voters.” Well, sorry, Mr McDaniel, but the rules were that Democrats who didn’t vote in the initial primary cycle could vote in the Republican run-off. It can be argued that those are lousy rules, but Mr McDaniel chose to run under those rules when he started. I’d have rather seen Mr McDaniel win, but he just flat didn’t.

    Senator Cochran played hardball, and he won. If Mr McDaniel challenges the legality of the result, the only thing that he can do is to help the Democratic nominee. It’s time for Mr McDaniel to man up, and not be a stinking crybaby.

  4. And they wonder why folks are apathetic. It’s all one big cesspool and the GOP has dove in nose first.

  5. I hope McDaniel does help The Democratic nominee. The GOP already hurt its own chances as the article points out. And why give a s*** about a Cochran victory after this fiasco? If I lived in the state I’d cast my first vote for a Democrat just to spite the GOP. The GOP needs to be taught a lesson. Immoral actions solely in the pursuit of political victories don’t help us at all. GOP victories don’t equal victories for us or for limited government. Not anymore. I worry every day that things will move from ballots to bullets. The economy is in the toilet. Our nation is dying. And the GOP cronies are just offering more of the same. Corrupt, big government, self-serving political chicanery. So I couldn’t care less if McDaniels hurts Cochran’s chances. Let the GOP burn.

  6. Dear Other McCain,

    Senator Cochran was ‘more inclusive’ than his extreme, fringe, racist, teabagger opponent. That makes him ‘bipartisan’ and ‘electable.’ This is our blue print for success in November…so shut up, wacko bird!

    Sincerely,

    NRSC, RNC, Chamber of Commerce, OFA, Media Matters, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, George Soros, Crossroads, Main St. PAC, ISIS, CAIR, Muslim Brotherhood, Valerie Jarrett, Al Sharpton, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, La Raza and the Alinsky-Cloward-Piven-Ayers Foundation.

    (Side note: I had to block Thad on Facebook…too many Farmville requests.)

  7. I have been done withe the VichyGOP for a long time now. They hate conservatives more than Democrats.

  15. Credit where it is due, Graham won the old fashioned (and proper way) he played politics better than his opponents by co-opting them and dividing and conquering. I don’t like Graham, but he did a better job than the opposition and did not cheat like Barbour/Cochran did.

  17. It’s one thing to be asked to do something and another to expend the energy to do it. How easily manipulated those folks were.

  18. I am pretty sure Dana is not paid and I know Dana is not a troll. As offensive as it may be, if I lived in Mississippi, I would vote for Thad in the general election. I would also be tempted to leave a flaming sack of dog poop on Thad’s stoop and ringing his doorbell and running.

  19. I have been telling everyone we need to defeat the Dems even if we have to vote for a RINO. However, actions like this from the establishment make it harder to choose in whose eye I would like to stick my thumb.

  20. Mr. Cochran’s victory eliminates whatever slight chance Democrats would have had if Mr. McDaniel had been the Republican nominee. Mr. Cochran is all but assured of winning re-election in Mississippi, one of the most Republican states in the country.

  22. While I would probably vote for Thad in the general if I lived in Mississippi, I would probably entail a lot of alcohol and shame to do so. And I sure would not be happy about it.

  23. Well, he won with Democrat votes in the primary, let’s encourage McDaniel supporters to test whether that can happen in the General Election. The only way that these swine will learn their lesson is when conservatives stand firm and say, “not one inch further.”

  25. What, you’d rather lose a Senate seat because a Republican who isn’t a Tea Partier won the nomination, rather than win it with a Republican who isn’t perfect but is better than any Democrat?

    The most important vote any senator or representative casts is at the beginning of the session, to determine party control. You want Harry Reid again?

    If the GOP burns, you get the Democrats running everything, and while there are a few conservative moderate Democrats out there, their slight moderation gets washed away by the power of people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and Chuck Shumer.

  26. I wrote it originally, actually in a Facebook comment, but thought it good enough to use in more than one place. If you find the same prose elsewhere, it was copied from me, not me copying it from someplace else.

  27. I would have preferred Mr McDaniel, and I doubt that the Democrat nominee would win, regardless of which Republican had won the nomination. But if Mr McDaniel tries playing sore loser and files suits to try to overturn his electoral defeat, that will open the door to the Democrats.

  28. I saw the same kind of reaction from people when Mitch McConnell won his primary in Kentucky, and I was just as disgusted then. Elections are the ultimate form of popular expression in this country.

  29. I’m getting paid for this? Dang, I wish I had known!

    No, Blake, I’m not a paid troll, but what I am is someone who doesn’t think much of sore losers, and right now, Chris McDaniel is being a sore loser. He had his chance, and fought a good game, but the fact is that he entered the game, knowing the rules, and crying that the rules of the game he entered willingly are just unfair when things didn’t go his way is nothing but childish.

    In elections, candidates have to turn out the voters who will support them, and Senator Cochran did a slightly better job of that than did state Senator McDaniel.

  30. Thing is, at least right now, being a conservative means being a Republican, just like being a liberal means being a Democrat. Our single-member district set-up heavily tilts the odds in favor of a two party system, and it means that, yeah, sometimes we have to accept candidates who aren’t entirely to our liking.

    I look at Israel, with its proportional seating arrangement in the Knesset, and the fact that minor, specialty parties can pick up two or three seats, and force the major parties to form some pretty ridiculous coalitions to be able to form governments, and that makes me a lot happier with the single-member district set up we have here.

  31. I re-registered as an NPA here in FL from being a lifelong Repub after 2008 FL primary in disgust.

  32. Did Messrs Barbour and Cochran cheat? What they did was use the established rules of the game to bring in voters who would cast ballots for Senator Cochran.

    Senator Cochran’s tactics could very easily have backfired. A lot of Republicans who voted for him in the first round could have looked at his attempts to bring in some Democrat voters and said, “Fie on thee, I shalt vote for thy opponent!” Some might have said that, but obviously not enough to give state Senator McDaniel the victory.

  33. So, you’re willing to vote for someone who made common cause with the so-called “opposition” party.

    That makes you part of the problem.

    Thad Cochran sold out his constituency to retain his office.

    And you’re willing to follow Cochran down that same road.

    Unbelievable.

  34. And I’m just as disgusted by the suggestion we should meekly accept the results of a rigged game and mindlessly vote for the guy with an R at the and of his name.

  35. I’m done voting for the lesser of two evils. The lesser evil is still evil. Voting for corrupt, progressive, scumbags simply because they are Republican does nothing to help me or the nation. The GOP winning isn’t my goal. Saving the nation is. Cochran, McConnell, and Boehner are just as much a danger to the nation as Pelosi and Reid. Burn them all. We can rebuild.

  36. As long as most people accept this obviously false narrative, we will get Thad Cochrans and Lindsey Grahams and Mitt Romneys and Bushes.

    I am done with the VichyGOP

  37. The VichyGOP needs to understand the absolute cost of scorched earth policies against the American conservatives.

    They would have trucked in illegals aliens if they thought they could get by with it.

    I am done with them. I doubt I will ever vote for one of them again.

  39. “To seek the assistance of your political enemies . .”

    And that’s really it in a nutshell; they don’t consider Democrats their political enemies.

    The public at large and TEA party/conservatives in particular.

    You are correct about this fall. The GOP will reap the whirlwind they have sown as millions of disgruntled/disgusted/disenchanted/disenfranchised conservatives either refuse to vote or vote only for third part candidates.

    At this point, that’s my plan anyway.

  40. Dana, BS. I will defend you as not being a troll. But Barbour and Cochran did in fact cheat. It may not be illegal and Cochran won as a result (and that win will likely hold up, sorry Chris) but it is not how conservatives are supposed to act.
    That said, given that the Senate majority matters, I would probably hold my nose and vote for the old goat fucker anyway, but it would be distasteful to do so.

    As for backfiring the fact that the election turnout went up considerably but the win was razor thin shows a lot of conservatives did react by voting for McDaniel. Unfortunately it was not enough to overcome the Democrats who voted.

    I will never give to the GOP. Not ever. I will selectively donate to individual candidates only.

  42. BS It’s rigged. The gop was dead to me a long time ago, nice to see others saying the same. WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY. Or continue being a slave, our choice.

  49. As opposed to voting for a Democrat? Yup, sure am!

    Senator Cochran has an 88% positive rating by the American Conservative Union. That isn’t perfect, but consider what a Democrat would get you.

    I am not willing to cut off my nose to spite my face; are you?

  50. Dana, below seems to be taking the position that Cochran won; he’s a GOP stalwart and McDaniel needs to suck it up and go home. I don’t buy that. Cochran is another worthless, unprincipled pig stealing whatever is not tied down as the political class ushers in the end of America as we know it.
    The party system is a farce. It’s Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum or Heckle and Jeckyl sitting on the telephone wire picking their teeth after a hearty heaping of road kill. Voting or not voting won’t change a thing. The fix is in.

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