Thread: COCHRAN WINS, BUT MCDANIEL CAMP EYING LEGAL CHALLENGES

COCHRAN WINS, BUT MCDANIEL CAMP EYING LEGAL CHALLENGES


by MATTHEW BOYLE 24 Jun 2014, 8:11 PM PDT 747POST A COMMENT

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi — Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) survived the most intense challenge he’s ever faced in his 41-year political career, winning a runoff against conservative state Sen. Chris McDaniel.

The Associated Press called the race for Cochran, who is up 6,880 votes with 99.9 percent of precincts reporting.
A source close to McDaniel told Breitbart News that he is considering legal challenges over ballots. Democrats who voted for Cochran on Tuesday but voted three weeks ago in the Democratic primary in the state were not allowed to vote in Tuesday’s election.

Election results indicate Cochran's late appeal to Democratic voters paid off, with the incumbent senator picking up sizable vote totals in precincts with heavily black populations. Partisanship in Mississippi is largely polarized on racial lines, and Cochran allies paid key Democratic operatives to help turn out the vote.

McDaniel, a 41-year-old Tea Party-backed conservative, zig-zagged across Mississippi over the past several months out-campaigning the aging 76-year-old Cochran. Running on a populist anti-Washington message—including opposition to amnesty, bailouts and the status quo in the nation’s capital—McDaniel narrowly beat Cochran in the primary, forcing the runoff.

Over the course of the campaign, the establishment poured millions of dollars in to back Cochran—and Tea Party leaders did the same for McDaniel.

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign manager Stuart Stevens, the Chamber of Commerce, Facebook founding president Sean Parker, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, former Rep. Steven LaTourette’s group and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) poured support into Mississippi to back Cochran, while the Club For Growth, Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, FreedomWorks, Senate Conservatives Fund, radio host Laura Ingraham, Fox News’ Sean Hannity, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Madison Project and the Tea Party Express backed McDaniel.

The campaign has been one of the nastiest in recent memory, after a blogger—Clayton Kelly—was arrested back in May for entering the nursing home and photographing Cochran’s wife Rose. Cochran’s team—which sat on evidence for three weeks before approaching police about the incident—seized on the issue, providing Cochran a moment of sympathy heading into the primary. three other conservative activists—including one key Tea Party leader—have also been charged in connection with Kelly’s alleged activities.

During the campaign, Cochran's relationship with his longtime executive assistant came under scrutiny. Cochran lives in the basement apartment of a house she owns and lives in, and she accompanied him on dozens of taxpayer-funded trips overseas. DC authorities are investigating whether Webber filed required paperwork to rent the apartment commercially to Cochran, and Cleta Mitchell, a high-profile conservative lawyer representing the Tea Party Patriots, has alleged that the duo ran afoul of campaign finance rules when Cochran's campaign paid Webber to use the house as a venue for fundraisers.

On the primary night, after three McDaniel supporters including one key staffer were found locked inside a courthouse, allegations from Cochran’s team flew that McDaniel’s campaign was “full of criminals”—although a subsequent pair of investigations the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney cleared the McDaniel supporters.

Attention in the wake of the race is likely to focus on Cochran's efforts to drive Democratic turnout. A top election law expert, J. Christian Adams, as well as top Democratic party officials, said that Mississippi law prohibits individuals from voting in the Republican primary unless they intend on voting for the winner of the primary in the general election. However, some Cochran supporters openly said they planned to vote for the Democratic nominee in the fall.
Additionally, allegations flew that Cochran allies were using “walking around money” to incentivize Democrats to the polls.

Democratic Party chairman Rickey Cole, for instance, said Cochran operatives were paying people in the black community to donate to Cochran.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...gal-Challenges

This Is Why The GOP Is Bleeding Support… With Democrat & Establishment Help, Liberal Republican Incumbent Thad Cochran Defeats Conservative Candidate In Mississippi GOP Primary

McCain, Barbour and many GOP special interest groups blatantly put their money and names on the liberal side of this fight when doing so wasn’t needed to keep the seat red. Essentially, they endorsed the attack on conservative principles and helped the big government ideology triumph.

If a GOP controlled Senate is full of people like Cochran, why on earth would we believe a GOP controlled Senate would do anything about Obama’s criminal dictatorship?

If any establishment Republican strategist is still stumped as to why conservatives are veering away from the GOP, they need not look any further than the Mississippi Senate primary race that took place tonight. The results are in and the left wing of the GOP has a win with their big government, big spending incumbent Thad Cochran.

The race put the long time liberal Republican incumbent up against an energized and enthused conservative base supporting conservative candidate Chris McDaniel. The initial thought was that Cochran had it locked up, but McDaniel surprised the establishment by forcing Cochran into a runoff during the first round of the GOP primary.

Cochran already had liberal support going into the first round, but he really stepped up his surge to the left and attacks on conservatives in the final weeks leading up to the second round. The Senator actually hired a Democrat strategist to help get Democrat voters to cast votes in the GOP primary, and his campaign constantly attacked conservative principles while propping up big government and more spending.

Using Democrats to defeat conservatives is bad enough as it is. But it gets worse when GOP dinosaurs like liberal Senator John McCain and Haley Barbour, along with the Senate GOP insider special interest groups all unnecessarily came out strong for Cochran.

I say unnecessarily because the winner of this primary will almost certainly win the general election. Meaning, McCain, Barbour and many GOP special interest groups blatantly put their money and names on the liberal side of this fight when doing so wasn’t needed to keep the seat red. Essentially, they endorsed the attack on conservative principles and helped the big government ideology triumph.

So even though the Mississippi Senate seat will likely remain in Republican hands, it will do so with a man who believes in bigger government and more spending, and seeks to defeat conservatism

With this in mind, what is the point of the Republican Party? I promise you I’m not the only one asking this question. And I’m certainly not the only one who will never donate to the GOP or volunteer a minute of time to help them as a party.

Last but not least, if a GOP controlled Senate is full of people like Cochran, why on earth would we believe a GOP controlled Senate would do anything about Obama’s criminal dictatorship?





http://www.libertynews.com/2014/06/t...i-gop-primary/

The Establishment’s Conspiracy to Silence Conservatives Could Destroy Our Country

Kurt Schlichter | Jun 23, 2014



The establishment – defined less by party than by power – is using every weapon it has to shut you up, to marginalize you, and to beat you into submission. In the short term it may work. In the long term it promises disaster.
The key to any democratic republic is legitimacy. If the system allows a full and fair airing of different views before a decision is made, groups that lose the debate will accept the decision. You are disappointed if the other side won fair and square. But you are furious if the other side cheated.
And all the other side does today is cheat. Worse, it does so with a mindless cynicism, having discovered that if other elements of the establishment play along – like a mainstream media that refuses to perform its accountability function – then there are no immediate consequences. Over time, this risks of alienating nearly half of our citizens.
Sometimes the establishment cheats subtly. It can take the form of mockery, like when the President tried to belittle into silence the millions of Americans who doubt the climate change scam for believing that if the globe was really warming then the globe would actually be getting warmer.
Don’t think it’s only the leftist establishmentarians doing it. John Boehner felt secure enough to mock the majority of his own party for daring to have doubts about the wisdom of importing 30 million new Democrat voters. Shut up and stop being crybabies, chided the famously tan crybaby.
They love to deploy baseless slanders to figuratively ball-gag you and drive you out of the debate. Hate the idea of fascist college campus kangaroo courts run by academic Red Guards who, when examining the fallout of some beer-fueled hook-up, always presume the guilt of the drunken sophomore who has the penis and the victimhood of the drunken sophomore who doesn’t? Well, you must support rape!
Oh, and you’re racist too because you reject the lies of leftism and refuse to join the Kreepy Kollectivist Klan. Even if you are black. Especially if you are black.
Sometimes the establishment cheats blatantly. The administration simply ordered a couple dozen changes to Obamacare in direct violation of the statute. It doesn’t even pretend to follow our immigration laws.
And there’s no accountability. Facilitating the transfer of guns to Mexican drug gangs? No biggie. Four dead Americans in Benghazi? Fake scandal. Using the IRS to harass political opponents? Hell, the establishment thinks that’s a good thing. The Democrats supposed to be overseeing the IRS actually apologized to the IRS.
This IRS example is much more serious than just one single scandal. You have a substantial number of citizens who believe they have been grievously wronged. The IRS laughably contends that all the potential evidence has vanished down history’s most convenient memory hole. The establishment shrugs, winks, and refuses to enforce the system’s legal processes to determine if there has been wrongdoing. Now, is it a really great idea to tell about half the population that they are simply not entitled to seek redress of their grievances through the law? Any ideas from, say, American history about what can happen when you abandon the rule of law?
If the law means nothing, if half the people can’t avail themselves of it, and if there are no consequences for violating it, then what is there for the loyal opposition to be loyal to?
It must be liberating for the establishment to be free of accountability. “Oh, we couldn’t possibly do that,” they initially thought. “There’d be hell to pay!” Except, when they did it there was no hell to pay. There were no valiant establishment politicians who put country above party and pushed back. The mainstream media didn’t just roll over; it covered up when it wasn’t actively cheerleading. If Nixon was a Democrat in office today, the New York Times would run a front page, above-the-fold story on #YesAllWomen heroine Rosemary Woods and the patriarchal, cisnormative assault on her secretarial skills.
Can you smell the Pulitzer?
As I talk about in my new book, Conservative Insurgency (Coming out July 15^th), this cynical establishment strategy risks changing our system from one defined by rules into one defined by raw power. Thuggery can work for a little while, but eventually people get fed up. Conservatives are actively marginalized, socially and politically, but is it realistic to think we will simply throw in the towel and obey? Destroying our political norms won’t silence the establishment’s foes; it will radicalize them.
Your opponents are not going to play by the rulebook you’ve just thrown out.
Is that what you establishment types want? What goes around comes around – hard. Europe’s elite’s similar disenfranchisement strategy is giving rise to nontraditional parties, both sensible ones like UKIP and scary ones like Greece’s Golden Dawn. When you make a conscious decision to deprive people of their voices, you may not like who they choose to speak for them.
Here, our ex-majority leader’s fate is a stark warning of what happens when the people you have been taking for granted take you for a ride. You better start listening to what we keep telling you. The Tea Party shook you up, but you told yourself that the madness had all blown over. Eric Cantor? Oh, uh, well, it couldn’t possibly have been caused by his amnesty fetish because if it were you might have to change what you’re doing and your Chamber of Commerce pals would totally be mad!
So the establishment will keep doing what it’s been doing. But they may just unleash a horde of what they will see as anti-establishment, bunny-boiling Glenn Closes who simply won’t be ignored.

http://townhall.com/columnists/kurts...4056/page/full

Problem we may face is a judge already ruled before that defending the primaries is the duty of that party only and they are the ones with right to challenge. This means as Cochran is one of the boys that the GOP will likely refuse to challenge it and accept Cochran as their candidate and then have McDaniel challenges tossed out as having no legal right to challenge as he's not the GOP. The extra time to mount other real legal challenges will make it to late and simply be ignored.

Just gotta hope that whoever gets to make the call isn't a major political hack or that the state's GOP has a different view then the national GOP party.

Mississippi Tea Party Candidate Refuses To Concede In Furious Post-Election Speech


By Brett LoGiurato

AP
A furious Chris McDaniel refused to concede the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran on Tuesday night, casting a pall of illegitimacy on Cochran's win in a heated runoff battle.

In an approximately nine-minute long speech after multiple news outlets had handed victory to Cochran, McDaniel accused his intra-party opponents of "abandoning the conservative movement" to win — without ever mentioning Cochran by name.

"There’s something strange about a Republican primary that’s decided by liberal Democrats," McDaniel said, after he was introduced by a supporter as "the Republican nominee" for Senate.

"It's our job to make sure the sanctity of the vote is upheld."

The possible next steps for the McDaniel campaign are unclear, but spokesman for McDaniel said to "stay tuned."

McDaniel said in his speech there were "dozens of irregularities" reported at polls.

"You've heard the stories," he said, when supporters began shouting, "Tell us!"

The final three weeks of the nasty campaign the race featured a back-and-forth, racially charged battle over the state's voting laws.

Cochran had sought to save his Senate seat by expanding the electorate, particularly by turning out non-traditional GOP primary voters including black Democrats. Mailers supporting Cochran accused the Tea Party of trying to suppress the black vote on Tuesday by, among other things, sending so-called poll watchers to election spots.

"Before this race ends, we have to be certain that the Republican primary was won by Republican voters," McDaniel said.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mississippi-tea-party-candidate-refuses-040900287.html

In my opinion Cochran is a dirt bag politician that will go to any lengths to hang on to be part of the "Old Boys Club" of he Senate. This proves to me that there is no difference between incumbent Democrats and Republicans.

I am skeptical that his anti amnesty pledge is sincere since he was heavily supported by the Chamber of Commerce and other well know amnesty supporting entities .

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign manager Stuart Stevens, the Chamber of Commerce, Facebook founding president Sean Parker, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, former Rep. Steven LaTourette’s group and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) poured support into Mississippi to back Cochran,
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...gal-Challenges

GOP Senator Pulls Off Unthinkable Win Over Tea Party Challenger In The Nastiest Election In America

• BRETT LOGIURATO

• JUN. 24, 2014,

AP

Thad Cochran

Incumbent Republican Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi) has improbably survived a grueling primary challenge from Tea Party-aligned insurgent state Sen. Chris McDaniel. In what was called the nastiest election fight in America, Cochran defeated McDaniel in the state's runoff election Tuesday night to officially become the Republican nominee for Senate, the Associated Press projected.

As of 11:15 p.m. ET, Cochran led McDaniel, 50.8-49.2, with 99% of precincts reporting.

For Cochran, the win marks an unthinkable turnaround from a primary election three weeks ago, in which he lost a plurality of the votes to McDaniel. There was a runoff only because neither candidate got 50% of the vote.

"It's a group effort. It's not a solo. And so we all have a right to be proud of our state tonight," Cochran said in brief celebratory remarks to supporters Tuesday night.

The fundamentals of the runoff were largely expected to favor McDaniel. In recent years, runoff elections have typically favored the insurgent candidates whose supporters are more invigorated to come out for a second vote on an atypical election day. The most recent prominent example came in Texas in 2012, when current Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) knocked off Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in a runoff.

McDaniel also claimed momentum in the wake of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's stunning GOP primary loss, saying it boosted his argument that voters across the country wanted change from the status quo in Washington. He had support from grassroots groups like the Club for Growth and Senate Conservatives Fund.

But turnout actually increased in the runoff, a rather unprecedented phenomenon. The last time that happened in a Senate runoff was in 1984 in Oklahoma. More than 363,000 Mississippians cast their vote in the runoff election, a 313,483 in the primary.

Despite the fundamentals and polls showing Cochran at a significant disadvantage, the campaign remained "cautiously optimistic."

"We have out worked them in this run-off. We’ll see if it overcomes their rabid enthusiasm," a source close to the Cochran campaign told Business Insider Tuesday morning.

The Cochran campaign pivoted its strategy during the runoff campaign, traversing across the state to have Cochran boast of the federal money he brought back to benefit the state. He labeled McDaniel "dangerous" and an "extremist."
Cochran also made it a priority to turn out non-traditional primary and runoff voters, including high-profile targeting of black Democratic voters. Cochran was supported by outside establishment groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was also a powerful backer of Cochran.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/cochr...#ixzz35eqWBXQW

I despise race hustlers.
The Flier That Got Thad Cochran Elected?
By John Fund
June 25, 2014 9:23 AM

It’s generally agreed that Thad Cochran squeaked out a win in Mississippi last night in part by getting Democrats, especially African Americans, to turn out. Here’s a flier that was distributed in heavily black precincts suggesting how he accomplished this:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381187/flier-got-thad-cochran-elected-john-fund

Thad Cochran Escapes Bitter Tea Party in Mississippi - The ...
www.thedailybeast.com/.../thad-cochran-escapes-bitter-te...
The Daily Beast
7 hours ago - The campaign between Cochran and McDaniel had became a key ... nominee, already tried to take advantage of McDaniel's sour grapes.


McDaniel shouldn't tread on Tuesday's vote
www.clarionledger.com/.../mcdaniel.../11357855/
The Clarion‑Ledger
6 mins ago - McDaniel refusal to concede, make amends with GOP, could hurt ... the parting image of him in this campaign to be Tuesday's sour grapes.


McDaniels sour grapes make for a surprisingly delicious ...
dyn.realclearpolitics.com/.../message.php?...McDaniels+...
RealClearPolitics
13 hours ago - RT @ComfortablySmug: McDaniels sour grapes make for a surprisingly delicious wine for the establishment to enjoy. GOP Establishment has ...

Chris McDaniel refused to concede
to Thad Cochran. So now what?

Jaime Fuller
THE FIX | His options are limited because Mississippi has no recount procedure spelled out in its laws...

Thad Cochran Escapes Bitter Tea Party in Mississippi - The ...
www.thedailybeast.com/.../thad-cochran-escapes-bitter-te...
The Daily Beast
7 hours ago - The campaign between Cochran and McDaniel had became a key ... nominee, already tried to take advantage of McDaniel's sour grapes.


McDaniel shouldn't tread on Tuesday's vote
www.clarionledger.com/.../mcdaniel.../11357855/
The Clarion‑Ledger
6 mins ago - McDaniel refusal to concede, make amends with GOP, could hurt ... the parting image of him in this campaign to be Tuesday's sour grapes.


McDaniels sour grapes make for a surprisingly delicious ...
dyn.realclearpolitics.com/.../message.php?...McDaniels+...
RealClearPolitics
13 hours ago - RT @ComfortablySmug: McDaniels sour grapes make for a surprisingly delicious wine for the establishment to enjoy. GOP Establishment has ...

Interesting to see the left's propaganda. I looks like they have coordinated, as usual, on the sour grapes theme.