Thread: Tea party groups are apoplectic over how Cochran won in Mississippi

Tea party groups are apoplectic over how Cochran won in Mississippi

“What happened yesterday in Mississippi will resonate for years to come. It will become the battle cry, just like the Alamo,” one activist said.

By Chris Moody, Yahoo News 3 hours ago Yahoo News

In the long, sordid war between the Republican Party “establishment” and tea party factions working to unseat those they see as ideologically wayward, nothing has infuriated conservative activists quite like what happened Tuesday in Mississippi.

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• Establishment Republican wins nailbiter US Senate runoff AFP
• Change in Mississippi voting rules seen unlikely despite Tea Party anger Reuters

Following a three-week runoff campaign between 36-year Republican Sen. Thad Cochran and tea party-backed candidate Chris McDaniel, the incumbent defeated his challenger by about 6,400 votes — a bigger margin than in the first primary vote on June 3. The larger turnout in the second round came in part thanks to an aggressive get-out-the-vote effort in which Cochran courted Democrat-leaning voters, particularly in regions of the state with a majority of black voters. It’s not illegal in Mississippi for Democrats to vote in a Republican runoff election — the state operates under an open primary system, meaning that registered voters can cast their ballots in any primary, regardless of party affiliation, as long as they haven’t already voted in the other party’s primary — but McDaniel supporters are furious that Cochran sought the backing of Democrats to lift him over the finish line.

“The establishment crossed the line last night,” Craig Shirley, a conservative political consultant and biographer of Ronald Reagan told Yahoo News in an interview Wednesday. “This is a win for the establishment, but it’s a win with an asterisk, because it’s so tainted that it might be one of those things where they’re going to be sorry they ever won the runoff in Mississippi.”

Shirley’s argument, which was echoed by tea party group leaders and others involved in the race, contends that Cochran’s campaign scorned the party’s conservative base in order to win.

In many ways, the Mississippi runoff was ground zero for the ongoing war between the tea party and the GOP establishment — a war that the tea party movement has been losing in this election cycle. Outside groups flooded the state with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of support through media ad buys and groundwork. Volunteers and activists were bused and flown into the state. Top Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hosted a fundraiser that raised $800,000 for Cochran. Tea party groups pooled resources to pay for poll monitors and for lawyers to review the state’s election laws.

Even though Cochran won, conservative activists say that the Mississippi race was a pivotal moment that will serve as the turning point for those who are increasingly fed up with the party.
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Tea party-backed candidate Chris McDaniel said the Mississippi Republican runoff for the U.S. Senate …

“Last night in the long run may be the night that the GOP establishment died,” FreedomWorks Vice President Adam Brandon told Yahoo News. “The GOP can’t keep getting us to support their candidates when they’re literally using the other side to get their candidates across.”

Despite McDaniel's loss Tuesday — or perhaps because of it — Brandon said the tea party movement has been emboldened.

“The tea party is going to be a permanent part of the American political and social life. Period. It’s the most successful movement since the American civil rights movement," he said. "Bar none."

The anger and frustration was clear on Tuesday night when, after the results showed Cochran’s victory, a defiant McDaniel refused to concede the race.

At issue was the possibility that Democrats who voted for Cochran also cast votes in their own party’s primary — and whether enough Democrats did so to change the outcome of the race. As of this writing, McDaniel still has not conceded, and he said in a statement Wednesday that he is weighing his legal options. The Senate Conservatives Fund, one of the groups that backed McDaniel and helped fund polling center monitors, told Yahoo News on Wednesday that it would not challenge the results of the election in court.
But even if Cochran and his allies followed the letter of the law, the lengths to which he went to secure his incumbency still have some conservatives fuming.

“This just threw gasoline onto the flames of the civil war,” said Richard Viguerie, a Republican activist and the chairman of ConservativeHQ.com.

“What happened yesterday in Mississippi will resonate for years to come. It will become the battle cry, just like the Alamo. We will remember Mississippi.”

http://news.yahoo.com/tea-party-acti...214423451.html

What this elections shows for me is the GOP hierarchy like the Democrats will go to any length to win, the corruption level is equal now with both parties and sadly it forecast the rise of a third party IMO.

I really don't understand why any state would allow registered members of an opposing party to vote in another party's primary. This is an absurd policy and all states who allow this should change their laws on this immediately.

As long as the Republican party and the tea Party spend their time and money fighting each other the Democrats win.

Originally Posted by Judy

I really don't understand why any state would allow registered members of an opposing party to vote in another party's primary. This is an absurd policy and all states who allow this should change their laws on this immediately.

You're right, it doesn't make any sense to me either. I agree 100%!

Open primaries in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An open primary is a primary election that does not require voters to be affiliated with a political party in order to vote for partisan candidates. In a traditional open primary, voters may select one party's ballot and vote for that party's nomination.

As in a closed primary, the highest voted candidate in each party then proceeds to the runoff election. In a nonpartisan blanket primary, all candidates appear on the same ballot and the two highest voted candidates proceed to the runoff, regardless of party affiliation. The constitutionality of this system was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2008,^[1]whereas a partisan blanket primary was previously ruled to be unconstitutional in 2000.^[2]

The arguments for open primaries are that voters can make independent choices, building consensus and that the electoral process is not splintered undermined by the presence of multiple political parties.

• 1 Voter participation
• 2 Manipulation and dilution
• 3 Constitutional issues
• 4 California and Election Primary Alternatives
• 5 States with an open presidential primary
• 6 States with open primaries for other elections
• 7 Notes and references

Voter participation[edit]

The open primary could be seen as good for voter participation. First, the open primary allows nonpartisan or independent voters to participate in the nominating process.^[3]

If these voters are allowed to help select the nominees then they may be more likely to vote in the general election, since one of the candidates could be someone the non-partisan voter voted for. Also, a moderate member of one party may agree more with a candidate for the nomination of another party.

This voter will have more of an incentive to participate in the general election if there is a nominee whom he or she agrees with.^[3]

The open primary could also be viewed as bad for voter participation. Statistics show that voter participation in the United States was higher when people could only vote in the primary for their own party. In Hawaii, primary voter turnout fell from 74.6% in 1978 to 42.2% in 2006 after changing to open primaries.^[4]

The closed primary system had more of an incentive for people to join one of the major parties. This led to people being more involved in the voting process. With the open primary, some argue, more voters become independent and are less likely to participate in the nominating or election processes.^[3]

Manipulation and dilution[edit]



Opponents of the open primary believe that the open primary leaves the party nominations vulnerable to manipulation and dilution.

First, one party could organize its voters to vote in the other party's primary and choose the candidate that they most agree with or that they think their party could most easily defeat.

Secondly, in the open primary moderates and independent voters can vote in either party. This occurrence may dilute the vote of a particular party and lead to a nominee who does not represent the views of his particular party.

For example, in the 2008 presidential primaries, exit polls say John McCain failed to win a single race among Republican voters, up to Super Tuesday, yet during that same period he went from also-ran to front runner, because most non-Republicans who crossed over voted for him. In New Hampshire, Mitt Romney won among registered Republicans, but John McCain won overall [1]. Likewise, in South Carolina, Mike Huckabee won among self-identified Republicans, but John McCain won the state [2].

Similarly, some Republican advocates called for Republicans to cross over and vote in the Democratic race, to help Hillary Clinton win, on the premise that Obama had a better chance of beating their candidate.

The Rush Limbaugh Show's "Operation Chaos" is the best known of these movements.

Constitutional issues[edit]

Opponents of the open primary argue that the open primary is unconstitutional. These opponents believe that the open primary law violates their freedom of association, because it forces them to allow outsiders to select their candidates. An opposing view is that political parties are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution in any language, but voting rights of the individual are clearly defined.

Freedom of association has been recognized by the United States Supreme Court. First, in NAACP v. Alabama, the court said that “It is beyond debate that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the "liberty" assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech.”^[5]

In other words, the freedom of association is part of the freedom of speech. The freedom of speech, which is found in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, is applied to the states through the fourteenth amendment. In Gitlow v. New York, Justice Sanford states that “[f]or present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press-which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress-are among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States.”^[6]

This constitutionality raises a problem. The most popular alternative to the open primary is the closed primary. However, a mandatory closed primary can also be unconstitutional. In Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut, the United States Supreme Court determined that Connecticut’s closed primary law was unconstitutional. The Connecticut closed primary law “[required] voters in any political party primary to be registered members of that party.”^[7] The Republican Party of Connecticut, however, wanted to allow independents to vote in the Republican primary if they so chose. The problem with this closed primary law was that it prevented the Republican Party from allowing independent “registered voters not affiliated with any party to vote in Republican primaries for federal and statewide offices.”^[8] Since the Republican Party of Connecticut was not able to choose who it wanted to vote in the primary, the United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, stated that the closed primary law in Connecticut “impermissibly burdens the right of the Party and its members protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”^[8]

On October 1, 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the Virginia mandatory open primary statute was unconstitutional as applied to the Republicans because it imposed a burden on their freedom to associate under the First Amendment, although it explicitly did not rule on the question of whether an open primary law was in general unconstitutional as a burden on association.^[9]

California and Election Primary Alternatives[edit]

California has become a pacesetter for electoral reform and has adopted a new modified open primary that only applies to office holders rather than Presidential delegate selections.

A third alternative is the "modified closed primary", as has been in effect in California since 2001. In California's primary since 2011 the voters are allowed as individual citizens to vote for any candidate and if no candidate gets a majority the 2 top candidates advance to the general election. The new system combined the runoff and general election saving taxpayer money and allowing voters to make independent choices. The Presidential election is exempt as it is a contest for delegates rather than a direct election for an office. Prior to the California election reform of 2011, each political party may decide whether or not they wish to allow unaffiliated voters to vote in their party's primary. This appears to avoid the constitutional flaws of both the "open" and the "closed" primary as discussed above. In the 2004 and 2006 primary elections, the Republican, Democratic, and American Independent parties all opted to allow unaffiliated voters to request their party's ballot. However, for the 2008 presidential primary election, only the Democratic and American Independent parties took this option, while the Republican party did not.^[10]

States with an open presidential primary[edit]

• Alabama
• Arizona (Semi-closed, with primaries open only to unaffiliated or unrepresented voters)
• Arkansas
• Georgia
• Hawaii (Open primary for state, local, and congressional races; caucus system for presidential races.)
• Illinois
• Massachusetts (All races' primaries open for "unenrolled"/unaffiliated voters only)
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Vermont
• Virginia
• Wisconsin^[11]

States with open primaries for other elections[edit]

A similar system known as a nonpartisan blanket primary has been used in Louisiana for state and local elections since 1976, and began to be used in Washington, after numerous court challenges, in 2008.
In California, under Proposition 14, a measure that easily passed, traditional party primaries will be replaced in 2011 with wide-open elections. Proposition 14, known as the open primary measure, will give every voter the same ballot in primary elections for most state and federal races, except the presidential contest.^[12][13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primaries_in_the_United_States

They aren't talking about all the dirty tricks played by the GOP and the Liberal Republican Cochran. There was some controversy about Cochran living in DC and "rent" a room from his government paid landlady/administrative/traveling companion assistant that probably spurred this guy on.

It looks like the strain caused him to take his own life. How sad.

Sources: Miss. tea party leader Mayfield dead of apparent suicide

Jimmie E. Gates, The Clarion-Ledger10:52 a.m. CDT
June 27, 2014

Sources have confirmed that attorney Mark Mayfield has died of an apparent suicide.

Mayfield, vice chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party, and is one of the three men charged with conspiring with Clayton Kelly to photograph U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's bedridden wife in her nursing home and create a political video against Cochran.

Mark Mayfield of Ridgeland, an attorney and state and local tea party leader, was arrested last month along with Richard Sager, a Laurel elementary school P.E. teacher and high school soccer coach. Police said they also charged John Beachman Mary of Hattiesburg, but he was not taken into custody because of "extensive medical conditions." All face felony conspiracy charges. Sager also was charged with felony tampering with evidence, and Mary faces two conspiracy counts.

The arrest of Mayfield, well-known in political, business and legal circles, caused shock in Mississippi, in a criminal case and election that already had Mississippi in the national spotlight.

Governor Phil Bryant said, "Deborah and are saddened to hear of the loss of Mark Mayfield. He was a long-time friend, and he will be missed. Our prayers go out to his family in this tragic moment."

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/n...dead/11456769/

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