The recent Republican primary in Mississippi gained an inordinate amount of US media coverage because it embodies what they like best. Nothing major hinged on the outcome because both candidates pretty much have the same ideology and it fed a convenient storyline. It was an ideal candidate for consequence-free bloviating.
(These clips aired on June 25, 2014. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
I have to disagree: the differences between Cochran & McDaniel are non-trivial. Though Cochran obediently follows the Republican party line, he’s never been an ideologue, but built his reputation on providing consistent and persistent constituent service. Mississippians having a problem with just about any federal agency can call Thad’s office and get real help (disclosure: as a Mississippian, I’ve done this, and Cochran’s people made a positive difference -- without asking about political orientation).
As TPM noted recently, Cochran was able to call on black Democratic cross-voters precisely because, in four decades of holding elected office, he never played the race card.
McDaniel, however, beat racialist drums at each opportunity, and showed every sign that, had he been elected, he would have joined Ted Cruz as a ferocious obstructionist and procedural bomb-thrower. In a body as adrift as the current US Senate, another teabagging extremist could seriously accelerate the destruction of the nation. Though we have no reason to feel safe in general, we did dodge a nasty bullet this week.
Re Pierce Butler @ #1
Apparently, McDaniel isn’t giving up. He’s planning to go to court claiming that people voted in the Democratic Primary 2 weeks previously and then voted in the Rethuglican Primary, which is illegal. Of course, the problem is that he has no way of proving that they voted for Cochran, in addition to which the number of such voters was less then Cochran”s margin of victory.. It would appear that his chances of prevailing are slim and none and slim is on the bus headed out of town. Apparently, he can’t even run as a write in candidate in the general election as there is a law in the state preventing someone who loses in a primary from running as an independent in the general (there’s a similar law in Virginia which prevents Cantor from running as an independent in the general).
http://goo.gl/tpD4GO
colnago @ # 2: … McDaniel…’s planning to go to court …
If teabaggers can’t win or steal office, they can at least provide Ed Brayton with blog fodder -- it’s the American way!