There are things that campaign strategists do when they are terrified of losing, and when they are the autopilot for a candidate too detached and insulated to bother monitoring them, things get ugly really quick.
In the Mississippi Republican primary race for Senate, Thad Cochran has allowed his campaign to wage a battle based on imagined horribles of one of his own state’s Senators, taking the guilt-by-association avenue time and time again, and refusing to answer repeated calls for debate. His in-state promoters, former Governor Haley Barbour, and his nephews Henry and Austin, along with their contacts in the revolving-door-politician-to-lobbyist world of DC, have lied about Senator McDaniel, on radio and in print, continuing their campaign of negatives against the man that filed the State of Mississippi’s class action lawsuit against Obamacare.
It really is DC against the people. We must understand that. It’s only us out here, in our towns, small and big, that can change the direction of this nation from the course it is on.
Senator McDaniel has a line in his speeches, that is simply put, and says a lot. McDaniel says that Thad Cochran has been in Washington DC for 42 years, and then he pauses and says, “that’s as long as I’ve been alive.”
Now mind you, Senator Cochran isn’t appearing at debates, and the latest Hill newspaper story has Mississippi wondering where Cochran could be in general, because he wasn’t campaigning hard in the state. These facts show how detached the current Senator is, and shows a declining interest in Mississippi politics. But, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that Senator Cochran is not running a positive campaign, because Senator Cochran isn’t that interested in seeking office.
A late announcement of Senator Cochran’s confirming that he would run for a seventh term in the United States Senate, came only as pressure for him to run by national and state Republicans to, “stick around for one more term” according to Politico. As if getting elected were a mere formality, and the people would of course support a politician who can’t be bothered to show up. That revelation along with the fact that he will not debate and relies instead on DC autopilot and lobbyists to speak for him, shows Cochran to be more of a puppet to corrupt power groups in DC rather than a concerned man eager to fight for the people of Mississippi against the leftward lurch of the federal government.
That explains why the Cochran campaign has pulled the latest stunt of trying to pin the videotaping of his wife in a nursing home on Senator McDaniel. The Cochran campaign first raised the issue weeks after obtaining the video itself, casting aspersions on McDaniel supporters for knowing what they themselves knew, but were holding because the timing was off. Now, Cochran has used his campaign’s made-up controversy as a centerpiece in a new attack ad, paid for by Cochran, which makes you wonder, “was this how Senator Cochran envisioned his campaign for a seventh term would end? With nothing but guilt-by-association attacks and zero interest in real issues?”
But then, there is the notion that Senator Cochran may not serve his full term if elected. A guest post by Mississippi Republican Dot Ward at Mississippi PEP gave her reasons, as a personal friend of Thad and Rose Cochran, why she is voting for Senator McDaniel. It confirms the intuition with insight in Mississippi Republican politics. She believes, though Thad is her age, that he doesn’t have what it takes for another six years in office, and that the MSGOP is pushing Cochran to be able to fill the seat themselves in a couple years when Cochran bows out and retires.
Politics can be very nasty. After serving 42 years in DC, Thad Cochran has allowed lobbyists and campaign hacks seeking to roll in the inevitable cash of an incumbent run, to convince him to run for a seventh term, and eventually to use his wife as a political football. This DC disease that the “ends justify the means,” is part of the poison of allowing the left to grab control of everything in sight, and the greed of all involved becomes a competition. All to keep the campaign autopilot pigs at the trough, to perpetuate the status quo, the fate of the nation be damned.
The Republican machine of DC is propping up a Senator who will likely not fill out his term because they don’t want government to be limited, the party to be conservative, and the nation to be restored, and the rank and file are the only ones who can throw a wrench in their works, and get the representation we need.