McDaniel has every right to challenge Cochran's victory to the bitter end, and he should do it. I would also like to personally thank the McDaniel campaign for validating my signature.

(06-27-2014 08:53 AM)EagleX Wrote:  yeah, let's drag this thing out for months, and then whichever candidate gets to the general election is crippled, broke, and battered.

no, wait. let's see if we can drag this thing out until just before election day.

let's do everything we can to try to give this seat to the dems.

It's been a couple of days... Let's follow due process here and just hope both sides are smart enough to keep the rhetoric down while things are flushed out..

But those robocalls and posters were shameful!

(06-27-2014 09:17 AM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:08 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:05 AM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:04 AM)200yrs2late Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 08:59 AM)UofMemphis Wrote:  The GOP dividing into warring factions of evangelicals, tea party members, and establishment members has nothing to do with democrats...most people I grew up thinking of a republicans are now Libertarian or Indy

Is that why Cochran had to have democrats cross over and win him the runoff? He didn't win the majority of republican votes from what I understand from a news report, don't know it that's true or not.

Yep...and there's nothing illegal about it.

In Mississippi, it is illegal to vote in the republican runoff if you voted in the democratic primary. If you didn't vote in the democratic primary, you are allowed to cross over.

Most folks don't vote in primaries...good luck invalidating over 6,000 votes, lol

84,339 people voted in the democratic primary if 7% also voted in the GOP primary then were good..

(06-27-2014 09:37 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:17 AM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:08 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:05 AM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:04 AM)200yrs2late Wrote:  Is that why Cochran had to have democrats cross over and win him the runoff? He didn't win the majority of republican votes from what I understand from a news report, don't know it that's true or not.

Yep...and there's nothing illegal about it.

In Mississippi, it is illegal to vote in the republican runoff if you voted in the democratic primary. If you didn't vote in the democratic primary, you are allowed to cross over.

Most folks don't vote in primaries...good luck invalidating over 6,000 votes, lol

84,339 people voted in the democratic primary if 7% also voted in the GOP primary then were good..

Good luck...make it drag out awhile...throw lots of mud.

(06-27-2014 08:27 AM)UofMemphis Wrote:  Thad won, get over it.

I'm sure that's what you said about Al Franken too.

To the Democrats... did you like it when Rush ran his Operation Chaos? I didn't and I don't think it's appropriate but what can you do about it? What's really bad here is some may have voted in both primaries. That's bad.

(06-27-2014 09:47 AM)Machiavelli Wrote:  To the Democrats... did you like it when Rush ran his Operation Chaos? I didn't and I don't think it's appropriate but what can you do about it? What's really bad here is some may have voted in both primaries. That's bad.

(06-27-2014 09:06 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 08:53 AM)EagleX Wrote:  yeah, let's drag this thing out for months, and then whichever candidate gets to the general election is crippled, broke, and battered.

no, wait. let's see if we can drag this thing out until just before election day.

let's do everything we can to try to give this seat to the dems.

If Cockring relied on the dems to "win" the primary, he's going to have to rely on them to win the general. He made his own bed. I don't play the D vs R team politics anymore and Cockring is the 4th most liberal republican in the senate. Would a one-term democrat from Missipy really be that much worse?

snip

you are creating a path to success for majority leader harry reid. congratulations. I never thought my home state would top the todd akin phuck up, but here it is.

. . . and the last sentence is flatly political treason

Good thing Gore conceded quickly and avoided all that unnecessary mud slinging. What's that you say? The left still hasn't conceded? Oh my!

(06-27-2014 09:14 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  He is one of the most liberal republicans in the US Senate.

And how does he compare to the democrat he is running against?
That's the election that matters.

Democrats got Obamacare passed by getting a bunch of center-left democrats elected to seats that they could never have won running on anything like Obamacare, and then holding them to the party line long enough to get it passed. And of course, many of them promptly lost their seats in 2010, but no matter, the deal was done.

There's a difference between ideology and reality. The reality is that 100% Heritage/FreedomWorks candidates are simply not electable for probably 150-175 house seats and 35-40 senate seats and 200 or so electoral votes. I wouldn't have put Mississippi in that group, but looking at both their senators, maybe it should be. At any rate, you're better off with a 55-percenter in those seats than a 15-percenter, and in many cases that's the choice you have.

Heck, I'm not 100% Heritage/FreedomWorks. I'm certainly more liberal than they are on gay rights, marijuana, and abortion. And I'm more fiscally conservative than the republican establishment, if not Heritage/FreedomWorks. Then again, looking back at the list, the top 5 are the ones I probably most closely identify with. But I don't agree with them on everything. Rand and his dad are both friends, but I don't agree with them on abortion. We've discussed it, Ron's opinion is based largely upon his experience as an OB/GYN, and I don't have that experience. But if you ask even those 5 whether they'd rather work with Cochran or a democrat in that seat, I'm pretty sure the answer would be Cochran.

So yes, I do complain about the direction the republican leadership is going. I'd like to see bolder and broader issue positions, but they have to make sense. And you have to realize that not everybody is going to agree with you, but you've got a much better chance with somebody who agrees 50% of the time than one who agrees 10%.

John Sununu once told me, "Back the most conservative republican who can win the general election." That makes a lot of sense in this and most other cases.

(06-27-2014 10:04 AM)EagleX Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:06 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 08:53 AM)EagleX Wrote:  yeah, let's drag this thing out for months, and then whichever candidate gets to the general election is crippled, broke, and battered.

no, wait. let's see if we can drag this thing out until just before election day.

let's do everything we can to try to give this seat to the dems.

If Cockring relied on the dems to "win" the primary, he's going to have to rely on them to win the general. He made his own bed. I don't play the D vs R team politics anymore and Cockring is the 4th most liberal republican in the senate. Would a one-term democrat from Missipy really be that much worse?

snip

you are creating a path to success for majority leader harry reid. congratulations. I never thought my home state would top the todd akin phuck up, but here it is.

. . . and the last sentence is flatly political treason

You are a republican, I am an independent. Big difference. It isn't political treason if you aren't in the republican party. I don't live in Mississippi, but if I did, I'd sit the election out if Cockring was on the ballot against the democrat.

(06-27-2014 09:09 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Cochran is no liberal. He did what he had to do to win the election. That's what republicans need to learn from democrats. You first do what you have to do to win the election, and THEN you go about implementing your agenda.

Instead of wasting energy here, republicans need to put all their energy behind Cochran and focus instead on winning elections that are up for grabs elsewhere. Focus on how to win the seats needed to go +6 in the senate, not how to screw up and go -1 in what should be a safe seat here. You may not agree 100% with Cochran, but I'm guessing the percentage is miles higher with Cochran than it is with Harry Reid. And that's effectively the choice for Mississippi republicans.

the tea party was a legitimate grass roots organization as recently as 2010. what passes for the "tea party" today is a bunch of bomb throwers that are getting rich by fomenting dissent against republicans as much as democrats. the national tea party organizations contribute a ridiculously small percentage of their donations to their candidates. their "principles" are $$$.

but, yeah, the national tea party is perfectly willing to lose this senate seat to drag out the process as long as possible, during which they will be sucking more and more money out of the pockets of disaffected republicans who think they are "standing on their principles".

they aren't. they're getting taken for fools.

(06-27-2014 10:07 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:14 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  He is one of the most liberal republicans in the US Senate.

And how does he compare to the democrat he is running against?
That's the election that matters.

Democrats got Obamacare passed by getting a bunch of center-left democrats elected to seats that they could never have won running on anything like Obamacare, and then holding them to the party line long enough to get it passed. And of course, many of them promptly lost their seats in 2010, but no matter, the deal was done.

There's a difference between ideology and reality. The reality is that 100% Heritage/FreedomWorks candidates are simply not electable for probably 150-175 house seats and 35-40 senate seats and 200 or so electoral votes. I wouldn't have put Mississippi in that group, but looking at both their senators, maybe it should be. At any rate, you're better off with a 55-percenter in those seats than a 15-percenter, and in many cases that's the choice you have.

Heck, I'm not 100% Heritage/FreedomWorks. I'm certainly more liberal than they are on gay rights, marijuana, and abortion. And I'm more fiscally conservative than the republican establishment, if not Heritage/FreedomWorks.

So yes, I do complain about the direction the republican leadership is going. I'd like to see bolder and broader issue positions, but they have to make sense. And you have to realize that not everybody is going to agree with you, but you've got a much better chance with somebody who agrees 50% of the time than one who agrees 10%.

John Sununu once told me, "Back the most conservative republican who can win the general election." That makes a lot of sense in this and most other cases.

This is Mississippi, not Massachusetts or New Hampshire. Scott Brown was a reasonable person to support. Mississippi can do better.

(06-27-2014 09:14 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  Funny that that those like you that constantly rap about the direction the republican party has taken are always the ones on here defending the republicans that have been in power.

See longer post for more detail, but wanted to address this point directly and specifically.

There's a difference between ideology and reality. I don't agree with the direction the republicans in office are taking us. But it's better than the direction democrats would take us. And I think it is counterproductive from a political reality standpoint for republicans that I agree with 50% of the time to lose to democrats that I agree with 10% of the time because other republicans that I agree with 90% of the time refused to support the 50-percenters.

(06-27-2014 10:15 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  This is Mississippi, not Massachusetts or New Hampshire. Scott Brown was a reasonable person to support. Mississippi can do better.

Obviously not.

Two Democrats getting into a pissing match over crossover primary voting is what got Alabama its first Republican governor since Reconstruction.

(06-27-2014 10:13 AM)EagleX Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:09 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Cochran is no liberal. He did what he had to do to win the election. That's what republicans need to learn from democrats. You first do what you have to do to win the election, and THEN you go about implementing your agenda.
Instead of wasting energy here, republicans need to put all their energy behind Cochran and focus instead on winning elections that are up for grabs elsewhere. Focus on how to win the seats needed to go +6 in the senate, not how to screw up and go -1 in what should be a safe seat here. You may not agree 100% with Cochran, but I'm guessing the percentage is miles higher with Cochran than it is with Harry Reid. And that's effectively the choice for Mississippi republicans.

the tea party was a legitimate grass roots organization as recently as 2010. what passes for the "tea party" today is a bunch of bomb throwers that are getting rich by fomenting dissent against republicans as much as democrats. the national tea party organizations contribute a ridiculously small percentage of their donations to their candidates. their "principles" are $$$.
but, yeah, the national tea party is perfectly willing to lose this senate seat to drag out the process as long as possible, during which they will be sucking more and more money out of the pockets of disaffected republicans who think they are "standing on their principles".
they aren't. they're getting taken for fools.

Absolutely. The time and money and effort spent in this fight would be far better spent from a republican or conservative standpoint getting rid of Al Franken or Mark Begich or Mark Pryor or Chris Coons or Mary Landrieu or Jean Shaheen or Kay Hagan or Jeff Merkley.

I was a TEA Partier when the TEA Party stood for fiscal conservatism with no particular social agenda. That's not who the current teabaggers are.

I'll support whatever party adopts a fiscally conservative, socially open agenda. I don't see one of those right now.

(06-27-2014 10:19 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(06-27-2014 09:14 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  Funny that that those like you that constantly rap about the direction the republican party has taken are always the ones on here defending the republicans that have been in power.

See longer post for more detail, but wanted to address this point directly and specifically.

There's a difference between ideology and reality. I don't agree with the direction the republicans in office are taking us. But it's better than the direction democrats would take us. And I think it is counterproductive from a political reality standpoint for republicans that I agree with 50% of the time to lose to democrats that I agree with 10% of the time because other republicans that I agree with 90% of the time refused to support the 50-percenters.

Fair enough. I'd personally rather see the leadership overthrown than see the generic republican party get victories. Meanwhile, the democrats will continue to overreach and shoot themselves in the foot. I don't see a scenario where the democrats win the house for a very long time so the damage is limited. I am fine with continued gridlock.

(06-27-2014 10:42 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  Fair enough. I'd personally rather see the leadership overthrown than see the generic republican party get victories. Meanwhile, the democrats will continue to overreach and shoot themselves in the foot. I don't see a scenario where the democrats win the house for a very long time so the damage is limited. I am fine with continued gridlock.

I'm absolutely fine with gridlock.

In fact, probably the major reason I want republicans to take the senate is to make gridlock stronger.

I have mixed emotions about 2016. What I really don't want to see right now is either party controlling both all three houses (HOR, senate, and white). I think republicans hold the HOR. So I would want to see the senate and the white house split.