Thad Cochran Fends Off Tea Party Insurgent in Mississippi

In some ways Senator Thad Cochran is symbolic of what's wrong with the Republican Party in the South - big on bringing home far more pork in the form of federal tax dollars than those states contribute while thwarting progressive policies that would help states that are footing the bill.  Yet compared to his Tea Party challenger which he defeated in yesterday's run off election, Cochran looks sane and reasonable in comparison.  The frightening reality speaks volumes about the state of the Republican Party in general.  Making the situation even more bizarre, to save his ass, Cochran courted Democrats and black voters - voters typically abused and loathed by Cochran's party compatriots.  Politico looks at how Cochran managed to squeak by with about a 1.5% victory margin.  Here are excerpts:

Thad Cochran’s political resurrection began with a campaign shakeup and ended with a Hail Mary television ad.

Just three weeks ago, in the dead of night on June 3, the Mississippi senator’s staff sat shaken and dejected, crestfallen at the results of a primary that deprived the six-term incumbent of an electoral majority. With Cochran forced into a runoff fight against an aggressive and energetic challenger, a dark mood shadowed his backers in Washington and Mississippi.

Yet almost immediately, the Cochran coalition began bouncing back. Even on that gloomy night of June 3, Cochran adviser Stuart Stevens was insisting to staffers: “We’re going to win.” One Cochran aide paraphrased Stevens’ primary-night message: “We’re going to figure this out and it’s going to be something you remember for the rest of your life.”

Within a week, a powerful operation had swung into motion to save the 76-year-old legislator. Rather than making peace with his firebrand challenger, state and national Republicans redoubled their efforts to tear down Chris McDaniel, whom they considered a political lightweight taking advantage of a virulently anti-Washington mood. In interviews on the day and night of the runoff vote, strategists and party leaders described the campaign as a near-perfect turnaround – considering the slimness of Cochran’s victory, it had to be.

By the time the second round of balloting rolled around on June 24, a collection of groups that might be dubbed the Emergency Committee for Mississippi had spent millions on new television ads, knocked on tens of thousands of doors and reached out to voters – including African-Americans and Democrats – who had likely never voted before in a GOP primary.

The hoped-for payoff came Tuesday night, when Cochran bested McDaniel by some 6,400 votes – a margin of less than 2 percentage points. In a gut punch to conservative activists, Cochran’s survival proved just how much swat national party leaders have when they compete to win by any means necessary.

For the pro-Cochran alliance, the race came down to a huge strategic gamble: That the universe of Mississippians who wanted to see Cochran back in the Senate was substantially larger than the group that voted in the primary – and that rather than serving as a death knell for Cochran, the June 3 ballot would serve instead as a wake-up call for apathetic Mississippians.

In his speech after the race was called, McDaniel delivered a wholesale denunciation of the campaign against him. “Today, the conservative movement took a backseat to liberal Democrats in Mississippi,” he said. It’s a sentiment his advisers and outside allies share. They see the race as a heist by national power brokers who were cynical enough to pad a Republican primary with non-Republican voters.

Pickering says the ad “turned the momentum on the air” while Cochran’s campaign and the super PAC “won it on the ground.” Speaking after polls closed Tuesday night, he hailed the outcome of the race as a glorious moment for Mississippi, estimating that “somewhere between 25- and 35,000 crossover votes made the difference here.”

The GOP establishment created the Christofascist/Tea Party Frankenstein monster and if that foul element of the GOP base is to be defeated and hopefully eradicated, then efforts like the one in Mississippi need to become the norm.