GOP Fringe - i.e. the Tea Party - Blame Voter Fraud and "Uncle Toms" for Mississippi Loss

Rather than face the reality that a majority of Americans view them as not only insane, but also frightening, Tea Party forces are claiming that Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel lost his primary challenge to incumbent Senator Thad Cochran due to "voter fraud" and "Uncle Tom" blacks who chose to vote in the GOP primary.  Truth be told, McDaniel is not short of an extremist who would have brought yet more insanity to the Congressional GOP.  Thankfully, enough Mississippi residents recognized McDaniel's toxicity and went to the polls to support Cochran.  Talking Points Memo looks at the spittle flecked rants coming from the Tea Party lunatics.  Here are highlights:

Some conservatives aren't happy that their preferred candidate, state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) lost to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) in the runoff of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Mississippi. Many tea party types are openly speculating foul play and that Democrats and black voters were involved. Take Rush Limbaugh who wondered if Cochran's campaign slogan in Mississippi over the last few days was "Uncle Toms for Thad."

"I wonder what the campaign slogan was in Mississippi the past few days, 'Uncle Toms for Thad'? Because I thought it was the worst thing you could do as an African American, vote for a Republican. The worst thing you could do," Limbaugh said on Wednesday. "But somehow they were made to believe that voting for old Thad would be fine and dandy. And why? Because they were told Thad's done a lot for black people in Mississippi. Must be the first time they were told that."

Cochran's turnaround victory in the race on Tuesday was immediately met with criticism by McDaniel and tea partiers over his strategy of reaching out to not only Republicans but also Democrats and African-Americans, a move that dismayed tea partiers but isn't illegal under Mississippi's open primary laws. 

Matt Drudge, for instance, posted a link to a New York Times story with the line "Black vote used." Another link on Drudge said "The flier 'that got Cochran elected'..." and linked to a National Review blog post on Wednesday reporting that a flyer that had allegedly been circulated in heavily black precincts of Mississippi that was titled: "The Tea Party intends to prevent blacks from voting on Tuesday."

Sarah Palin on Wednesday said there should be some kind of investigation of voting behavior because something clearly was fishy.  

[C]onservatives have also thrown out the idea of leaving the GOP party all together. Amy Kremer, a conservative political operative who formerly led the Tea Party Express warned that if Cochran won, the GOP would be "done." 

Erickson wrote. "In essence, tea party activists are the RINOs. A Republican Party campaigning on making the Senate “conservative,” used liberal Democrats to preserve an incumbent Republican and defeat a conservative. The actual conservatives are the outsiders with the GOP establishment doing all it could to preserve its power at the expense of its principles."

But Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who is often considered a tea party favorite, suggested that such reactions might be overblown. "I'm for more people voting, not less people voting," Paul told reporters Wednesday, according to the Washington Post.

The Tea Party - most of which is also Christofascist - is a swamp fever that must be broken if the GOP is to ever regain its sanity.  Killing the Frankenstein monster will be very difficult.

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.