Rumors that Establishment GOP is backing off in MS-SEN.

There will be a great and terrible compulsion for some to cackle over this.

Establishment Republicans are in a tough spot in Mississippi.

They want Thad Cochran to win the coming runoff, and could spend tons of cash to attack tea-party challenger Chris McDaniel. But they know the sitting senator is more likely to lose, and going after his opponent will only damage the party’s ability to beat the Democratic candidate and take over the Senate.

Don’t.  They’re going in the direction many of you probably want them to go.  Kicking them along the way might feel nice, but it also runs the risk of stiffening their spines.

 

18 thoughts on “Rumors that Establishment GOP is backing off in MS-SEN.”

  1. I’ll start cackling after Cochran loses or concedes, not before.

  2. But I will cackle. Cackle like the GOPe did on election night in NC.

    1. Causing some of them to stay home in November, which (if McDaniel loses or even underperforms) will cause you to castigate them for being “sore losers,” which will cause them to work harder to beat the “extremists,” which will cause you to become enraged the next time they “win one” over you, and so on, and so on, and so on, ad nauseam et ad infinitum.
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      I say the following as someone who has a foot in both camps at a time when that is considered treasonous by both sides, as someone who wishes people could learn to treat these party/ideology battles as contests waged by people of good will but differing visions — rather than as battles royale that must be won even at a Pyrrhic price, and as someone who is very aware that this is not my forum and my ability to preach on here is limited by the patient-but-not-infinite good will of our mutual host:
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      At some point, people from both the establishment and the Tea Party are going to have to step up, be the better men (and women), and find common ground. In fact, all of us are obligated to do so, for the sake of our country’s future. Just because some people are failing to meet their obligations does not excuse us from meeting ours.

      1. At some point, people from both the establishment and the Tea Party are going to have to step up, be the better men (and women), and find common ground.
         
        One of my disappointments with some Republicans is their behavior during and after their primary elections — do they heed Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment? Anything negative they say about their primary opponents will be ammunition for the Democrats in the general election … so DON’T DO THAT.
         
        If McDaniel loses the runoff, will he endorse and campaign for Cochran? If Cochran loses, will he endorse and campaign for McDaniel?

        1. McDaniel will, can’t say the same about Cochran, and therein lies the problem. I wasn’t that invested in getting rid of McConnell, nor was Brannon that good of a candidate, but the behavior of those who were invested in Tillis or McConnell was kind of unprofessional. So I’m not going to hold back when McDaniel wins, because they didn’t

  3. This shows the real goals of the GOPe. “…they [the GOPe] know the sitting senator [GOPe member Cochran] is more likely to lose…It’s an excruciating decision for all of Cochran’s supporters…”

    Excruciating decision? For the GOPe, it is better to stay in the minority and keep the pork flowing, than to allow Conservatives in and stop it.

  4. “Kicking them along the way might feel nice…”
    .
    The GOP is dead to me. I won’t kick them; I certainly won’t vote for them.

    1. So, you’ll be writing in your mother-in-law in hopes she’ll win and move to DC?
      .
      I agree, the national outfits have too many trough-nosers as members, but unless you plan to build the first successful third party since the GOP, the choices are R or D.
      .
      Mew

      1. Technical point of difference. It would be closer to a successful SECOND party, since the operational overlap between the Democrats and the Institutional Republicans is such that telling them apart requires a clairvoyant.

        As far as kicking the Mississippi GOP; they are going to do what they are going to do. But then the TEA Party and Conservatives are going to do what they are going to do. While it will likely be issues such as Amnesty and Obamacare that will be determinant; the Institutionals’ habit of being willing to enable a Democrat victory rather than accept a TEA Party Republican candidate will weigh in the balance.

        1. Oh, indeed. I also oversimplified the choice on election day – there are usually a pawful of minor party players one can “protest-vote” for. Depending on the statistical reality of your State**, sometimes protest-voting is a good thing.
          .
          Generally the minor party platforms are somewhere outside the frame of the Overton Window for either the R or D types, how *far* outside accounts for perceived kookiness.
          .
          Mew
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          ** Illinois was never going for Romney, for instance, so I felt no guilt whatsoever voting for Johnson. Still don’t.

  7. If the GOP establishment actually backs off and lets the Tea Party candidate take it, I’ll be too astonished to cackle, pretty much.

    1. Expecting another write-in campaign?
      Or another endorsement of the Democratic opponent?

      1. What I’m expecting, based on the awe inspiring map CAC put up at Ace of Spades here: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/349509.php
        .
        (it’s below the fold .. )
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        …is, on runoff-day, low voter turnout from the counties flagged in green.
        .
        What I fear is that those same counties will have low turnout when it counts in November, but .. I doubt we’ll see a John Anderson** moment.
        .
        I expect, given southern voting patterns, for McDaniel to win, but with a narrower margin than Cochran got in his last race because – every time an honest analysis has been done – the “establishment voters” turn off and stay home at much higher rates than Tea Party or Religious Right voters.
        .
        Mew
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        ** Who? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Anderson

        1. Cochran hasn’t been challenged by a white Democrat in nearly 20 years. So he’s gotten over 60% of the vote the last few times. McDaniel won’t get that nobody thinks he’ll get that. He’ll get more like what Wicker got in 2012, and probably more then what Wicker got vs. Musgrove in 2008.
          55+ %. anywhere from 7-14% win.

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