Thursday, June 26, 2014

A Mississippi Surprise: GOP Sen. Cochran Beats Back Tea Party Champion | Mother Jones

One more example of the cleavage in the Republican party. Here an incumbent Senator narrowly beats a Tea Party opponent who was favored to win. But, it turns out that his past caught up with him and was used against him. Click title for link.
The mailer asserted that McDaniel "made racist comments on his radio show." It was a point Cochran's campaign had been hammering for months, seemingly without affecting a sufficient number of white Republican primary voters. As a right-wing radio host in the 2000s, McDaniel had blamed hip-hop for gun violence. He had mocked poor blacks for craving "big screen plasma TV's, Randy Moss jerseys, Air Jordan sneakers, or any type of 'bling-bling.'" He had decried discussion of reparations for slavery—pledging to move to Mexico, if such a law were ever passed. He also had spoken at events held by a neo-Confederate group that bashed Abraham Lincoln and celebrated secession. His incendiary comments, some of which were first reported by Mother Jones, gave Cochran a bona fide reason to ask African American voters, who comprise 36 percent of the state's electorate, to keep McDaniel far from Washington's halls of power.
Here's the flyer that was used to get out the African-American vote.\