Senatah Thad Cochran of Mississipeh defeated his Tea Pahty challengah, Chris McDaniel, only by the grace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster... and
black Democrats voting in the GOP primary.
And not only did Cochran survive, but he did so after an explicit and overt campaign to win the support of African American Democrats. You can see some of that work product below the fold, a campaign flyer headlined "The Tea Party intends to prevent blacks from voting on Tuesday." Conservatives flipped their lids, but the nastier their rhetoric, the more determined those black voters apparently became. And in the end, a white southern Republican was able to do what Democrats have such a hard time accomplishing: getting base Democrats to the polls. More seriously: African Americans respond to threats to their voting rights. Attempts to suppress the black vote in 2012 ended up goosing their participation. Cochran was clever to highlight the Tea Party hostility toward non-white voters.
They voted for what they thought was the least worst option. Instead of strengthening the Democrats' hand with the nomination of the freakishly-extreme-even-for-a-TeaBagger McDaniel (who so far
angrily refuses to concede) blacks voted for the lesser of two shitbirds, aka the devil they know. The truth is that's really their only option. Although African Americans comprise 37% of the Magnolia State's population --
the largest of any state in the Union -- whites make up 59%, and
over 50% of all Mississipians call themselves conservative.
Oddly, the blackest, poorest and most federally-dependent state in America is also the most conservative state, according to a Gallup poll taken earlier this year. With a 50.5 percent conservative self-identification rate, Mississippi is the first state to surpass the 50 percent barrier in the three years the poll has been in existence. [...]
The reality in Mississippi poses a major obstacle for any Democratic and black candidate running statewide in this reddest of red states. In the 2008 presidential election, John McCain won Mississippi with 56.5 percent of the vote, to Obama’s 42.7 percent.
Ahem. No wonder it's also the birthplace of the blues. But Kos, the omniscient Democrat, still thinks Travis Childers (the Democrat in the fall contest for the US Senate) has a chance.
So what now? Clearly, (party) Democrats were hoping for a McDaniels victory to put Mississippi in play this November. Cochran's surprising victory changes that calculus. But this is a reshaped political landscape. Base conservatives are furious with Cochran. He's a traitor to their cause. Sure, Democratic nominee Travis Childers voted for Nancy Pelosi in the House, but Cochran won with the support of black voters. They're livid.
They're already talking of a write-in campaign on behalf of McDaniels. And right now, they're so angry that they'd rather walk across flaming broken glass than pull the lever for Cochran in November. The big question is: will that anger survive all the way through November? Aside from that Pelosi thing, Childers should offer little to scare conservatives. He's all but one of them. And if those black voters who turn out today turn out in November, and the conservative base sits things out, then who knows, we've got a race after all.
Ah, no. Sorry. Just no.
But it will be fun reading what Catherine Englebrecht of True the Vote
has to say in the coming days. Her crews were on the Delta scene trying to stop
what happened from happening. Once again, Catherine was looking for voter fraud
in all the wrong places.
Update: More on what was learned from
Booman. And
more freakout from Limbaugh and Palin and Drudge and Erickson, and many, many more.
