Mississippi GOP and the Cotton-Pickin' Conference Call

The Mississippi Republican Senate Race is getting weirder by the day. Chris McDaniel lost on the vote count of the run-off, but he won't concede to Thad Cochran. There was a conference call the other day which included members of both campaigns along with national and local reporters, but McDaniel supporters turned it into a circus by equating black votes with bales of cotton. No, really, that happened. And McDaniel keeps saying the black votes are somehow not legal even though it was an open primary, meaning anyone from either party could vote. But the actual laws don't seem to matter much to the Mississippi Tea Party!

Previous Related Posts:
Mississippi Chaos ~ Voter Fraud and Suicide
Mississippi Senate Race Shenanigans
Poutrageous ~ McDaniel Loses to Thad Cochran

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The Conference Call:

From the Clarion-Ledger

A conference call set up by the campaign for U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran devolved into a shouting match and then ended, after which time supporters of GOP primary challenger Chris McDaniel chatted for a bit.
California-based blogger Charles C. Johnson posted the call-in number on Twitter and encouraged people to call in and crash the call. He succeeded.
. . . an unidentified male started asking about harvesting cotton and black votes.
. . . (Austin) Barbour (Cochran advisor) tried to continue on, but he was repeatedly cut off by the man. Eventually Barbour and Cochran spokesman Jordan Russell told media that they could be reached by email or cell phone and then hung up.
. . . As word of the debacle spread on Twitter, it quickly became journalists dialing in to see what the commotion was about, only to sit and laugh about the fact that it was over.

From Roll Call

The conference call line did not give the Cochran campaign the ability to mute callers’ lines, so there was no way to force the caller to stop speaking.
“I’m happy to address any question, no matter the lunacy of it,” he said.
But the man on the line, who did not identify himself, could not be placated. Finally, Barbour apologized and announced he was ending the call, telling national press that they had the contact information for the campaign if they had any questions.
. . . Thirty minutes after the call ended, the call line was still open. Someone was using a soundboard of President Barack Obama’s voice saying “Hey! What’s up?” Someone else was playing the audio from the movie “Animal House.”

More drama in the #MSsen race. Cochran campaign conference call derailed by man asking about "harvesting black votes."

— Debbie Elliott (@NPRDebElliott) July 2, 2014

Chris McDaniels campaign manager calls into conference call: “Since black people harvested cotton, why is it OK to harvest their votes?"

— Teabagshredder (@Teabagshredder) July 4, 2014

And Cochran conference call is now Obama soundboard and someone playing clips from Dean Wormer from Animal House.

— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) July 2, 2014

Everyone watching the trainwreck that is the Cochran conference call unfold on Twitter: http://t.co/WQP3lr4jFl

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) July 2, 2014

Chris McDaniel was given time on CNN to denounce the conference call, and instead got all huffy about Cochran's ability to get out the black vote in Mississippi. The problem is, every time he defends his challenge to the vote count he sounds like a racist who thinks black votes aren't valid. There are theories about why McDaniel thinks this is a good idea - he lives in a conservative bubble, all his friends are racist, or he just has a tin ear for politics. Perhaps all of the above?

The point is, McDaniel never seems to understand that Cochran's appeal to black voters worked so well because the Tea Party is inherently racist, and they are all about cutting funding for minority programs. That is the platform on which McDaniel was running, but now he denies that he ever intended to cut anything - a complete lie!

CNN New Day, Transcript 7-4-2014

BOLDUAN: Do you regret that this has gotten so ugly for any part that you've played in this whole race that it's gotten so ugly?

MCDANIEL: Let me tell you what I regret. Here's what I regret. The last two and a half weeks of that campaign, they went out to Democratic communities, predominantly African-American in our state. They called me a racist. They race-baited.

They said if I was elected, I would suppress their right to vote or do away with it. They said if I was elected that welfare would be cut off. They said if I was elected that funding to historically black colleges and universities would be cut off.

I regret any campaign of divisiveness that deals with race in the manner they dealt with it. That was unfair. It's improper, and in so doing, they ran a scare tactic campaign that pushed 42,000 at least Democrats into the Republican primary.

Do I think that's a problem? Absolutely. Because I don't think divisiveness and that type of race-baiting belongs in the Republican Party.

BOLDUAN: You definitely don't like how they run their campaign. That is absolutely clear, Mr. McDaniel.

But for the part that you've played, this is two people running in this race, any regrets you have in how ugly this has gotten?

MCDANIEL: Which examples do you have where we've been ugly?

BOLDUAN: I'm just saying there are two people running in this race. Do you think you've run a completely fair campaign?

MCDANIEL: Help me understand which examples do you have that show I haven't run a clean campaign?

BOLDUAN: I'm asking if there are any regrets now that you're part in one of the ugliest primaries we've seen in a long time.

MCDANIEL: I can't control the Cochran's race baiter, name calling. If you can find an example where we did something like that you let me know and we'll talk about it.