Whoever Wins In Mississippi, It Will Be A Victory For The NRA And For Anti-Choice, Anti-Immigrant And Anti-Gay Fanatics

The bitterly divisive Republican Party primary in Kansas has endangered the Republicans’ ability to hold that red, red state’s Senate seat. The Republican Party primary in Mississippi was even more bitter and more divisive. But Thad Cochran, the senile 76 year old incumbent who was first sent to Washington in 1973 (as a congressman) and who has been in the Senate since 1978, is probably going to hold on. He spent almost $6,000,000 in the primary and squeaked by teabagger Chris McDaniel 157,733 to 156,315 in the first round and 194,932 to 187,265 in the runoff.

Two weeks from tomorrow he’ll face off against reactionary Blue Dog Travis Childers, before he was defeated in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010, one of the 3 most right-wing Democrats in the House. His platform in this race has basically been to appeal to disenchanted McDaniel supporters by bragging how he voted against Obamacare and reiterating that he’s a big NRA supporter and an opponent of women’s right to Choice, LGBT equality and immigrants. The most recent public poll, released by YouGov for CBS News on October 5, shows Cochran at 46% and Childers at 35% (when you include leaners). That is a loot of undecided voters— but 35% is nothing to write home about. Last time Cochran ran (2008), the Democrat, Erik Fleming, took 39%. In 2012 the other Republican Senator, Roger Wicker, beat Democrat Albert Gore 57-41% and Republican Governor Phil Bryant was elected in 2011 against Democrat Johnny DuPee 61-39%. Even President Obama did better than Childers’ 35%. He took 44% against Mitt Romney.

The DSCC hasn’t gotten involved in Childers’ long-shot bid and national Democratic groups have written the race off. As of the June 30 FEC filing deadline Childers had raised $178,621 and was holding just $34,895 cash-on-hand to Cochran’s $714,290 cash-on-hand. Although over $11 million was spent by outside groups during the primary— the Chamber of Commerce defending Cochran with $1,200,000 and Club for Growth attacking him with $3,140,012 for example— no outside money has been spent by anyone for the general. Childers isn’t getting any money from traditional Democratic sources, although the Blue Dog’s so-called Moderate Democrats PAC gave him $10,000 and conservative Democratic allies like Blue Dog Joe Donnelly ($5,000), Kirsten Gillibrand, a “former” Blue Dog herself, ($5,000), Mark Begich ($5,000), Steny Hoyer ($2,500), and Tom Carper ($2,500) have contributed through their own PACs.

Yesterday’s Clarion-Ledger did a profile of candidate Childers and what they call his “wild card” chance to win: angry teabaggers.

Many McDaniel supporters are spitting mad. They believe Cochran stole the Republican runoff through dirty tricks, race baiting and otherwise urging Democrats to raid the GOP primary.

Many have vowed to vote for Childers, sit out the general election or write in McDaniel (which would spoil their ballots). All of the above would help Childers in what is otherwise a very long shot. He faces a well-funded, six-term incumbent Republican in a very red state.

Will Republican voters really cross over in numbers and vote for the Democrat as they've vowed on social media?

"I take folks at their word," said Democratic Party Chairman Rickey Cole. "If they're committed enough to put it out there on Facebook or Twitter, I believe they will."

Recent polling shows the race has tightened somewhat, with Childers at 35 percent, Cochran stuck below 50, at 46 percent. A large tea party crossover or sit-out could tip the scales.

But Childers has to walk a very fine line. He needs some tea party crossover, but he can't risk losing any Democratic base. Cochran has enjoyed healthy support from Democrats, not just in his runoff hail Mary, but in general elections for most of his career.

Childers is guarded when asked about tea party support.

"I hear from all kinds of folks," Childers said while on his recent Jackson-Morton-Forest trip, mirroring earlier comments. "Since I started my career, I've always had great support from my fellow Democrats. I have always attracted a large independent vote … I have always had some Republican support."

But Childers has made two platform pitches to tea party voters.

At this summer's Neshoba County Fair, he pledged in his stump speech to vote for a balanced budget amendment, saying, "The tea party says we cannot sustain $17 trillion in debt. They're right."

More recently, Childers became the first Democrat to sign the Federation for American Immigration Reform anti-amnesty pledge.

Childers said this was not red meat for the tea party and "not aimed at anybody." But it drew accolades from some tea party leaders. The blowback from Democrats so far has been minimal.

…"I haven't always had the best relationship with Washington," Childers said. "It seemed when I was up there, I never did fall in line. I voted my genuinely held beliefs, what I thought best.

"I was fiscally conservative on money issues," Childers said. "I consider myself a moderate. I never got hung up on labels. I knew what my politics were. I really believe my politics fit the mode of the average Mississippian, and the average working Mississippian."

Childers said he voted against the Affordable Care Act because, "I just thought we could have done so much better." He said health care reform was needed, "because the insurance companies were running health care, and still do, to some extent.”

Childers claims he hasn’t switched to the GOP (yet) because he’s proud to be a Democrat. He favors increasing the minimum wage and attacks Cochran for voting against the Paycheck Fairness Act. Perhaps because he’s such a staunch anti-Choice fanatic, there is no gender gap working in his favor so far. 29% of Mississippi women say they will vote for him and 31% say they will vote for Cochran. With leaners they’re tied at 35-35%.

Equally bad news for Childers, especially in light of the NY Times report yesterday on Black voting, is that Childers isn't inspiring Blacks. Many remember what a conservative he was and don't plan to bother going to the polls to vote for him. Why should they? Only 58% of African-American voters say they’ll vote for him— which compares badly to African American support for other conservative southern Democrats like Mary Ladrieu (76%), Mark Pryor (76%), Michelle Nunn (77%), Kay Hagan (83%), Mark Warner (83%) and Alison Lundergan Grimes (92%).

The confidential memo from a former pollster for President Obama contained a blunt warning for Democrats. Written this month with an eye toward Election Day, it predicted “crushing Democratic losses across the country” if the party did not do more to get black voters to the polls.

“African-American surge voters came out in force in 2008 and 2012, but they are not well positioned to do so again in 2014,” Cornell Belcher, the pollster, wrote in the memo, dated Oct. 1. “In fact, over half aren’t even sure when the midterm elections are taking place.”

...[S]ophisticated targeting, church visits, high-profile surrogates and even direct appeals by the president may go only so far, some Democrats said, when candidates are running away from a politician black voters adore. Ms. Grimes is but one example.

In Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu ran an ad calling the president’s policies “simply wrong when it comes to oil and gas production.” In Georgia, Michelle Nunn, the Democratic Senate nominee, has refused to say if she would have voted for the Affordable Care Act-- Mr. Obama’s signature domestic initiative.

None of this sounds good for Childers. In 2008, while only 11% of wjite Mississippians backed President Obama's election, 98% of Blacks voted for him. Elijah Cummings of Maryland sums it up like this: "People understand that you have to walk a thin line," describing Democratic candidates’ dilemma. "But African-Americans do not want you denying any affiliation with the president, because they love this president. He is like a son to them."

Mississippi Senate Debacle-- Who Will Have The Last Laugh?

Right-wing populists-- who are sometimes referred to as teabaggers-- have pretty much taken over the Republican social policy agenda. But have been largely unable to beat Chamber of Commerce Republicans in primaries this year, the way they did manage to do in 2010 and 2012 by replacing longtime Senate incumbents like Bob Bennett (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Dick Lugar (R-IN) and beating Establishment candidates in Delaware (Mike Castle), Florida (Charlie Crist), Nevada (Sue Lowden), Colorado (Jane Norton), Texas (David Dewhurst) and Kentucky (Trey Grayson). Although the Tea Party wound up with Ted Cruz (TX), Mike Lee (UT), Marco Rubio (FL) and Rand Paul (KY) in the Senate, the rest of their candidates failed in the general elections that followed. This cycle teabagger candidates lost high profile Senate races in Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Dakota and, most recently, Mississippi. The bitterness of the Mississippi primary is still reverberating and this morning Jonathan Weisman predicted in the NY Times "that if conservative outrage in Mississippi spreads, some Tea Party voters in other states where the Republican establishment’s candidate has prevailed could stay home in November. That could bolster Democrats like Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Mark Pryor in Arkansas, Mark Begich in Alaska or Michelle Nunn in Georgia."

Jane Bilello, chairwoman of the Asheville Tea Party in North Carolina, told him the much-disliked GOP candidate, failed House Speaker Thom Tillis, will suffer Tea Party defections in November. "Oh, we are watching. We are furious. The G.O.P. wants us to sit down, shut up and vote for their RINO. We are putting our foot down, and until the Republicans learn this lesson, they’re going to continue to lose elections."

[T]he open-ended nature of the Mississippi Republican civil war injects an element of uncertainty. By serving a notice of intent to contest the results, Mr. McDaniel will have 10 days from the official certification of Mr. Cochran’s victory to gather evidence and file an appeal. Certification is not expected until next week.

If, as expected, that appeal is filed, the Mississippi Republican Party would almost certainly reject it, sending the matter to the courts. Lawyers involved in the McDaniel case said they would be aiming for a new runoff election by mid-September.

Noel Fritsch, a spokesman for the McDaniel campaign, claims the campaign and its allies have identified 4,900 "irregular" ballots, with 31 counties and 19,000 absentee ballots still to be examined. Mr. Cochran prevailed by 6,693 votes. By checking voter rolls, McDaniel allies can identify Mississippians who voted in the June 3 Democratic primary and match them against names of people who voted in the Republican runoff, although they would be prohibited from voting in both. That will not tell them whether two-time voters cast ballots in the runoff for Mr. McDaniel or Mr. Cochran.

The Cochran campaign calls the McDaniel figures for ineligible voters wildly exaggerated. And while some number of miscast votes might be found, nowhere near enough will be uncovered to change the results, said Austin Barbour, a Cochran campaign adviser.

He pointed to the Eastover precinct in Jackson where the McDaniel camp says 130 disputed ballots have been identified. But only 35 Democrats voted in that precinct on June 3.

"It had always been our hope that after the runoff ended, we could move to the general election," Mr. Barbour said. "We’ve been gracious to Senator McDaniel. Unfortunately, the time has come that we in the Cochran campaign can no longer sit silent about these baseless accusations."

The accusations are not going away.

...Dwayne Hall, vice president of the Miller County Patriots, a Tea Party group in Texarkana, Ark., says he has set up a Google alert for the McDaniel-Cochran fight and emails his network of fellow activists all the news from Mississippi.

“I’m no longer a member of the Republican Party, and I’d expect a lot of my fellow patriots to resign, too,” he said, adding: “I’m perfectly willing to do a protest vote in November if that’s my best option. I’m keeping that option open.”

Adam Brandon, executive vice president of the national Tea Party funder FreedomWorks, said Republican leaders like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky may yet succeed in “smashing” Tea Party groups, but they are doing so at a great cost.

“The way activists feel treated by the party, they may stay home in November, and even if they do vote, I can tell you they’re not going door to door,” he said. “When Mitch McConnell says, ‘We’re going to stamp these guys out and smash them all over the country,’ how are Republicans going to win anywhere?”

It would be pretty funny if teabaggers voted for nominal Democrat, Blue Dog Travis Childers, in November, the same way African-Americans voted for Cochran in the runoff. It would be even funnier when Childers switches parties and becomes a Republican, which is pretty inevitable.

Is There A Reasonable Democratic Strategy For Mississippi?

Democrats regularly win statewide races in Maine and South Dakota, though DSCC executive director Guy Cecil, some kind of a self-loathing Beltway creature, has written off both states to the Republicans in November. He's much more excited about spending DSCC millions down in Mississippi on behalf of homophobic, anti-Choice Blue Dog Travis Childers. Don't forget, the last two times Democrats won Senate seats in Mississippi were when John Stennis was reelected in 1982, having first become a senator in 1947, and when James Eastland was reelected in 1972, having first become a senator in 1942. When Eastland retired and resigned early, Thad Cochran was appointed to fill the rest of his term and was then reelected for 6 consecutive 6 year terms. He's utterly senile and not capable of being any more than a figure head for his staff now.

If your career has something to do with being a professional Democrat, the Mississippi Senate race might be exciting. Same if you watch politics as a sporting event. Yes, someone with a bluish t-shirt, reactionary Blue Dog Travis Childers, is said by a few idiots to have a tiny chance to win a Senate seat…. if a bunch of unlikely scenarios place out. Sure, ruthless fascists in the McDaniel campaign locking themselves into a courthouse overnight and tampering with the ballots is a fun Republican story… but it is a Republican story, a Mississippi Republican story and what does it have to do with normal Americans?

By hook or by crook, McDaniel is likely to win the June 24 run-off.

Cochran carried large areas of the state on Tuesday, winning 52 of 82 counties. He was strong in metro Jackson, which gave him a 9,000 vote margin. He won the Biloxi-Gulfport and Tupelo-Columbus areas, but by lesser vote margins.

But in several areas where McDaniel won, he won big, with huge margins in his home area of the Pine Belt and tea party strongholds. The Hattiesburg-Laurel area gave him about a 12,000 vote margin.

McDaniel also appeared to pull a couple of upsets, or at least surprises for the Cochran campaign. He won what had been predicted as the battleground, DeSoto County, handily at 63 percent, although turnout there was relatively low. He topped Cochran slightly in Jackson County and kept Cochran's margins relatively slim elsewhere on the Coast, projected to be a Cochran stronghold.

Cochran is believed to have enjoyed at least a small amount of "crossover" Democrats voting for him in the Republican primary. That prospect will likely diminish in a runoff, and those who voted Democratic in the primary are prohibited from voting Republican in a runoff. They might not want to anyway. Democratic nominee Travis Childers is believed to stand a better shot-- albeit a long one-- of defeating McDaniel in a general where Mississippians tend to vote heavily Republican in federal elections.

Both campaigns' cupboards appear bare at this point. At last report, Cochran had $681,000 cash on hand; McDaniel, $237,000. Both are probably much lower after late-race spending on get-out-the-vote efforts.

Cochran raised at least $3.6 million for the primary; McDaniel, $1.2 million. But super PACs and other outside groups spent more than $8 million on the race, including $5 million from national tea-party-oriented groups for McDaniel.

Some of McDaniel's biggest outside benefactors on Wednesday were enthusiastically pledging more support. The Club for Growth PAC vowed to "vigorously pursue this race to its conclusion." Freedom Works for American vowed to "double down" its ground game help for McDaniel. Strapped for cash on his own, McDaniel needs the outside support.

Some of Cochran's third-party support, such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee appeared more reticent about spending more in a internecine Republican runoff battle.

But the Mississippi Conservatives PAC, run by former Gov. Haley Barbour's nephew Henry Barbour, plans to stay in the game. Barbour said the PAC is "reloading the weaponry."

And Cochran has been a consummate fundraiser himself and can likely raise at least enough to mount a serious three-week media campaign.

McDaniel's obvious strategy is to stay the course, capitalize on growing anti-Washington, anti-incumbent sentiment and keep his base fired up, waving signs and ready to vote.

"He was written off by the media and attacked by the establishment, yet here he stands on the cusp of making history," said Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund Chairman Jenny Beth Martin. "With all his momentum, I like his chances in three weeks."

Cochran needs a relatively large turnout for the runoff. He is going to have to clarify his message and keep his cadre of state Republican "establishment" leaders such as Gov. Phil Bryant working for him-- which may become more difficult as they read the tea (party) leaves.

"This race is now about whether we want a U.S. senator who puts Mississippi interests first or a U.S. senator controlled by the outside people who have hijacked the tea party," said Henry Barbour. "The message needs to be about what life would be like without Thad Cochran-- at Ingalls (shipyard) or Keesler Air Force Base or in Meridian-- without Thad Cochran and what life will be like with a candidate who just wants to be another Ted Cruz and make a bunch of speeches and not do anything for Mississippi."

Cochran is going to have to show up. His campaign is increasingly plagued by questions of whether the 76-year-old is actually engaged. His campaign events have been guarded by his handlers, with little or no advance notice to the general public or media, and stump speeches or interviews rare.

Notably, Cochran failed to appear before his supporters gathered Tuesday night for his campaign party. This move is likely to plague him for the next three weeks.

…Club for Growth issued a statement calling on Cochran to withdraw from the race.

Still, for all the Sturm und Drang, McDaniel only finished with around 1,000 more votes than Cochran-- 49.5%. No one can be sure he's going to win what's likely to be a low-turn-out primary runoff. And if he does, the likelihood that he'd beat Childers anymore is enormous.

[E]ven if the national political environment favors Democrats on Election Day, the effect in the Mississippi will probably be minimal. Mississippi is inelastic; it has few swing voters. The state’s large black population routinely gives 90 percent or more of its vote to Democrats, while the white population usually doles out 80 percent or more of its vote to Republicans.

Democrats don’t just lose; they tend to lose by the same amount year after year. In gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections since 2003, every Democratic candidate got between 35 percent and 46 percent of the vote.

It’s possible that Childers will break this streak: He has shown he can win over conservative voters. The state’s 1st District, which he represented in Congress, was more Republican than the state as a whole.

But the partisan gravity in Mississippi is strong and hard to reverse. Childers is a clear underdog.

Clearly, if McDaniel wins, the brain surgeons Guy Cecil at the DSCC hopes to elect a far right fake-Democrat, who would probably switch parties before his term was even half up, and who will certainly be much further right than Manchin. Judging by everything he's been up to since he took over the committee by selecting a weak and ineffective boss, Michael Bennet, Cecil, seems to think this is a far more effective strategy than trying to win states where actual Democrats actually win elections, like Maine (Shenna Bellows) and South Dakota (Rick Weiland). Instead of wasting your resources on trying to elect a Republican disguised as a Democrat in a state that won't elect Democrats, please consider chipping in for Shenna and Rick here.

Another Blue Dog Made The Natural Transition To The GOP-- Will Gene Taylor Beat Steven Palazzo In Tomorrow's Republican Primary?

Sunday morning we asked what it's like to be a Blue Dog in America today. And the picture that emerged was far from pretty. When looking at the natural progression from Blue Dog-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- to plain old Republican, we focused on the freak from Kansas who led the anti-gay and anti-Choice forces of hatred and bigotry in her badly afflicted state, Janice Pauls, finally finding her natural home in the GOP. But tomorrow-- primary day in Mississippi-- another failed Blue Dog, defeated congressman Gene Taylor is looking for a comeback… as-- what else?-- a Republican.

He's ignoring FEC rules that require him to report the source of the quarter million dollars he's spending on the race. Is he getting covert support from the Blue Dog caucus in the GOP primary. No one will know before tomorrow, that's for sure. The biggest newspaper in the southeast Mississippi district, MS-04-- PVI is R+21 and Obama won 31% of the vote in 2008 and 2012-- endorsed Taylor. It's a crowded primary and the Tea Party has a couple of crackpots in the race even more extreme that Steven Palazzo or Taylor (which ain't easy). Although the open primary allows Democrats to vote in the GOP contest, Taylor is unlikely to beat Palazzo and even forcing a June 24th run-off is a stretch.

When asked to explain his transformation from a Blue Dog to a Republican, Taylor has no trouble at all. It's perfectly natural and may Mississippi Republicans are former Blue Dogs themselves. “I’ll make it very simple. When I first went to Congress, almost all of the southern Democrats were pro-life, almost all of them were for 2nd Amendment rights, almost all of them believed in a strong national defense, and almost all of them believed in a balanced budget. Over the years that changed."

It's been a quiet race compared to the bitter primary between Establishment Republican Thad Cochran and far right extremist, neo-fascist Chris McDaniel for Senate. (There's also a defeated Blue Dog in that race, Travis Childers, who's hoping McDaniel wins and that he get slip into office as a result of the GOP civil war, something like Indiana Blue Dog Joe Donnelly did when a neo-fascist took out Dick Lugar in the Republican primary.)

Taylor, who served 11 terms as a "Blue Dog" Democrat starting in 1989, switched parties to take on Rep. Steven Palazzo in the Republican primary.

But Palazzo, who topped Taylor in 2010, is in the catbird's seat now, according to Stephen L. Rozman, professor of political science at Tougaloo College in Jackson.

"It's difficult because Palazzo is entrenched," Rozman said. "Palazzo is still going to recall Taylor's past, looking at him as opportunistic, trying to get in as a Republican. It's an uphill battle."

In addition to 44-year-old Palazzo of Biloxi and 60-year-old Taylor of Bay St. Louis, three other GOP candidates seek the seat-- 48-year-old Tom Carter of Carriere, 24-year-old Tavish Kelly of Picayune and 73-year-old Ron Vincent of Hattiesburg.

…"So, what does Taylor do? As a Democrat, he lost the last time, and momentum is going against a Democrat winning. So, he's doing what he has to do. He's doing it in the primary."

..."People aren't being fooled," Palazzo told the Associated Press. "You can't be a lifelong Democrat and wake up the day of the qualifying deadline and say, 'I'm a Republican.'"

Taylor, though, says people thank him for running.

"I think people have realized they want a congressman that's accessible to them, that they can talk to face-to-face," Taylor told the AP.

When Palazzo unseated Taylor, his margin of victory came from support in three inland counties, Pearl River, Lamar and Jones. Taylor says he's focusing more attention away from the coast this time around.

Taylor has hammered Palazzo repeatedly for his 2012 vote to approve the Biggert-Waters flood insurance law, under which the Federal Emergency Management Agency proposed expensive rate increases.

"He voted to raise peoples' flood insurance rates by unlimited amounts," Taylor told the AP.

Palazzo said "no one" foresaw how FEMA would administer the proposed changes. "Congress' intent was for them to do an affordability study," he said.

Palazzo voted in March with most other members to defang that law, which he says is his top achievement.

Taylor also says Palazzo isn't doing enough to protect the district's military bases and criticized him for balking at supporting money to pay flood insurance claims following 2012's Superstorm Sandy.

Taylor says the Sandy vote will hurt Palazzo's ability to seek hurricane aid for the Mississippi coast in the future. Palazzo disputes that, though, saying even as one of the House's more conservative members, "I can still get things done."

Here's Taylor demonizing Nancy Pelosi-- and claiming Palazzo supports her-- in a crude TV spot:

Mississippi Is Going To Elect Someone… To The U.S. Senate

And the Democrat still isn't worth voting for!

Joe Manchin (WV) is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate. According to ProgressivePunch, his lifetime crucial vote score is 60.71, pretty dreadful. He's the 55th "most progressive" member of the Senate. Every Republican is worse. The 5 Democrats almost as bad as Machin-- from bad to worse-- are Kay Hagan (NC), Joe Donnelly (IN), John Walsh (MT), Mark Pryor (AR), Mary Landrieu (LA), all in red or purple states. These 6 cross the aisle and vote with Republicans far more than any other Democrats. The half dozen Republicans who occasionally cross the aisle in the other direction and vote with the Democrats are Susan Collins (ME), Dean Heller (NV), John McCain (AZ), Mark Kirk (IL), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Roy Blunt (MO) are all from blue or purple states. Their ProgressivePunch lifetime crucial vote scores are between 27.81 (Collins) and 7.07 (Blunt), astonishingly right-wing. Even Collins, who votes with the Democrats more than any of the other Republicans, almost never does and Santorum famously reported that she's a team player and that when the extreme right needs her, she's always there for them. Always. And she's the best of the lot, the 56th "most progressive" member of the Senate, right after Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu and Joe Manchin. Going down below the 6 who sometimes vote with the Democrats, you pass right-wing extremists Rand Paul (7.03), Mike Lee (6.52), Chuck Grassley (5.44), David Vitter (4.59), Pat Toomey (3.80) until you come to the Republican with the 74th "most progressive" lifetime voting record in the Senate, Mississippi's Thad Cochran (3.65), just a tiny bit more conservative than Toomey's and a tiny bit less conservative than Tom Coburn (3.17).

The deranged neo-fascist politician who took over Club for Growth when Pat Toomey gave up the job to run for the Senate, Chris Chocola, sent a poison-pen article to Mississippi's influential Sun Herald that they published today, Thad Cochran Has A Liberal Record In The U.S. Senate. Spoiler: he doesn't, at least not unless you define "liberal" as anything that doesn't measure up to a Mussolini-like agenda. Chocola has endorsed Chris McDaniel, whose agenda does measure up to a Mussolini-like agenda. Chocola and McDaniel point out that the 41 year old McDaniel has seen Cochran, an incumbent of 42 years, in Congress his whole life and that tenure "is part of the reason why we have $17 trillion in debt… Why would his seventh term be any different from the last six?"

Sen. Cochran has a liberal voting record. That's a fact. Even the staunchest defenders of Cochran will never deny that Cochran has voted for the following things:

• He voted to create the Department of Education under Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.

• He voted for the 1990 income tax increase under President George H.W. Bush that broke Bush's famous "read my lips, no new taxes" promise.

• He voted to fund ObamaCare and to raise the debt ceiling-- he's actually voted to raise the debt ceiling 20 times.

All of those are facts. Period. They are not in dispute.

And while Sen. Cochran has been in office, the debt has gone from practically nothing to $17 trillion. That's a fact too. It's part of the reason he was given one of the lowest ratings by the American Conservative Union of any Republican Senator during the Obama era, a 63 percent.

A lot is made about projects in Mississippi that Thad Cochran got federal money for. What his supporters (many of whom are lobbyists who are paid to get politicians like Cochran to appropriate money for one project or another) fail to mention is that for every building in Mississippi Sen. Cochran voted for, he also had to vote to spend Mississippi tax dollars on things like a Woodstock Museum in New York or a Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Oklahoma or a Lobster Institute in Maine. All of which, like Sen. Cochran's pork projects, received millions of dollars paid for by Mississippi taxpayers.

Thad Cochran loves to tout his pork projects even as the rest of the Republican Party has taken the opposite position on pork. Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner opposes them. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, opposes them. 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney opposes them. Even President Obama-- hardly a conservative-- opposes them. Not Sen. Cochran.

Today, a typically crackpot right-wing polling firm showed the race a dead heat, although the survey was done in December. More reliable polling by PPP shows a tough race but with Cochran still beating McDaniel.

55% of GOP primary voters say they would prefer a 'more conservative' alternative to Cochran, compared to just 35% who say they support the long time Senator. And although Cochran still leads primary challenger Chris McDaniel 44/38, much of that lead is attributable to his higher name recognition. Among the 50% of primary voters who have heard of McDaniel, whether they like him or not, Cochran trails his challenger 60/29.

Cochran's approval numbers with Republican voters have dropped precipitously over the last two years. In November of 2011 we found him with a 74/14 approval spread with them, but that's declined now to 45/42. Unsurprisingly Cochran's problems are coming with the furthest right segment of his party. Among voters describing themselves as 'very conservative' he has just a 34/55 approval spread, trails McDaniel 51/32 head to head, and loses out to a generic 'more conservative' alternative 74/22.

If Cochran is the Republican nominee for the Senate next year the seat likely won't be competitive. He actually has a positive approval rating with Democrats at 44/40 and that crossover support would make him close to unbeatable in a general election. He leads Travis Childers, who has actually floated the possibility of running, 50/33 in a head to head. He's also up 50/37 on Ronnie Musgrove and 45/43 on Jim Hood in hypothetical contests.

If McDaniel is the Republican nominee though it looks like there's at least some chance at a competitive race forming. He leads both Childers (41/38) and Musgrove (44/41) by just 3 points in head to heads and actually trails Hood by a couple points at 43/41. McDaniel just doesn't have the same kind of support across party lines that Cochran does.

“Thad Cochran’s in pretty serious danger of losing the primary next year,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Conservatives have really soured on him over the last couple years and are ready for someone new.”

The most recent poll, also from December though, was done by another GOP group, Harper. Only Republicans were polled, no normal people. They showed Cochran's favorables at 64.10%, unfavorables at 27.92%. McDaniels was still pretty unknown-- almost 50%-- but his favorable/unfavorable breakdown was 33.05%/16.60%.

Related questions get to the heart of why Mississippi is the most backward state in the country and the most miserable place for a non-millionaire to live:

If McDaniel wins, the DSCC hopes to elect a far right fake-Democrat, Travis Childers, who would probably switch parties before his term was even half up, and who will certainly be much further right than Manchin. Beltway imbecile and DSCC dictator, Guy Cecil, thinks this is a far more effective strategy than trying to win states where actual Democrats actually win elections, like Maine (Shenna Bellows) and South Dakota (Rick Weiland).

Will The Beltway Democratic Party Become Just Like The Mississippi Democratic Party?

Two of the most reactionary and bigoted Democrats to have served in Congress in modern times were Mississippi Blue Dogs Gene Taylor and Travis Childers. Both amassed voting records that would make any right-wing, hate-filled yahoo delighted. Yesterday each announced his far-fetched plan to get back into Congress. Taylor, who represented Mississippi's Gulf Coast between 1989 and 2011, finally admitted what I've been saying for over a decade: he's nothing but a Republican. He'll be primarying Steve Palazzo, the GOP incumbent who beat him in 2010, 52-47%. The qualifying deadline was yesterday at 5pm.

At the same time, Childers, who was just as far to the right as Taylor announced his intention to run for the Mississippi senate seat as a right-wing Democrat. He was defeated on the same day as Taylor-- the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse-- by Republican Alan Nunnelee, 55-41%, after just a term and a half. He was one of the assholes who voted for the Stupak Pitts Amendment to make the Affordable Care Act anti-Choice and then voted against the overall bill anyway.

His only path to victory would be for neo-fascist and Confederate secessionist state Sen. Chris McDaniel to beat incumbent Thad Cochran in the Republican primary, leaving a way for Childers to point out that he's the "true conservative" while McDaniel is an anti-American proto-Nazi. It may be a distinction to fine for the Fox-washed voters of Mississippi but… it's a chance. But if Childers wins, what do the Democrats get at vote time? Remember, he was one of the 5 misongynist Democrats who took up arms in the Republican War Against Women to vote against the Lily Ledbetter Paycheck Fairness Act. And what makes anyone think he wouldn't follow Taylor right over the fence at the drop of a hat? Even funnier, the other "Democrat" in the Senate primary is failed Tea Party Republican Bill Marcy.

It's just an absolute disgrace that the DSCC has fallen this low-- to support someone who is so not a Democrat-- while ignoring excellent progressives, Shenna Bellows and Rick Weiland in far more fertile states, Maine and South Dakota. Even more tragic is for Beltway faux journalists to take their stories directly from the DSCC and dub Childers a Top-Tier Recruit.

Childers is following a similar path to  Sen. Joe Donnelly, who jumped from the House into a 2012 Senate race against Sen. Richard Lugar in Indiana, hoping he would lose to a conservative rival. Lugar lost the primary to Richard Mourdock, whose outspoken conservatism proved out of step, even in a Republican-friendly state.

Cochran is regarded as the most vulnerable Republican senator in a primary, and outside conservative groups are united behind McDaniel. Cochran, a veteran appropriator, hasn't faced a challenging campaign since he was first elected to the Senate in 1978.

Regardless of the Republican nominee, Mississippi is still a very tough state for Democrats to contest, especially in a midterm year. President Obama won just 44 percent of the vote in 2012, and African-American turnout is lower in a midterm election. Childers won reelection in a presidential year-- he was first elected in a 2008 special election-- but lost by 14 points to GOP Rep. Alan Nunnelee in 2010.

The last time Democrats contested a Mississippi Senate race was in 2008, with former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove as their nominee. But Musgrove lost badly to Sen. Roger Wicker, by 16 points.

How Extreme A Candidate Would Mississippi Republicans Have To Nominate To Hand A Senate Seat To Blue Dog Travis Childers?

I have a crazy old ex-boss why still calls from time to time, usually to harass me about politics, which he sort of follows from time to time. His father was a ward boss in the Bronx when FDR was president and later a municipal judge. My friend is a life-long Democrat, although he loves Rudy Giuliani "for keeping us safe" and because he's a HUGE fan of "stop and frisk." He constantly berates me for "your boy Obama" no matter how many times I tell him I voted for the Green Party candidate, not for Obama. And his ideal Democrats are Bill and Hill. He loves the Clintons. He's worth tens of millions of dollars-- maybe $100 million-- and I bet if Hillary runs he could be persuaded to make a $20 contribution to her campaign. Historically, his favorite Democrats have been southern conservatives. He delights in yammering about the glory of old-time racists like John Sparkman and Lister Hill from Alabama, Richard Russell and Herman Talmadge from Georgia, Spessard Holland, Claude Pepper and George Smathers from Florida, Sam Ervin from North Carolina and Ted Bilbo, John Stennis and James Eastland of Mississippi. He called yesterday out of the blue and went on and on about how great everything was when Stennis and Eastland were in the Senate (Stennis from 1947 until 1989 and Eastland from 1943 'til 1978). Stennis' conservatism was replaced by Trent Lott's and Eastland's by Thad Cochran's, ending Democratic control of Mississippi's two Senate seats that went back to the end of Reconstruction in the mid/late 1800s. Since Eastland and Stennis retired, respectively in 1978 and 1989, Democrats never had a chance. Could that streak end next year?

A Blue Dog Democrat as conservative as Eastland and Stennis ever were, Travis Childers, has expressed interest in running for the Senate. If you've been reading DWT for a while, you probably know all about Childers and his anti-Choice, anti-women, anti-gay, anti-healthcare, pro-NRA brand of "Democrat." He stretches the Democrats' Big Tent beyond where most grassroots Democrats think it should stretch to and he was a nightmare for House Dems for his one term in Congress, voting with the Republicans on just about every important issue. He was predictably defeated in the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010. If Cochran doesn't run for reelection-- or is defeated by deranged Tea Party extremist Chris McDaniel-- Childers senses an opportunity.

Cochran has said he will make a decision by the end of the month.

Childers said he would be "less apt" to run if Cochran does, though he declined to rule it out. He sounds as though he would attempt to appeal to Cochran supporters, calling it "kind of odd" that McDaniel got into the race before Cochran's announcement.

"Probably nobody within the state of Mississippi has more respect for (Cochran) than I do," Childers said.

Childers, a Blue Dog Democrat, would likely need to benefit from a hard-fought GOP primary and/or a wounded GOP nominee. Moderate and Blue Dog Democrats have won a number of Senate races in recent years thanks to GOP infighting and flawed nominees.

A fellow Blue Dog, then-Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), won his seat in 2012 after Richard Mourdock upended longtime Sen. Richard Lugar in the Indiana GOP Senate primary. Similarly, Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) defeated flawed GOP nominees in states that Mitt Romney easily carried in the 2012 presidential race.

McDaniel is plumb loco and may be too radical even for Mississippi (see video up top). And he's running, no matter what Cochran decides. If Cochran decides to retire-- a very distinct possibility-- there are more Establishment type Republicans, like Secretary of State Delbert Hoseman, state Auditor Stacey Pickering, Rep. Gregg Harper and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves who might want to run and who may beat the teabagger. BUT, what Childers would be counting on is that McDaniel wins and he can claim the conservative mantle and paint McDaniel as the dangerous radical.

Brand new polling shows Mississippi voters want someone they perceive as more conservative than Thad Cochran as their next senator. And in a head to head primary between Cochran and McDaniel… very close.

From the PPP analysis:

Cochran's path to renomination looks difficult based on these numbers. Mississippi is an uphill battle for Democrats even without the drop off in black turnout you usually see in a midterm electorate, but they may have some chance at being competitive if Republicans nominate someone conservative enough.

…Cochran's approval numbers with Republican voters have dropped precipitously over the last two years. In November of 2011 we found him with a 74/14 approval spread with them, but that's declined now to 45/42. Unsurprisingly Cochran's problems are coming with the furthest right segment of his party. Among voters describing themselves as 'very conservative' he has just a 34/55 approval spread, trails McDaniel 51/32 head to head, and loses out to a generic 'more conservative' alternative 74/22.

If Cochran is the Republican nominee for the Senate next year the seat likely won't be competitive. He actually has a positive approval rating with Democrats at 44/40 and that crossover support would make him close to unbeatable in a general election. He leads Travis Childers, who has actually floated the possibility of running, 50/33 in a head to head. He's also up 50/37 on Ronnie Musgrove and 45/43 on Jim Hood in hypothetical contests.

If McDaniel is the Republican nominee though it looks like there's at least some chance at a competitive race forming. He leads both Childers (41/38) and Musgrove (44/41) by just 3 points in head to heads and actually trails Hood by a couple points at 43/41. McDaniel just doesn't have the same kind of support across party lines that Cochran does.

Can Rahm Emanuel Validate Eric Cantor's Prediction Of A 2010 GOP Landslide?

What passes for Inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom is clear: the first midterm election after the election of a president sees his party losing seats in Congress. And Democrats have plenty of very iffy seats-- seats narrowly won in basically, or even deeply, red districts. Take Travis Childers' northern Mississippi district (MS-1). He won the seat in a razor-thin 50/50 election. Although Obama only got 38% of the vote, a surge in African-American voting-- blacks make up about 26% of the district's population-- helped put Childers over the hump in what had become an open seat. Since getting into Congress, Childers has voted more like a Republican than any other Democrat in the House. Both on overall votes and on core issues, Childers has been a fairly dependable vote for John Boehner and Eric Cantor. Something tells me that huge African-American Democratic surge from last November isn't going to be there for Childers in 2010, just like it wasn't there last year for Don Cazayoux in Louisiana (who also got into office with African-American help and immediately commenced voting like a reactionary Republican). And there are dozens of seats in similar jeopardy where conservative Democrats like Childers-- Walt Minnick (Blue-Dog-ID), Bobby Bright (Blue-Dog-AL), Ann Kirkpatrick (Blue-Dog-AZ), Parker Griffith (Blue-Dog-AL), Glenn Nye (Blue-Dog-VA), Frank Kratovil (Blue-Dog-MD), Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-PA), Jason Altmire (Blue-Dog-PA), Chris Carney (Blue-Dog-PA), Harry Mitchell (Blue-Dog-AZ), Gabby Giffords (Blue-Dog-AZ), Baron Hill (Blue-Dog-IN), Bill Foster (D-IL), just to name some of the most obvious-- are counting on Republican and conservative independents to put them over in 2010.

Eric Cantor thinks the GOP is going to trounce these Democrats and take back control of the House. This despite a new Gallup poll, out today, that shows even Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have an unfavorable opinion of the GOP.

Almost 4 out of 10 (38%) Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have an unfavorable opinion of their own party, while just 7% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party. Additionally, a May 29-31 USA Today/Gallup poll shows that the top-of-mind images of the Republican Party among Republicans are considerably more negative than are the images of the Democratic Party among Democrats.

Let me inject two factors here: the Republican playbook for dealing with the political state of affairs and how that has worked historically, and Obama's Karl Rove, Rahm Emanuel. The Republican knee-jerk obstructionism is going over very badly. And they should have known. They're singing from the same hymn book that they used in the 1930s after Democrats took back Congress in the light of the Republican Party's Great Depression. Not one single GOP House member voted for Social Security-- not one. Instead everything FDR and the Democrats in Congress tried to do was greeted with shouts of "socialism," and absolute apoplectic hysteria by the right-wing noise machine. The result: in 1928 there were 270 Republicans and 164 Democrats in the House and in the Senate there were 56 Republicans and 35 Democrats. Over the course of the next 4 elections, the louder the Republicans screamed socialism and the more obstructionist they became, the more seats they lost. They lost seats in both houses in every election for a decade. By 1936 their 56 seat majority in the Senate was down to 17 seats and in the House they only had 88 left.

But, unlike FDR, Eric Cantor has the supremely overrated Rahm Emanuel as a tactician and foil. This morning Emanuel penned an OpEd in the Washington Post, making the case that vulnerable Democrats back Obama's promise to bailout European banks by guaranteeing a $108 billion loan to the IMF, something he had tacked onto the War Supplemental in the House of Lords. Travis Childers and Democrats in conservative districts cannot win re-election by voting for a costly bailout for European banksters. But Emanuel is dealing with him and other Democrats the same way he did when he pushed through the highly unpopular-- and extremely destructive-- NAFTA legislation for Bill Clinton. He's wheelin' and dealin'... and threatening. He'll let the vicious but loaded AIPAC monsters lose on you to finance a primary; he'll kill your (Childers' in this case) post office request. He has no intellectual argument beyond, don't undermine the promises Obama made to the G20 leaders. Many of those leaders had their heads handed to them in the Europeans elections this past weekend. Gordon Brown nearly lost his job entirely and his party lost control of every single local council in England-- equivalent to the Democrats losing every state legislature. Across Europe-- and including England-- actual fascists were elected by spouting right-wing populism, racism, xenophobia and a revulsion for bailing out banksters. And that's where Emanuel wants to drag the Democratic Party? Didn't he do enough damage to the party and to America with NAFTA?

I think President Obama should direct his staff to think about bailing out California instead, and let the Europeans borrow the billions of dollars they need directly from the Chinese and leave us out of it. We have-- largely because of corrupt hacks like Rahm NAFTA Emanuel-- enough problems right here at home.

More Democrats Ain't Worth Squat-- ONLY Better Democrats Matter

Now if he would just VOTE like a Democrat...

Yesterday Rachel Maddow was talking about energy policy and she mentioned that when the Democrats are right about something and have the facts to prove it and when they control a majority in Congress, it just makes no sense at all to give in to Republican's demands for bad policy. But the Democrats did it again today-- not on energy (which was yesterday and was a decent, if imperfect, bill) but on gun control. This morning HR 6842, the National Capital Security and Safety Act, passed 266 to 152. Like funding for the war in Iraq and like Bush's unconstitutional FISA bill, a healthy majority of Democrats opposed this legislation. But there were enough Chris Carneys, Bill Fosters and Dan Borens crossing the aisle to vote with almost the entire Republican caucus to pass it.

So what's "it?" I noticed that the bill was introduced by Eleanor Holmes Norton, the strongly progressive and principled Democratic delegate from DC-- Washington still has no voting members of Congress, even though it has a population of 588,292, about 60,000 more than Wyoming, which has two senators and a representative, and roughly the same population as Alaska, North Dakota and Vermont, each of which has two senators and a representative. It was co-sponsored by Henry Waxman, another trustworthy figure when it comes to sane public policy. Is it possible these two were trying to pass a bill that would make DC into a shooting zone? I then noticed Waxman voted against the bill of which he is the only co-sponsor. OK, I had to see what the right-wing Republican kooks were up to.

The right wing Republican kooks-- specifically Travis Childers, a nominal Democrat from Mississippi who votes more frequently with Republicans than with Democrats on key contested issues-- wanted to make sure Washington DC residents could hunt and shoot anything they wanted inside the city limited and hornsnaggled the Democratic majority by offering an amendment he worked out with the NRA. With heavy NRA pressure, the amendment passed 260-160 in a big defeat by right-wing Democrats and their Republican allies over the Democratic leadership.

Even though Childers' reactionary and extremist amendment, which repeals the ban on semiautomatic weapons inside the city limits, passed the bill is DOA because it's not going anywhere in the Senate. And for my friends who supported reactionaries like Childers and Cazayoux and Foster... here's what you get. It's not just about hunters in Montana and rural Pennsylvania having the right to shoot animals, it's also about inner cities being armed to the teeth with machine guns. And it's about undermining a progressive agenda for America.

Now some of the nominal Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, like Childers, are just trying to make points with their reactionary constituents by sucking up to their worst instincts on social issues. Others are just all about the cash-- like Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel voted against the NRA bill today. There's no pay-off in that one for him. And, as David Sirota warned us yesterday, Emanuel's got bigger fish to fry-- and he needs to do it before more of his right-wing Republican allies are defeated in November. "I thought," writes Sirota, "the House Democratic Caucus Chairman was a position whose mission is to help elect more Democrats, so that Democrats can do more things Democrats promise to do. According to Inside U.S. Trade, I'm wrong."

Among the House Democratic leadership, Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) is actively advocating that Democrats would be better off having the votes on pending [free trade agreements] this year for a number of reasons, sources said. They said that one of the reasons Emanuel cites is that there are likely more Republican members in this Congress than there will be in the next, which would mean that fewer Democrats would have to take a potentially divisive trade vote now.

If that isn't clear, let's have Sirota explain what the arch-villain of NAFTA is up to now. Basically, Emanuel is trying to pass NAFTA-like trade legislation for corporate cronies who donate big money to the Democrats-- through him and some of his sleazy allies.

To really fathom how incredible this is, understand that Emanuel - the Democratic leader - is effectively acting as the House Republican whip. He's saying that he wants these bills up for a vote because there are enough Republican votes right now in the House to pass it over current Democratic objections - and there won't be enough GOP votes in the next Congress.

How many polls have to come out showing that the vast majority of Americans do not want their jobs and wages crushed by hacks like Emanuel? And how come Democrats are led by con artists who spent their White House career shilling for Wall Street, then cashed in as an investment banker, then bought a congressional race, only to go back to Washington to continue his corporate crusade over the dead body of his own caucus?

That's why you don't see Blue America advocating for reactionary Democratic hacks like Cazayoux, Foster, Childers and the rest. Half the DCCC's Red to Blue list is a nightmare of corporate shills and anti-choice maniacs. At Blue America we left the "More Democrats" theme behind and we're only about BETTER Democrats. If you want less Travis Childers and Rahm Emanuels and more like Donna Edwards and Russ Feingold, please mosey over to our ActBlue page and get to know the folks there.

As bizarre as it appears, there is a chance that John McCain or that Palin thing will wind up in the White House. Take a look at this clip of ABC-TV demonstrating to America what a worthless, cynical, untrustworthy hack McCain is. If he gets into the White House we'll need real Democrats like Darcy Burner, Alan Grayson, Dennis Shulman, Andrew Rice and Jeff Merkley, not shills-- from either party-- looking for "a convergence of convenience."

IN NOVEMBER THERE WILL BE NO SAFE REPUBLICAN SEATS

I have a dream. It isn't as worthy or as grand as someone else's but it's my dream. It's based on the 1936 congressional elections. The reactionary, obstructionist Republicans were reduced to 16 seats in the U.S. Senate. And in the House the reactionary, obstructionist Republicans were reduced to 88 seats (which was 20%).

Unless this is your first time at DWT you can probably surmise that by joy at seeing the GOP ground into the dirt is tempered by the conservative nature of the Democrat who won. I expect he will be another Heath Shuler or Chris Carney tugging the House caucus to the right and frustrating the very impulses that gave him his victory last night. But we'll deal with that in due time. Today we need to remind ourselves that the vicious, racist Rovian strategy didn't work in the Republican heartland of the Old Confederacy. When Cazayoux beat Woody KKK-pecker in Louisiana last week the GOP said their strategy was working and that if they had only had more time their ads attempting to tie Cazayoux to Pelosi, Obama and Jeremiah Wright would have worked. They promised to make it work in Mississippi. On top of millions of dollars in negative TV ads in one of the most Republican bastions in America, they brought in the man with the magic touch, Dick Cheney-- actually two men with magic touches: Cheney and Rove, both campaigning furiously and publicly for Davis.

Their ads and their smears backfired in their faces as Childers took 54% of the vote. Obama had the last laugh:

"I want to congratulate Congressman-elect Travis Childers on winning this special election. By electing Travis in this traditionally overwhelmingly Republican district, the people of Mississippi voted to end the politics of division and distraction, and bring about real change. This is the third special election in recent months that Democrats have won in traditionally Republican areas-- an unmistakable sign that Americans want to make a clean break from the failed Bush policies of the past-- and are not looking for four more years of those failed policies from John McCain. I look forward to working with Travis in the months ahead to fix our economy, and make a difference in the lives of America's hardworking families."

NRCC chair Tom Cole (R-OK) would be have committed hara-kiri last night if he lived in Japan. It is an open question whether or not he'll be asked to step down immediately or be given a face-saving grace period. His statement last night didn't even attempt the kind of laughable spin they tried last week when Woody KKK-pecker lost.

“We are disappointed in tonight’s election results. Though the NRCC, RNC and Mississippi Republicans made a major effort to retain this seat, we came up short.

“Tonight’s election highlights two significant challenges Republicans must overcome this November. First, Republicans must be prepared to campaign against Democrat challengers who are running as
conservatives, even as they try to join a liberal Democrat majority. Though the Democrats’ task will be more difficult in a November election, the fact is they have pulled off two [three] special election
victories with this strategy, and it should be a concern to all Republicans.

“Second, the political environment is such that voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general. Therefore, Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a forward looking agenda that offers the kind of positive change voters are looking for. This is something we can do in cooperation with our Presidential nominee, but time is short.

“I encourage all Republican candidates, whether incumbents or challengers, to take stock of their campaigns and position themselves for challenging campaigns this fall by building the financial
resources and grassroots networks that offer them the opportunity and ability to communicate, energize and turn out voters this election.”

I wonder if he sent that out to his members with packets of kleenex. The Republicans went all out to save their asses after the ignominious defeats in Louisiana and Illinois. Aside from Cheney and Rove they sent in a whole army of big name wingnuts to campaign with Davis: Governor Haley Barbour, Senator Trent Lott, Senator Thad Cochran, Senator Roger Wicker, Mike Huckabee... And, after being embarrassed campaigning in Illinois with the pathetic Oberweis, McCain (as well as George and Laura Bush) recorded automated messages that went to every Republican household in the district.

MS-01 has a PVI of R+10. Let's look at some of the Republican-held seats in California. Dan Lungren's seat is R+7. Elton Gallegly's is R+5. David "Walking Dead" Dreier is R+4. Jerry Lewis, who still has managed to evade indictment, has a district with a PVI of R+9, not quite as solidly Republican as the one they lost last night. Gary Miller's, like the Mississippi district is exactly R+10; Ken Calvert R+6; Mary Bono R+3; Dana Rohrabacher R+6; Brian Bilbray R+5; and the seat Duncan Hunter is trying to leave to Duncan, Jr is R+9. I better none of these galoots slept too well last night-- or maybe they're still in their dream state, imagining that hiring a p.r. consultant to come up with a hackneyed slogan associated with suicide drugs will save them from what's is headed their way.


UPDATE: PROSPECTS FOR THE GOP LOOK SUITABLY BLEAK

This big story in the morning's Hill couldn't be more ominous, literally: "The sky is falling on House Republicans and there is no sign of it letting up." That was the first paragraph. The second, talking about a party "in shambles," offers that the light some Republicans claim they see at the end of the tunnel is actually "the Democratic train that is primed to mow down more Republicans in November."

Until this morning no one but DWT has been willing to publish anything about NRCC chairman Tom Cole's impending "resignation." Today, even his Inside the Beltway drinking buddies are mentioning it in their coverage.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) will be under tremendous pressure to do something dramatic after the trio of losses. Boehner has publicly clashed with Cole over staffing and lackluster fundraising numbers but despite their differences, their political futures are tied together.

Significant gains by House Democrats this fall would likely lead to Boehner and Cole losing their leadership posts. Travis Childers (D), who narrowly defeated Greg Davis (R) on Tuesday, will push the Democrats' total in the House to 236 members. With six months to go until the elections, political analysts and observers are suggesting Democrats could reach 250 in the next Congress.

Some Republican conference members have criticized Boehner for not effectively managing Cole.

GOP strategists and lobbyists have also questioned Boehner's leadership. One Republican source noted that, after Boehner called for staffing changes at the NRCC, Cole refused and triumphed in the showdown.

Former Republican leaders, such as Reps. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) and Tom DeLay (Texas), would not have backed down, the source said. Boehner, in fact, later rewarded Cole with a promise to be on the Appropriations Committee next year.

... Someone needs to be held accountable for the losses, GOP sources say, and that could be Cole. Removing him would require a vote by the House Republican Conference.

Longtime GOP strategists could not recall a time when an NRCC chairman was ousted in the midst of a cycle.

"It's too late," a Republican lobbyist said, adding that few, if any, Republicans want to take over the beleaguered NRCC.

A GOP strategist differed, saying, "It can't get any worse."

BAD NEWS FOR THE GOP: NO ONE CARES ABOUT REV. WRIGHT BUT YOU

More than Hagee or Wright, THIS is the relationship on voters' minds

After Woody-KKKpecker (R-LA) got his ass whooped in Louisiana Saturday-- in one of the reddest districts in America-- the Republican Party immediately put out a press release insisting their losing strategy was correct and that they would continue using it. Next week we'll see if it works any better in an even redder district (PVI- R +10) in northern Mississippi, where Democrat Travis Childers squares off against another cookie-cutter wingnut a week from tomorrow.

In today's NY Times Ad Nag and Marjorie Connelly report some stats that Tom Cole and his coordinating buddies in the GOP front groups might want to consider carefully before dumping another $4 million into MS-01 whining about Obama's former preacher. "A majority of American voters say that the furor over the relationship between Senator Barack Obama and his former pastor has not affected their opinion of Mr. Obama... [M]ost Americans said they approved of the way Mr. Obama had responded to the episode and considered his criticism of Mr. Wright appropriate." What we do care about are the issues that drove the Democratic victory in Baton Rouge Saturday: the catastrophic Bush Regime economic policy agenda. And there's bad news here for the two huckstering presidential panderers too. John W. McCain and Hillary R. McClinton better pay attention to the NY Times/CBS News poll as well.

[A]n overwhelming majority of voters said candidates calling for the suspension of the federal gasoline tax this summer were acting to help themselves politically, rather than to help ordinary Americans. Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, has made the suspension of the gas tax a centerpiece of her campaign in recent days.

Before this poll came out, we got an e-mail from an old DWT correspondent we haven't heard from in a while, Tony Guzzi, the man who first introduced us to Paul Hodes and has captured the Lieberhound on film in some compromised situations. Tony was listening to "Looking For A Leader" from Neil Young's Living With War album and it moved him to write.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

-by Tony Guzzi

“Looking for a Leader. Maybe it’s Obama, but he thinks he’s too young.”- Neil Young


Obama took the bait. He made a rookie mistake. The pundits, experts, wingnuts and village idiots dangled it out there like a fat earthworm on a hook. “There’s really nothing else he can do. He’s either going to do nothing and let the Rev. Wright thing drag him down or he can denounce him and cut all ties. It is his only choice.” And Obama, feeling the pressure from the Establishment and the talking morons, bit on the hook. For now, he has been reeled into the Big Boat, far away from Change We Can Believe In. The sad truth is, no matter which of these supposed ‘choices’ he made, there is a snowball’s chance in Hades that the Wright ‘controversy’ is going to go away. The Matthews, Russerts, lizard face Andrea Mitchells and their ilk will never let go of Wright and would be more than happy to arrange a pay per view steel cage death match between the ex-Marine and the junior Senator. They smell blood in the water and plan to pour salt on the wounds until somebody screams in pain. It’ll probably be me. The deck is stacked and Obama needs to think bigger.
 
Indeed, there was an opportunity in this most recent Wright escapade and the mistake Obama made was in not recognizing the faux choices laid out for him by the smart people, probably even some in his campaign. There was another choice. In his speech in Philadelphia, Barack Obama said all he needed to about Rev. Wright. For an oh-so-brief moment in the afterglow of the next morning, there was commentary about how ‘he spoke to us like we were adults.’ Imagine that. There was a little gem for some astute staffer to hold onto and want to be sure that the Campaign repeated. Speak to the ‘American People’ like they were adults using coherent sentences and logically formulated ideas.
 
The choice then, and the opportunity was, for Obama to remind Americans that Rev. Wright’s supposedly offensive comments-- whatever they were, I think he said “God Damn America”, oh the heresy!-- are protected under the 1st Amendment to our Constitution. Remember that document that built our Nation? Judging by the lines I witnessed recently stretching around the block at the National Archives in D.C., I would say that those folks surely do.

Obama’s true choice was to stand up and state that while he may or may not agree with some of Reverend Wright’s views, his Right to espouse them, whether from a pulpit or the Press Club, is protected by the 1st Amendment of the Constitution and as President he would be sworn to protect and defend the Constitution. Something our current occupant has chosen to forget.
 
He could have taken the opportunity to illustrate for Americans the egregious double standard regarding the endorsement of McCain, an endorsement that he sought and gladly accepted, by Pastor John Hagee who made some truly despicable “chickens coming home to roost” comments of his own, after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. In his case, it was God that was doing the roosting as punishment for the sinners of New Orleans. Why isn’t there a Pastor Hagee ‘controversy’? If Obama had made the courageous choice today, that would have been Change I Could Believe In. Unfortunately, however, Obama took to the path of ‘renouncing’ and ‘distancing’ and all the other marketing swill that this whole God Damned primary season has become. By doing so, he is trying to ‘appease’ the Establishment, but as we all know, appeasing Fascists never works out. Realistically, how long before someone questions his loyalty to Wright, or a Fox News crawl blares, “Did Obama flip-flop on Rev.Wright?”
 
Reverend Wright, for reasons of his own, or someone else’s, has decided to take his ‘opportunity’ to speak to the American People and until nobody else invites him, will probably continue to do so. You can’t really blame him. This is his chance to get his message heard. As an ex-Marine who served his Country and defended the Constitution, unlike so many chickenhawks currently populating our Government, Wright must feel he has earned his free speech. How inconvenient it must be for those who don’t want to hear what he has to say. To be honest, I heard it and I wasn’t offended. I’m trying to figure out which comment Sean Vannity found most offensive, that the U.S. may have introduced the AIDS virus into urban communities or the snipe at the draft dodging Cheney.
 
The opportunity missed for Obama, and the opportunity hopefully to come for him again, is to use the spotlight and his God given eloquence to speak to us as adults and Americans and remind voters of the Rights bestowed to them in the Constitution. Scream it out if he has to. Drown out the ignorant and inane rantings of so many blathering fools. The rabid partisan attacks designed to marginalize Wright and Ron Paul and even Jimmy Carter are testimony to the veracity of some of, if not all of, what these men are saying. The truth always gets hit hardest. Oddly enough, aren’t Wright and Paul saying some of the same things? 9/11 was partly to blame on blowback for U.S. Policies in the Middle East? Seems like an opportunity to me. Who will Ron Paul endorse? Might want to start some coalition building right there.
 
Speaking the supposed unpopular view takes courage and leadership. This is what Obama has said he would do. He would unite the Country by providing truth and by reaching across the aisle. There seems to be plenty of opportunity for that. This could very well be the last Presidential election where the candidates are still able to talk to the voting public, before Corporate Campaign Awareness kicks in and then we won’t have to be looking for a Leader, he will be given to us.