Remembering Mississippi

By J Craig Via NewsNinja2012 –

The 2014 primary election cycle has certainly been interesting and fun to watch, but being part of it and seeing first-hand the measures in which the Republican establishment will go has been infuriating. Down in Mississippi, the number one most corrupt state in America, a battle for the Republican seat for United States Senate has been going on for months. The duel has been between 36 year incumbent Senator Thad Cochran and new blood State Senator Chris McDaniel.

This race has been the most intense and highly watched in the nation. First, we had State Senator and challenger Chris McDaniel who won over the Republican voters in the “Republican” Primary on June 3rd with 49.5% of the votes to 49% for Cochran. Due to neither candidate receiving more than 50% which is state law, they were forced to a runoff. On June 24th, again Chris McDaniel won over the Republican voters in the “Republican” run-off. He received more Republican votes in both races than the incumbent Thad Cochran. Cochran was announced the winner though only by receiving 45-65,000 Democrat votes. Many of these were indeed cross-over votes (illegal) who were misguided, lied to, and bribed to in order to show up and vote for Thad Cochran.

This race woke up a lot of people both inside and outside of Mississippi to the corruption and deception known as the Barbour Plan. Former Governor of Mississippi and well-known lobbyist Haley Barbour, through his Mississippi Conservatives Super PAC was able to use funds and radio ads to mislead Mississippi voters about Chris McDaniel. Haley’s nephews Austin and Henry Barbour are very close to Thad Cochran. Austin is the senior Cochran campaign adviser and Henry is the Republican National Committeeman and also runs Haley’s Super PAC. These are the people, including Pete Perry, GOP Chairman for Hinds County who were hand selected as part of the Barbour Plan to keep Thad Cochran in office no matter what. Yeah that Pete Perry. The guy who raked in $171,000 from the Pro-Cochran Super PAC to “Get Out the Vote” for Thad Cochran.

The Cochran campaign knew they lost on June 3rd and also realized they could not win in the runoff without the help of Democrat voters. They soon rolled out a plan that would almost guarantee a victory for the Senator that had absolutely no idea he was even in a race. The Barbour funded campaign used racist radio ads that aired only in the heavily populated Delta area where the majority are Black Americans and Democratic voters. A Mississippi radio station aired an ad warning voters that the Tea Party would “take away” food stamps and other welfare benefits before the run-off. The ad certainly appeared to target black voters.

Cochran “allegedly” edged out McDaniel in the runoff by 7,667 votes. He did so due to election fraud. He did so due to monies from Republican Political PAC’s. He did so due to Haley Barbour. He did so due to Mitch McConnell. He did so due to racist political ads paid for by Haley Barbour. He did so due to the Republican Party establishment hacks who wanted to hold onto their power and puppet-dangling control with Thad Cochran. They had more money. They had more power. This is the problem America.

Here’s the breakdown:

Of the 82 counties in Mississippi and out of those the McDaniel campaign was able to gain access to (within reasonable time), there were a total of 15,372 illegal votes. These were found by reviewing poll books (original and redacted), signature logs, voting machine tapes, and countless other electoral resources. The problem with all of this is that this isn’t even half of the issues because the campaign was not granted full access to what was required to fully investigate. They were stopped at every turn and given countless excuses on why they were not allowed to view the election material.

There were 35 counties who flat-out denied access to review poll books. Of those counties that were allowed to be reviewed, there were 14 counties with ballot boxes unlocked, 26 counties with seals broken, 29 counties with a broken chain of custody, and so many other irregularities that cannot even be explained because the court houses were such a mess.

When McDaniel’s attorney, Mitch Tyner filed the challenge, he did so in 41 days. Judge Hollis McGehee ruled on August 29th that McDaniel waited too long to file his challenge with the state Republican Party. McGehee said that under state law the challenge had to be filed within 20 days. They cited a 1959 Mississippi Supreme Court ruling that said an election challenge must begin within 20 days of the election. McDaniel argued that the 20 day deadline was no longer the law. McDaniel’s lawyers filed an appeal September 5th with the Mississippi Supreme Court to overturn McGehee’s judicial decision rejecting McDaniel’s challenge.

The Mississippi State GOP, Party Chairman Joe Nosef, and the Mississippi judicial system put up all kinds of road blocks to stall the actual McDaniel filing. It certainly appears the ‘stalling’ was a deliberate ploy with this legal maneuver of the 20 day time limit as the back-up plan for a court challenge. The frustrating part about this is initially this judge was viewed as being fair after his remarks about the upcoming challenge, as he indicated his authority to unseat Cochran if he were elected in November. The judge also communicated in a letter to circuit clerks that they should preserve the election records for the trial. He was adamant about his authority and showed a backbone at the 1st hearing. So, he didn’t know about the filing date issue at that time? Something just isn’t right here. Seems somebody came to him at the end with the “20 day filing” save.

The judge ruled on a technicality for the Cochran campaign and all of the very telling evidence that was put together over weeks of time has not been reviewed thus far. That is a problem. Enough of the charades from the Cochran campaign and favors from all of their high-profile, influential people who are the decision makers, it is time to review the data and start fixing the GOP. The time is now.

Thad Cochran lost in Mississippi to a better candidate in Chris McDaniel and the Republican establishment chose to throw grenades at their own people in order to secure power and influence. This is sick and not right for the integrity of our elections. Chris McDaniel is a great man. A man of character, faith, family, and integrity, but also a man who is a proven fighter. He clearly has taken the most heat from any political candidate this election cycle, but he has taken it from his own party.

The son of Mississippi may have fallen down momentarily, but rest assured, he will rise again. The fight is far from over. McDaniel started something down in Mississippi that was very much-needed for the entire Republican Party. It woke up a lot of sleeping giants. This is no longer the party of Reagan, but the party Reagan would fight. We conservatives must continue to fight. Fight we will.