Posted on 06/01/2014 2:36:53 PM PDT by Din Maker
There are two new polls of the Mississippi Senate primary - one released by a Republican pollster showing Thad Cochran with a slim 5 point lead (45%-40%), and one from a Democratic pollster leaked to TPM's Daniel Strauss showing McDaniel ahead 46% to 44%. Given margins of error and the inherent difficulties of polling a party primary in an off-year election, to me, these two soundings tell pretty much the same story. And it's an amazingly bad one for Thad Cochran on a couple levels.
On the first level, you don't want to be under 50% when you're getting primaried and your supporters pretty much by definition have a lesser enthusiasm and motivation level than your opponent's. But beyond that, I'm stunned that the Cochran campaign has managed to get so little mileage out of the whole "Constitutional Clayton" debacle.
McDaniel probably wasn't behind the decision to break into the nursing home where Cochran's invalid wife lives. It's almost unimaginable that anybody other than a few isolated doofuses could have thought this was a good idea. (She's reportedly in a persistent vegetative state, with very advanced dementia.) And he probably didn't know about it until after it happened - even if he may have learned about it before it became public knowledge. But the clown crew behind this caper are very much his people. Both literally and figuratively. And as I explained last week, the whole ridiculous idea of filming Cochran's wife was part of furthering a storyline that McDaniel's campaign was then aggressively pushing and leaking to various conservative media outlets.
Guilt by association is normally considered a bad method of evidentiary and moral reasoning. But it's usually more than good enough for campaign purposes. And this effort is so toxic, so politically radioactive, that just being in close proximity to it should be devastating.
In short, Cochran's team really should have been able to use this to bury McDaniel. And somehow they haven't. Amazingly, McDaniel seems to have suffered little if any damage from it. The internals of the GOP poll clearly show that the reaction to the incident has been negative and that, when asked, people say it's made them less likely to support McDaniel. But it just doesn't seem to show through in the topline numbers.
Maybe Cochran's time is just up. Perhaps the most telling number in the survey is "Do you support the goals and ideals of the Tea Party?" 55% say yes, 21% say no. That's a very good number for McDaniel to work with. But the mix of topline and internal numbers I referenced above suggests a major failure on Cochran's campaign's part. With a focused message about what the break-in represents and a mountain of campaign money dumped into the race, Cochran should have been able to bury McDaniel and I suspect they could have. But there's now only three days left and it hasn't happened.
Good question. Would like to know myself.
I’m still not convinced that the nursing home deal wasn’t a false flag to build sympathy.
MS Ping.
</sarcasm>
“Maybe Cochran’s time is just up.” You think, maybe? 40 years! Good grief!
HE WAS NOT INVOLVED AT ALL.
Chris McDaniel is running a completely upbeat, positive campaign.
I personally know his one of his campaign manager's, too.
Those creeps did all that crap on their own.
“...Can someone win with a plurality or does someone have to get 50% to avoid a run-off?”
*******************************************************************
A candidate in Mississippi this year needs to get 50% to avoid a runoff.
AH. K. Thanks for the heads up on that.
Will be interesting. Here’s hoping!
“Maybe Cochran’s time is just up.” You think, maybe? 40 years! Good grief!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The author of the article, John Marshall, said that; not me.
Since the Thaddites sat on it for what they thought was a politically opportune moment, I tend to agree.
Do you suppose many voters didn’t know that this old goat is living with his “aide” while his wife languishes in that nursing home? Many Christians still think the promise he made to be faithful to her “Till death us do part” actually means till death.
After his surrender to Grant at Appomattox, Robert E. Lee went home to care faithfully for his invalid wife until her death. Then he cared for her sick mother until she too passed away. Duty was a guiding principle in Lee’s life. Today it’s the least appreciated of all the virtues.
A candidate in Mississippi this year needs to get 50% to avoid a runoff.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Wow; this thing could drag on for awhile. Thomas L. Carey is the third guy running in this race; he could draw enough votes to throw this into a run-off.
Give that old lib geezer the BOOT!
“...A candidate in Mississippi this year needs to get 50% to avoid a runoff.”
********************************************************************
And an interesting thing is that, for any federal office runoffs, Mississippi will be using “ranked choice ballots” for overseas and out-of-state military voters to use. See details in the linked article. Our military voters need to clearly understand that they will get those “runoff” ballots at the same time they get their primary ballot and need to complete that and return it along with their primary ballot.
Do you suppose many voters didn’t know that this old goat is living with his “aide” while his wife languishes in that nursing home?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Not sure. Let’s ask the good folks from the Magnolia State. How about it folks? Is this pretty much common knowledge?
I don’t know how anyone would gain an advantage by filming/photographing the invalid wife of one’s opponent.
Hence I don’t see why mcdaniel would be behind it.
Lone wacko did it imo.
why would anyone think that filming/photgraphing an opponent’s invalid wife would help?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
