Mississippi Mud, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

June 28, 2014 Martha Thomases 2 Comments

This week, I have opinions on something about which I know relatively little, and where I have no standing.  I am speaking, of course, about the Republican primary in Mississippi, which was won by the incumbent, Thad Cochran.

It’s actually the second Republican primary for the Senate seat in Mississippi.  This week’s vote was a run-off, in that no one claimed more than 50 percent of the vote the first time.  In that election, Tea Party favorite Chris McDaniel finished slightly ahead.

In and of itself, this is not a thrilling story.  Tea Party challengers are common, and sometimes they win (see Cantor, Eric) and sometimes they lose.  It is the nature of politics to be an amalgam of national and local issues, so that what happens in one state may or may not have any bearing on what happens in another.

Oh, but Mississippi!  A state with so many enchanting contradictions!

• They have an extremely large number of African-American residents, and the corresponding attempts by Republicans to limit access to voting!

•  They are a conservative Republican state that claims to want fiscal austerity and yet it gets $2.00 in federal funds for every $1.00 they pay in taxes!

•  It’s the poorest state in the Union!

And, for some reason, Mississippi has open primaries.  That means that voting in primaries is not limited to those who are registered with that particular primary.  Specifically, in this case, it means that Democrats and independents could vote.

That made all the difference.

Why would African-Americans and other traditional Democratic voters turn out to vote for Cochran?  There have been many reasons suggested, some completely paranoid (look at some of the comments on this link.  The one that makes sense to me is that Democrats, knowing the chances of their candidate winning in November were slight, decided to work for the victory of the more reasonable GOP person.  Cochran ran as someone who could get things done in Washington (McDaniel denounced Cochran’s ability to work “across the aisle”) and most voters decided that was a good thing for a Senator to do.

Is this a good strategy?  I’m not sure.  On the one hand, I’m not a fan of Cochran.  I doubt we’d find much to agree on if we had a conversation, other than an affection for grits.  On the other hand, he pisses off the right people.  To quote, “Sarah Palin slammed Sen. Thad Cochran, who won his Mississippi primary last night, for possible ‘shenanigans’ such as courting Democrat votes and his moderate policies.”

That’s an interesting use of the word, “shenanigans,” especially from a person who defends states’ rights.  Mississippi chooses to have open primaries.  I don’t know why, but they do.  No one prevented any candidate from soliciting votes from any registered voter in the state.  McDaniel had the same opportunity, but chose not to use it.  The voters said which approach they preferred.

You know, democracy.  Sometimes, even in our post-Citizens United world, it happens, at least in dribs and drabs.

There is another interesting wrinkle to this story:  the Republican pollsters were once again caught by surprise.  After what happened to Cantor, that’s twice in a row.  I realize that two instances do not constitute a trend, but it does make one wonder how those pollsters are spending their (undoubtedly hefty) fees.

These same pollsters are also predicting a big GOP win in the Congressional races this fall.  Here’s hoping they are using the same methodology.

Media Goddess Martha Thomases would really like to figure out a way to encourage everyone to vote in off-year elections, especially those under 35, but she is too old to know what’s cool anymore.