Cochran Seizes On Wife's Exploitation For Political Gain

His campaign is up with a new television ad attempting to tie his primary challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel, to the alleged actions of the blogger, Clayton Kelly.

“It’s the worst: Chris McDaniel supporter charged with a felony for posting video of Sen. Thad Cochran’s wife in a nursing home,” a narrator reads while showing photographs of Kelly in an orange jumpsuit, while showing text of a headline from The Daily Caller about the news.

“Had enough?” the narrator then asks, before a new narrator begins portraying Cochran in a positive light. “Sen. Thad Cochran’s the best of what makes Mississippi great. A navy veteran, endorsed by NRA and Gov. Phil Bryant and National Right to Life and voted against Obamacare over 100 times. Rise up and say no to dirty politics and yes to our strong conservative leader Thad Cochran.”

Sam. R. Hall, a reporter at the Jackson Clarion-Ledger and a former executive director of the Mississippi Democratic party, wrote that Cochran was “shamelessly capitalizing” with the ad and expressed “shock” that Cochran's campaign, and not a shadowy third-party group, would be the ones making such an attack.

It “kind of takes a bit of bite out criticism of the McDaniel campaign,” Hall wrote.

McDaniel, for his part, called on Cochran to take down the ad. “It is disturbing that a United States Senator would resort to dishonest attacks and using this incident for political purposes in order to hold on to power,” he said in a written statement.

"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton

"We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all." -- President Ronald Reagan

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." - Thomas Paine 1792

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

This entire confusing story is like a picture, within a picture, within another picture. Nobody is left looking good from this, nobody appears to have achieved any net gains. If one of the candidates planned this little caper out, they have ended up looking like a complete goofball, not ready for election to anything. Whoever came up with this shouldn’t even plan a birthday party for a one year old infant. They would screw that up royally too. Two phrases come to mind; Cluster Fk, and Helter Skelter.

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Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) is trying to squeeze every last political drop out of a crazed blogger illicitly entering his wife's retirement home to take a photograph of her.