Posted on 07/10/2014 7:40:58 PM PDT by WXRGina
After reading Ann Coulter's all-out scathing attack on Chris McDaniel and grassroots conservatives yesterday, the question must be asked: what in the world has happened to her? Has her brain been mysteriously rewired by the political elite, like the vice-presidential candidate in Denzel Washington's remake of the Manchurian Candidate?
First she takes a big fat fee to be the keynote speaker at a big pro-gay extravaganza, Homocon, then endorses Mitt Romney early in the 2012 campaign, and now she condescendingly attacks the Tea Party. With friends like this...
Worse, her attack on McDaniel and his camp is wrongheaded and unprincipled in almost every respect.
Coulter begins her column this way:
Chris McDaniel, candidate for the U.S. Senate from Mississippi, lost the Republican runoff to incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran last month, and now he is being led down a primrose path to political oblivion. McDaniel's passionate supporters think that a moment of crisis for the country is a good time to treat control of the Senate as if it's a prom queen election.
This is condescending and patronizing, not only to McDaniel's supporters but to McDaniel himself. This is hardly a "prom queen election." It's a hotly contested election for a seat in the most powerful deliberative body in the world.
And she treats McDaniel as if he is not his own man but some rube who is gullible enough to be led around by the nose by Tea Party hicks. McDaniel in fact is principled, articulate, and strong, things that Coulter would readily recognize if she was basing her view on the facts instead of...well, I don't know what she's basing her views on.
Mississippi politics can be a swamp, and the skulduggery pulled by the establishment GOP in this race is enough to send the base fleeing the so-called Big Tent at warp speed.
There are credible accusations of vote-buying, from no less a personage than Rickey Cole, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Mississippi, who is certainly in a position to know if Democratic votes are being purchased.
And we now know that Amanda Shook, a campaign operative for Cochran, was walking around with almost $53,000 in envelopes stuffed with cash. Even the Cochran camp has admitted that they "screwed up" in properly accounting for this money.
Cole was openly critical of Cochran's effort to induce Democrats into voting in the Republican run-off, calling it a matter of "honor." His view is quite simple: gentlemen do not vote in other gentlemen's primaries, and in particular, gentlemen don't pay people to do it. When it's the Democrat who holds the high moral ground, you know the Republicans behind this stunt are lost in the ethical weeds.
The Cochran campaign report says the $53,000 represented "reimbursement" to Shook, which raises serious ethical questions. Where did she get the $53,000 to begin with? Whom did she give it to? If it wasn't to buy votes but to pay campaign workers, who are these employees, and is anyone withholding their taxes and reporting their income? And what exactly did they do for their cash money?
If anybody is behaving like children "at summer camp," to use Coulter's snide phrase, it's the Cochran campaign. I've talked with seasoned campaign consultants who say they have never seen anything like the reporting sloppiness they have observed in this campaign. Even Cole, the Democrat, knows that in a federal election you just don't deal in cash. The FEC wants a paper trail, and the Cochran campaign can't provide one.
What's worse, these reporting irregularities which may be an effort to conceal criminal conduct are just in connection with the June 3 primary. We haven't even seen Cochran's report on expenditures for the June 24 run-off. We can't wait. It's guaranteed to be a real doozy. I'm guessing the Cochran folks are right now spending some long nights trying to figure out how to massage the numbers so that somebody doesn't go to prison.
On top of Cochran campaign irregularity, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has $175,000 unaccounted for, which was supposed to go for ads in its name that have never been produced or aired. Instead, that chunk of change was apparently laundered to produce ads in some other outfit's name (All Conservatives for Mississippi) that ran in African-American communities. These ads accused McDaniel of racism and created the impression he'd wear a KKK hood on the floor of the United States senate if elected.
The All Conservatives for Mississippi group has yet to file its legally required forms showing where it got the money for the ads. Since federal law prohibits any coordination between the NRSC and any outside groups, such as All Conservatives for Mississippi, the missing forms may be missing for a reason. Somebody has a pile of excrement they're trying to shove under the couch.
Coulter falsely argues that Cochran actually won the majority of Republican votes. This is laughable as well as ignorant. Every experienced observer knows that Cochran owes his margin of victory entirely to the black community, which furnished him with 35,000-40,000 votes. Even the guy that took over Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight political analysis operation says flatly that McDaniel won the Republican vote by 8 points.
Bottom line: McDaniel won the Republican primary and Cochran won the Democratic run-off.
All this is hardly a "color war at summer camp," as Coulter snarks at the end of her column. There are matters of justice and integrity here that by all rights ought to be resolved before the open gaze of the courts and the public.
If Ann Coulter can't see that, it may be because she is looking through glasses she got from Karl Rove and Haley Barbour.
That scenario fits me and, by the way, fits Jim Robinson. I don't think either one of us were liars, I think we were trying to make the best of a bad field of options in 2012.
People call George Bush a liar because there were allegedly no WMDs in Iraq. That was akin to calling a weatherman a liar because his prediction does not prove out. The only intelligent definition of a liar is:
One who knowingly tells an untruth
Laura Ingraham probably took similar positions to me in the primaries which was to support more conservative candidates-my choice at the time was Newt Gingrich-and to support Romney when the matter was virtually settled and the choice was no longer between an admittedly flawed conservative Republican and a Rino Republican but between a Rino Republican and a Manchurian Marxist.
Bill Buckley famously said that we should support the most conservative candidate who can win. Honest conservatives can and inevitably will disagree when it comes to the application of that doctrine but that does not make either side of the argument a liar. Can Senator Cruz win? I fear he can not win but I am going to support him as long as his candidacy is viable and no more conservative and electable candidate comes to the fore. That does not make me a liar but rather a prudent conservative.
I don’t know if you’ve read Ann’s column, Rocknqsranch, but it made me so mad! It’s short and contains pretty much nothing but lies about the MS run-off. Here it is:
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-07-09.html
Hottie? Really? I find her looks, body, et al disgusting. Other than the insane Bill Maher, who finds her attractive?
I’m not sure, but I don’t think Laz would hit that.
No, it doesn't fit. JR and you acknowledged his flaws and did not pretend that Romney was some great nobleman after he got the nomination. Every freeper knew there were a LOT of issues with him. Very few here gave him whole-hearted support.
You’re probably right. Tom got the looks in the family.
It's almost some theory by some guys smoking pot in college and getting drunk. How, on one hand, god is all powerful but on the other create the evil itself. OOOOH, dichotomy, ying/yang, the good/evil force...
I get confused! lol And if Lucifer is just a ticked off angel, then how did he get in? Heaven seems to have labor problems. Can you imagine the bureaucracy running the universe? Ask the Q
(I'm not going to sarc tag this...if anyone is offended get a life. It's just chat.)
I scratched my head over Sowell for months. I didn’t get it. Is he getting lazy in his old age? He never used such generic talking points before.
No actually, Jim never pushed anyone. They day he made his decision I told him I thought it was a huge mistake.
To my knowledge, and I looked, he never advocated for Mitt. He said we had to make our own decision. And that’s a huge part of why many didn’t leave that day.
That is a far different thing than what Inghram or Coulter or most of the rest did.
good questions
Funny thing, Anne attacks McDaniels for challenging voter fraud and corruption. By her own writing she is doing the very thing she claims McDaniels efforts will produce. Alienating voters and putting in jeapordy the RINOs chance at winning control of the Senate.
Methinks she is back at her previously held position as Prestitute and attack mouth for the Willard for Second Place team.
BUMP
Your memory is better than mine.
I also remember we were free to bash Romney when he deserved it
The only reason I remember it so well is because I was stunned. But I respected the fact that he said ‘We all must decide for ourselves’.
Although I agree with most of the things Ann Coulter says, I have always found her a little bit, "unhinged."
Michelle Malkin's beauty has always surpassed Coulter and Malkin never comes across as "unhinged."
I LOVED that when it came out ;)
“Mormons think that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers. How WRONG could the Mormons ever be with that? “
JOB 1 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
Not a Mormon or defending their teaching, but the Bible says what it says....
Ann’s a lot like like Free Republic’s resident Obama Cassandras. They bleed Gee Oh Pee.
So they grimly warn against impeaching the biggest tyrant this country has ever known because it would be a waste of time and, well—just too much darned trouble.
As Mr. Boner put it, “Get your a**es in line!” and vote for Republicans who know their rightful positions: crawling on their bellies to Democrats.
Ann’s pedigree is that of a beltway conservative, she was mentored by those who defended Nixon in the 1970’s calling for “fair and balanced” news (the slogan used Fox News today) and interpreting that to mean that the “Fairness Doctrine” should be used as a weapon against enemies.
Nixon’s FCC did that shutting down a radio station owned by a preacher who led 200,000 people in Washington calling for military victory in Vietnam in opposition to Nixon’s appeasement of the Communists with “peace talks”.
The Nixon FCC also ruled against NBC News over a documentary on pensions but NBC only was grazed winning in the appeals court system.
I only read the excerpt yesterday as I was still fighting the old dysfunctional Dell Dementia. We finally got our new Inspiron online today, and dumped the old dialup for high speed WiFi. I’ll read the whole thing this time, and thanks for the link. (Then again....IF you got so mad....maybe I shouldn’t read it LOL)
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