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.
Bwahaha! Wouldn't that be a HOOT?
The red was for the vampire mode. :o)
Yes. Next question?
Just so. Ann Coulter can bash the left brilliantly. Then she turns around and writes stuff like this.
In other words, she doesn’t do it because she’s stupid or naive, but because she’s corrupt.
Too bad. She was a good friend of FR for many years. Then she took her 30 pieces of silver. . . .
She’s a hag. Totally irrelevant these days.
Power corrupts....again.
It is very disappointing. Why is it she always does this during election years?
same reason
bump
She is correct on most things. She is phenomenally gifted as one who can support her claims with cogent historical anecdotes, she presents her topics in a scholarly-yet-readable format, and admits when she finds that she is in error. (think Christie, here.)
Is Ann in error re McDaniel and Cochran? Yep, and then some.
One suspects that her overall worry is a fractionated party that would lose in Nov.
OUR worry is that our once-great GOP is straying (and cowardly so) to the left in a self-destructive rout to somehow be inclusive; and that we lowly constituents are having less of a say about our "representatives".
I usually agree w Ann, but not this time. I would wager that she will eventually see our perspective.
Contrary opinion invited (Donning fire-proof long johns).
.
This assertion is the contrary to every written account which I have seen which are all to the effect that McDaniel need only show 7667 double votes.
Which version is true?
Why is Laura Ingraham being lumped in with Ann Coulter who has gone off the reservation more than once? No one, not even Mark Levin, has been better on immigration than Laura Ingraham.
Bill Maher dumped her and she needs the money. Simple, really.
Think this has anything to do with who pays them? Like publishers, distributors, and the ... media.
It is time for Thomas Paine for this era— says and means what they say for America and Americans.
The professional commentarati are tiresome in the extreme— like reading the guest list on Hannity.
The old term “Tavern Democrat” has melded with “media personage” to blur the lines of clear distinction.
Because she spent many shows calling Romney a great evil, then when the chips were down, actively reversed course and tried to get her listeners to forget everything she said and vote for him.
She lied one of those two times. Liars are not conservative, nor are they to be trusted.
According to the GOPe and the Demorat left “every knee must bow.” Whether it is Justice Roberts or Ann Coulter, the allied elitists will have their way. We will see many others broken before this ends.
Kocaine Rove? Interesting. And a damned professional liar of the political pimps.
Good one Gina, Thanks for posting.
I always thought she got famous because people thought she was Tom Petty’s sister.
Tom Petty just called and wants a retraction.
She is trying to claim that the blacks who voted for Cochran voted because they oppose amnesty. Cochran has voted against final cloture on all amnesty bills.
It is clear these were politicaly active blacks who hate the Tea Party moreso than some immigration issue.
No doubt there are many blacks who oppose amnesty but this wasn’t a reason to vote for Cochran. If anything they would have voted for McDaniel against Barbour and Lott.
McDaniel’s timing is ideal. A lot of MS legislature people will win or lose based on whether they joined Cochran.
The House delegation and the Governor have said little on Cochran.
Together, I Shall Ride You To Victory
A Very Special Announcement
by T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/10/together-i-shall-ride-you-to-victory.html
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