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This week on the podcast we do a deep dive on the curious goings on in Mississippi both on our own and with Washington Post Capitol Hill correspondent Robert Costa (special Ricochet Podcast shout- out to Ricochet member Crabby Appleton 2.0!). Then, we go across the sea for a native opinion on what Russia is up to in Eastern Europe with the Hoover Institution’s Yuri Yarim-Agaev. Finally, beware of what you order from Amazon.com. It may come back to haunt you.
Music from this week’s’ episode:
Mississippi by Bob Dylan
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
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Rob you need a Squatty Potty to go with your Amazon Metamucil!
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Squatty%20Potty
James, I’m not even going to look for suggestions for your wierdo item (not the school supplies or the kitchen supplies just in case you can’t guess.)
The IRS commissioner looked retilian to me. I was very pleased to hear the image of his tongue shooting out and shagging a fly. That sure works for me.
Peter could not be misreading the situation in Mississippi in a greater manner. To say the Cochran camp altruistically “reached out” to democratic voters in this election is just nonsense, to put it mildly. This was about as a politically cynical a thing as is possible.
Mississippi ranks last in all the good categories and first in all the bad categories. So we should just be thankful things are not worse all because of Cochran’s pork?
People have been making the same argument in West Virginia over Byrd’s pork for decades. All it has done is leave WV in a government-induced stupor that has left the state in ruins. Excuse me if I expect better.
The fellows also failed to mention the infamous anti-tea party flier and the robocall. You know, the ones accusing the tea party of racism, which then prompted the black Dems to vote for a Republican. Did we all just imagine those bits? No. Was it all some complicated “false flag” operation (Democrats making it seem as though it was done by Republicans)? Back-stabbing, smelly politics as usual (Republicans vs. tea party)? Or something else again?
Please don’t say it was a mirage or an urban legend, since none other than Karl Rove writes in today’s WSJ “Some new runoff voters were blacks drawn to the polls by an anti-tea-party message,” where I take “message” to mean “that vile flier and the klanwatch robocall” rather than some sort of fuzzy “zeitgeist” of “what was in the air” as the candidate bloviated.
As a point of information according to Nate Silver at 538 if Democrats had not voted in the Mississippi primary Chris McDaniel would have beat Thad Cochran by 8%.
Self-hating Republicans vis-avis the black vote. Sheesh! Lots of apologetics for the establishment. “That’s the way the system works” “MS is a machine state.” By the way, aren’t they all?
Costa dismissed the notion that Democrats put Thad over the top. “We are really not sure.” Well, only if you don’t actually look for evidence because that would make your ignorance go away.
Here is a detailed analysis of the vote. It’s pretty clear that about 25,000 Democrats came out to vote for Cochran. And it’s not like it was some coincidence, because there’s evidence of flyers and robocalls and overt appeals to Black Democrats from the Cochran campaign and/or supporters, claiming the Tea Party and McDaniels are racists. I also heard some pretty damning anecdotal evidence on the radio from a black conservative in MS saying there were tons of black folk at his local polling station there for Cochran.
Peter thinks that’s great that African Americans are voting for Thad Cochran. Does he not know that the only reason they did was because Cochran smeared McDaniel as a racist? Couldn’t listen past that.
No, I did not know that Cochran had smeared McDaniel as a racist, which would certainly change my thinking. What’s the evidence of that?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381187/flier-got-thad-cochran-elected-john-fund
http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/22/robocall-allegedly-recruiting-dem-votes-for-gop-sen-cochran-bashes-tea-party-alleges-racism/
Not just McDaniel, the entire tea party. The flier was on NRO, I don’t have the link at hand.
Assuming that the “racist Tea Party” flyers were not a Republican tactic (I don’t know one way or the other), I still have to wonder if the GOP makes a habit of “reaching across the aisle” to Democrat voters regularly or if they did so only to beat a supposed anti-establishment Republican candidate.
Of course, the quality of the last-standing primary candidate affects the odds in the main election later. But I think y’all skipped a bit too lightly past Crabby’s main point, which was that the GOP is more concerned with maintaining power for its own sake than for a desire to use that power in defense of freedom. There are certainly significant differences between the parties, but neither seems to be interested in limiting government.
Here Peter: The Flier That Got Thad Cochran Elected.
Just good ol’ boy machine politics. It’s what it takes to get a tried and true conservative like Thad elected.
The possibility that Democrats were behind this is small, because McDaniel would have been the weaker GOP candidate, and Thad is a shoo-in. The Cochran campaign denied it, insinuating that it was a trick by the McDaniels campaign. That’s a pretty unreasonable scenario and makes me question the veracity.
There was another different robocall that I have to search for that had a similar message. That one mentioned government largess and food stamps as well as school lunches. Thad Cochran Yeah!
But we are all on board with the GOP now, right?
And limiting government to me is the single most important thing to do because it’s taking over. Our economy just shrank 3% in one quarter and the government expenses grows by 5-7% routinely. At this rate we will all be serfs in ten years. Barbara Boxer commended Cochran’s win, saying it was “heartening” to see a deep red state admit that it needs the Federal government pork. That says a lot about where we are going.
If Crabby is like me, he wants the brakes applied now. So, in that sense there is little difference between a Thad Cochran and a Barbara Boxer. Spending our money on different things can’t be the game anymore or we will lose our freedom.
Cochran supporters called another Republican a racist who wanted to stop blacks from voting, neither Cochran nor McConnell, nor McCain nor Barbour denounced this. We were all called racists by the Washington cabal. I believe there will be repercussions down the road, in order to win this one primary they blew a hole beneath their own party’s waterline. If Peter had not heard about any of this he must be getting his news from the NY Times. The fact that no one mentioned it in the podcast is very disappointing.
So Peter, in light of these facts, will you please tell us again how much better off the country will be under Republican leadership?
I would have a much easier time believing Obama’s agenda had stalled since January 2011 if we did not have Federal agencies like the EPA doing “what congress won’t” – like raising the pollution standards to make coal too expensive (http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/02/epa-admits-climate-rule-will-raise-electricity-prices/). Federal agencies are hunkering down and working hard every day to implement the Obama vision. And, unfortunately, many true believers will still be there in 2017 (why give up the great benefits and pension?).
The potential for Supreme Court reversals is only slightly heartening. Hobby Lobby is announced Monday… so a private company has had to spend three years and big dollars on the chance they will get a narrow ruling out of a program changed arbitrarily 38 times. Countless companies, like coal companies, farmers, and nuns, have to put up with all sorts of hassle and cost due to some flunky’s regulations. It hasn’t let up since 2011, and is likely only to increase. Just because they haven’t railroaded some poisonous bill through the Congress does not mean they aren’t causing trouble. They have two years left and plenty of motivation.
People, what more do you need to hear? Yeti alone is worth at least a Margaret Thatcher membership.
The MS GOP didn’t like the candidate that their voters wanted so they went outside the party to get the votes they needed for their man. They should be embarassed by the tactics used against McDaniel to win the nomination. If this is how they intend to run their primaries, why hold primaries? It would be easier and save millions if they selected them themselves.
MS GOP may run like a machine, but it’s not old enough for machine politics to be ingrained. We only started to elect Republican governors in the late 1990’s. We could be much more open.
Couldn’t agree more. This was a primary. Primaries are supposed to be vehicles to allow the party to select who they want to be the nominee. This is not reaching across the aisle and broadening the base in the general election, it’s cheating, straightforward cheating. Asking Democrats to vote for you in Republican primary to save your political skin is admitting that you are no longer a Republican, you are simply a megalomaniac politician looking our for number #1 regardless of the cost.
I can’t imagine any thoughtful person defending what Cochran did, yet there I heard Peter saying (paraphrase) it’s no big deal to cheat in a primary if it helps the Republicans win.
Sometimes the price to winning at all costs is too high. If candidates for the Republican nomination aren’t willing to honor the decision of the members of their party, how can they claim to serve them?
Sorry, I can’t fathom endorsing his actions.
I know it’s early in the morning for you guy but you have to do your homework before Making statements like that.
Saddened today by what I heard on the podcast. MS is apparently excusable because it is machine politics. That seems at odds with past criticism from the three amigos of WH/Chicago as machine politics. We all know that conservatives need to rally together under the GOP banner to beat the Dems but Ricochet leadership will discourage intelligent listeners with banal tribalism. You gave the impression you hadn’t thought about what you wanted to say other than “we’re together”. As an aside, I upgraded to the level of Maggie today after the podcast. We can do better.
I think this is excellent news because it indicates to me the GOP is finally learning to play hard ball. We’ll need to continue to hone those skills as 2016 approaches.
Is it excellent news that the GOP is playing hardball against…. whom? Democrats not so much. When one candidate accuses another of being a racist–with no evidence– to win a primary runoff what that tells me is that principles, integrity, honesty do not matter. You’ll do anything to cling to the job. That disgusts me. I have always thought that Peter Robinson was a decent honorable guy, but if he can’t see that God help us
An opponent is an opponent.
“You’ll do anything to cling to the job.” That is precisely the thinking we were up against in the 2012 national election. I’m tired of losing and I want to fight fire with fire. Doesn’t bother me if GOP candidates ‘cut their teeth’ on one another and as much as I admire the principles of Tea Party candidates, they do not represent the majority of GOP voters or Independents. If they can win on a national level, I’m more than happy to vote for them, but first and foremost – again- we need to win.
I cannot afford another 8 years of a Democratic White House. Under the current administration, I spend over 50% of my time playing defense as opposed to offense.
Here is my list from memory, almost certainly incomplete , of the people the GOP has played hardball against: Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle, Todd Akers, Richard Mourdock, and Joe Miller. Were any of them ideal candidates? Of course not. But they won the primary. I’m not saying that the party had to go all in to support them, but they didn’t have to spend time and effort to trash them. But they did. I’ve been a loyal Republican as long as I can remember, but I’m just about sick of it. That doesn’t mean I’d ever vote for a Democrat but I sure as hell might stay home.
Christine O’Donnell not only blew a great chance for a GOP victory, but embarrassed the party. Sharon Angle, Richard Mourdock, and Joe Miller lost the general election as well. What good did that do the party?
I understand your argument and sympathize with it. Believe me I do not want Hillary in the Whitehouse. But I remember the golden age when the Republicans controlled both houses–man we really fixed everything then. Not. When you write, “An opponent is an opponent” are you saying that the ends justify the means, whatever it takes? Is there no moral or ethical component at work at all? Hell, I’ve read Machiavelli and I don’t think he’d go that far.
McDaniel was electable. Are we going to use the example of Christine O’Donnell to argue for the less conservative candidate in every contest? Also, why are the same Republicans who say it is classless for McDaniel to not immediately concede not concerned with the tactics of the Cochran campaign? Probably because for pragmatic and ideological reasons they favor the less conservative candidate. Being honest about that fact is the “classy” thing to do.
The republican voters have the right to choose their candidates for election. Full stop. Whether or not they chose wisely is a matter of opinion. But in every case I cited the party leadership and pundits like Karl Rove and Mike Murphy piled on and did every thing in their power to ensure their loss. I don’t hold a brief for Christine O’Donnell but it might be asked what good did the party do her? They trashed her at every opportunity.