Sending a message to Washington
Primary runoff night in Mississippi was a lot closer than Republican Senator Thad Cochran had hoped. He won by a little more than 6,800 votes, defeating TEA Party upstart Chris McDaniel. Cochran has been a conservative for most of his four decades in Washington, but somewhere along the journey became part of the “establishment.” So much so that McDaniel may challenge the results of the race because of possible Democratic voters who voted in the previous Democratic primary and allegedly voted again in the Republican run-off, saving Cochran from an unplanned retirement. There are several things wrong with this picture, but there is a silver lining in the cloud.
First and foremost, Cochran should have the decency and honor to not make a career out of the Senate. Some 40 years in elected office is not good for any person. They become part of the “club” even if they try not to. The Founding Fathers never intended political office to be a bread and butter career for the elect. But few people exhibit the honor to public service demonstrated by George Washington when he left office after two terms. He resisted the temptation of power and did the right thing. Not in Cochran’s case. The 76 year old Senator ran one of the most unseemly campaigns in recent memory to stay in power, including the appearance of vote tampering which will likely be investigated.
Breitbart points out another wrong: “Running on a populist anti-Washington message-including opposition to amnesty, bailouts and the status quo in the nation’s capital-McDaniel narrowly beat Cochran in the primary, forcing the runoff…the establishment poured millions of dollars in to back Cochran…Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign manager Stuart Stevens, the Chamber of Commerce, Facebook founding president Sean Parker, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, former Rep. Steven LaTourette’s group and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) poured support into Mississippi to back Cochran.” It’s obvious that people far from Mississippi influenced the outcome.
If anything, the McDaniel campaign exposed a lot about what is wrong with our nation and the system of corruption that keeps it in control. Many would say, “Well, that’s just politics.” Yes, it is. I know it well. But it doesn’t make it right. The more people see how these scoundrels operate, the more they will get fed up with it. Again, Cochran is not a bad man. Hopefully, he will look at this campaign as one where he needs to get back to his roots and quit playing the game of thrones, so to speak. Hats off to McDaniel for exposing to the light many issues that Washington needs to address. For Cochran, we will see if he learns from the scare. As Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, “You shall know them by their fruits.”
