The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

NRSC Uses Left-Wing Race Attack Against GOP Senate Challenger Chris McDaniel

Posted on | April 5, 2014 | 97 Comments

You know the Republican Establishment is getting desperate when they stoop to cheap guilt-by-association smears in a GOP primary.

That’s National Republican Senatorial Committee “strategist” Brad Dayspring tweeting out a story from (wait for it) Talking Points Memo that is one of the flimsiest guilt-by-association attacks in the history of flimsy guilt-by-association attacks. A moment’s scrutiny of that story is sufficient to glean the relevant facts: Some grassroots folks in Mississippi scheduled a “Firearms Freedom Day” rally for May 17.

You may ask: “How grassroots is it?”

The flyer for the event is printed in Comic Sans.

Go read the flyer and you will see that, listed among the various Tea Party groups, pro-gun organizations, state senators and country music  singers, is “Pace Conferederate Depot.” This is a vendor of such merchandise as Confederate flag T-shirts and bumper stickers whose proprietor, Brian Pace, also happens to be some kind of segregationist. Because the flyer also listed Tea Party-backed Senate challenger Chris McDaniel as the “keynote speaker” for the rally, this tidbit of information about Pace was highlighted by a Republican blog associated with incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran. That was immediately picked up by Talking Points Memo, which played it as Another Scary Republican Racism Scandal. Once you get past the breathless liberal hype — “ZOMG! Confederates! In Mississippi!” — you realize there’s nothing to the story. Somebody asked McDaniel to speak at a gun-rights rally, as one of his supporters, state Sen. Melanie Sojourner, told TPM:

“There were several Second Amendment groups that were planning different events and we’re both very strong Second Amendment supporters and so there were several events that were planned and it was basically just kind of the discussion was ‘well when you get some things done and scheduled let us know’ but there was never any confirmation on exact events or what was happening.”

Organizers of the rally issued a statement on Facebook saying, “When a vendor asks to set up and sell lawful merchandise at one of our events, we don’t run a background check into their personal lives. That’s not our business.” The attempt to turn this into a scandal is like saying that if a candidate campaigns at a county fair, he thereby endorses every rip-off carnival game at the fair.

But this is what’s being promoted on Twitter by an official of the National Republican Senatorial Committee as part of the GOP establishment’s desperate effort to rescue Thad Cochran, who is 76 years old and has been in office since Jimmy Carter was president. With just eight weeks to go until the June 3 primary, Chris McDaniel’s campaign is surging:

Tea Party’s McDaniel Boosted
by Polls in Miss. Senate Race

Levin: “McDaniel is a great guy, a great candidate.”

Tea party momentum builds around McDaniel
in Mississippi GOP Senate primary

Three Polls, Three Days: McDaniel Leads
Cochran Among Republicans, Conservatives

Chris McDaniel has been endorsed by Mark Levin, Sarah Palin, Citizens United, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, the Madison Project, Tea Party Express and many more leading individuals and organizations of the conservative grassroots: Central Mississippi Tea Party, Gulf Coast Tea Party, Hattiesburg Tea Party, Leflore/Carroll Tea Party, Meridian Tea Party, South Mississippi Tea Party, The Mississippi Tea Party, Tupelo Tea Party and Vicksburg Tea Party. McDaniel also has endorsements from state Sen. Angela Hill, state Sen. Billy Hudson, state Sen. Chris Massey, state Sen. David Parker, state Sen. Michael Watson, state Sen. Philip Gandy, and state Sen. Tony Smith.

What all those endorsements represent, in total, is the effective infrastructure of a winning campaign. Chris McDaniel has the on-the-ground resources necessary to win this primary — and the GOP Establishment knows it. That’s why you see the NRSC forced to play the race card, pushing a left-wing smear against a young Republican leader, in a desperate attempt to halt McDaniel’s insurgent momentum.

Are you going to let them get away with this? Or are you going to fight back? I say, war to the knife, knife to the hilt.

CHRIS McDANIEL for U.S. SENATE
It’s Time for a Change

 

UPDATE: Linked by R.D. Brewer as a sidebar headline at Ace of Spades HQ — thanks! — and welcome, Instapundit readers!

 

Category: Election, Mississippi, Republicans, Senate

Comments

97 Responses to “NRSC Uses Left-Wing Race Attack Against GOP Senate Challenger Chris McDaniel”

  1. Bettenguy
    April 6th, 2014 @ 2:40 am

    Not when “white pride” is associated with a failed ideology that fought to preserve slavery and the notion that black people were chattel and second class citizens.

  2. News and opinions for Sunday | Walla Walla TEA Party Patriots
    April 6th, 2014 @ 4:10 am

    […] NRSC Uses Left-Wing Race Attack Against GOP Senate Challenger Chris McDaniel […]

  3. ericdondero
    April 6th, 2014 @ 6:57 am

    Why is “white pride” associated with the failed ideology of slavery? It ought not be. Just like “black pride” shouldn’t be associated with some of the murderous, torturing, African slavery cults on the Western Africa coast in the 1800s.

  4. ericdondero
    April 6th, 2014 @ 6:59 am

    I seriously don’t get it Bettenguy. Are white people the only people on the entire planet not permitted to have ethnic pride? No Celtic music. No parades celebrating French or Anglo victories over invading Muslim hordes? No ethnic food, or dances?

    Explain yourself please. And explain your blatant hypocrisy.

  5. ericdondero
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:00 am

    Oh, and for the record, I’m a white Jew. And I celebrate my white ethnicity equally with my Jewishness.

  6. ericdondero
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:01 am

    Umm, who ever said Michael Steele was bad? He was a great RNC Chairman. Shame he’s not running for public office this year.

  7. ericdondero
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:07 am

    Aww, man! That was fantastic. Going up for a morning wake-up at LibertarianRepublican.net right now!! Thanks Isabel!

  8. ericdondero
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:08 am

    Or, the anti-Jew Louis Farahkan.

  9. ericdondero
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:10 am

    It already exists: It’s called the Libertarian Party. You might know of them. Their 1980 Libertarian vicepresidential candidate has been getting a lot of attention lately, even attacked severely by Harry Reid.

  10. ericdondero
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:12 am

    No, what cost the GOP the White House in 2012 was massive voter fraud by the Democrats in Ohio, northern Virginia, south Florida, and Philadelphia.

    When you fly in Somalians and Ethiopians, give them instant citizenship and a voter registration card, and then bus them into a polling place to vote in lines of hundreds for Obama, the other guy falls behind just enough to cost him the election.

  11. bowman
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:18 am

    This article takes it way too easy on the NRSC.

  12. bowman
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:25 am

    In this country, the phrase “white pride” has been adopted many groups whose goals are more oriented toward hating people who are different than themselves rather than celebrating their own ethnicity.

    Its much more likely the vendor in question has a problem being bigoted toward minorities than that he is simply celebrating the joys of being Caucasian.

    Not that many minority groups don’t suffer from the same problem but the questionable things the other side does definitely doesn’t give us free reign to be equally bad.

  13. bowman
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:35 am

    I agree that the people running the event ought to have been more careful. Getting the phone number and website of the people you allow to join in and get their name printed on the flier ought to be a no-brainer.

    But blaming the Senate candidate for not investigating each and every person and organization that was printed on the flier?

    The flier wasn’t even printed up until after the candidate had already accepted the invitation (you can tell because the candidate’s name is on the flier).

    A candidate only has so much staff and time. And for all we know, the candidate did have someone look into the people holding the event and that person just missed it. Volunteers are nice but its sometimes difficult to find competent volunteers.

  14. bowman
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:37 am

    What reality is and what reality ought to be are many times completely different things.

    You can’t just ignore reality and move forward as if it doesn’t exist. People live in reality, not in what you would consider to be an ideal world.

  15. richard mcenroe
    April 6th, 2014 @ 8:41 am

    Or the bigot “Reverend” Jeremiah White.

  16. Bettenguy
    April 6th, 2014 @ 8:49 am

    It is not just associated with slavery, it is also associated with 100 years of segregation, Jim Crow, and other racially polarizing policies and ideas. You can blame those that perpetuated those policies for the association.

  17. Quartermaster
    April 6th, 2014 @ 9:05 am

    You won’t change reality unless you face it down. It is utterly stupid to knuckle under on things like this as it simply ties your hands. Tying our own hands is why we’re losing. Eric is right, and you’re simply being cowardly.

  18. Quartermaster
    April 6th, 2014 @ 9:06 am

    Neither of the major parties care about the country. All that matters is what they can supply to their supporters, better known as “cronies.” That’s all it’s about. Both parties are corrupt to their core.

  19. Quartermaster
    April 6th, 2014 @ 9:07 am

    He wasn’t careful of what he said. That made him bad and is why the RNC replaced him.

  20. Quartermaster
    April 6th, 2014 @ 9:09 am

    Here in NC it’s the “Reverend” Bully Barber.

  21. Quartermaster
    April 6th, 2014 @ 9:11 am

    Unfortunately the Libertarian Party is better described as libertine. No social conservative can support the Big L party. There are very good reasons why the L party polls so low.

  22. Bettenguy
    April 6th, 2014 @ 12:13 pm

    Who’s being a hypocrite? Why should anyone celebrate their skin color? That seems silly to me. I am proud of my German heritage, and have given to a German American local museum.

    But that isn’t what we are talking about here.”White” isn’t an ethnicity, and the Confederate Depot wasn’t about celebrating St Patrick’s Day or any other ethnic fest. They are advocates for separation based upon race.

  23. Bettenguy
    April 6th, 2014 @ 12:15 pm

    How did you celebrate your “whiteness”?

  24. Art Deco
    April 6th, 2014 @ 1:22 pm

    About 15 years ago, before her act wore thin, Ann Coulter wrote a column about her attempt to run for Congress on the Libertarian line (challenging Christopher Shays). Her discussions with them were an immediate bust: “I discovered the only issue they cared about was the drug laws”.

  25. ArdvarkMaster
    April 6th, 2014 @ 1:24 pm

    When I give my money, my time, and, more importantly, my vote, then it is my rules. If you don’t like that, too damn bad.

  26. Art Deco
    April 6th, 2014 @ 1:29 pm

    I seem to recall Mr. Reagan challenging an (incumbent) Republican president.

    —

    That aside, this fellow is a party official (or near one, if NSRC is corporately separate). It is poor form for him to be taking sides in primaries. If the candidate in question were challenging the decision of a nominating body (and not a mere endorsing body) which had a competitive contest (e.g. a state convention) I could understand that; that does not appear to be the case here. There is a second layer of foolishness: Dayspring is not an affiliate of the Mississippi Republican Party. As a central office official, a position of formal neutrality on the affairs of local chapters should be assumed unless the chapter is in danger of being taken over by the Mafia.

  27. ThePaganTemple
    April 6th, 2014 @ 1:32 pm

    Establishment Republicans are very much like Democrats in this regard, and the only way we can get what will probably amount to temporary relief in this regard as to throw the old rascals out and replace them with actual grass-roots GOP members who are true to the party’s stated values and haven’t been influenced by the culture of corruption that is the state of both nationl and regional politics today.

    We also need a new standard bearer who reflects our values and who we know is not an establishment careerist out to protect the status quo, under the guise of “conservatism”.

    Hey, I know-let’s get a guy like Rick Santorum.

  28. DaveO
    April 6th, 2014 @ 2:46 pm

    Dems didn’t care about Obama’s membership in the CPUSA off-shoot, The New Party, or his connections to the active terrorists Bill Ayers, who sought to slaughter over 20 million human beings.

  29. AimToMisbehave
    April 6th, 2014 @ 3:21 pm

    Nothing surprising at all, from a hack like Brad Dayspring. The last time he poked his head out from under a rock in DC, he tried to smear Mark Levin and the Senate Conservatives Fund by suggesting they conspired to make a 5 year old paperback book into a Bestseller through bulk sales, despite the fact that said book had been off the bestseller charts for that many years.

  30. ElizKing
    April 6th, 2014 @ 3:43 pm

    McDaniel is a slick operator, in my judgment, who will have to be watched like a hawk to keep him honest. In that regard, he is just like the rest. I don’t love him or hate Cochran, but I’m voting for McDaniel. All of our elected officials seem to have trouble understanding who works for whom, and I will keep voting for the non-incumbent whenever I can.

  31. wGraves
    April 6th, 2014 @ 3:48 pm

    Your point is well taken. I interpret ‘…speak ill…’ as making an ad hominum (personal) attack. If it were not confined to this venue, then Mr. Reagan would have been advocating not holding primaries, a reductio ad absurdum non-starter.

    Instead, the NSRC official employed a personal attack based upon guilt by association, not upon any position his target had taken. So Rand Paul gave a speech at the Howard University and has been invited to address the NAACP. He also gave one at U C Berkeley. Is he to be held responsible for every position taken by those who invited him?

  32. molonlabe28 .
    April 6th, 2014 @ 5:15 pm

    NRSC is the same group that supported Charlie Crist, I think.

  33. molonlabe28 .
    April 6th, 2014 @ 5:29 pm

    RINOs can be quite testy when you frighten them.

  34. Art Deco
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:34 pm

    Is he to be held responsible for every position taken by those who invited him?

    It’s worse than that. Brian Pace did not invite him and professes no interest in intramural Republican contests. The event was called as a rally for 2d Amendment rights (which he favors) and Pace is in the business of selling Confederate memorabilia (at events like this).

  35. Art Deco
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:36 pm

    http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/0509/NRSC_to_endorse_Crist.html

    Yep. Great call guys.

  36. Art Deco
    April 6th, 2014 @ 7:46 pm

    http://spectator.org/blog/57387/nrscs-war-mark-levin

    Per this article, Dayspring is channeling McConnell who would appear to be channeling David Frum.

    —

    That would be another reason to eject McConnell. The primary reason would be that his net worth indicates he’s been on the take. People interested in practical electioneering might note he’s having trouble in a red state keeping ahead of a figure of fun like Allison Grimes.

  37. Won’t It Be A Kick When The NRSC Has To Protect These Candidates? | The Lonely Conservative
    April 6th, 2014 @ 11:25 pm

    […] Chairman set off a bit of a firestorm after he used a tactic of the left to attack Chris McDaniel who is challenging Thad Cochran in the […]

  38. BAW
    April 7th, 2014 @ 1:55 am

    I’ve been noticing all the things establishment Republicans do that are just like Democrats and leftists for a while now. Just add this to a fairly long list.

  39. Eric Ashley
    April 7th, 2014 @ 8:53 am

    How about I take my toys and go home when I get NOTHING. And then to add insult to injury, I get well, insulted by my ‘betters’?

  40. Christopher H Fromme
    April 7th, 2014 @ 9:29 am

    Your joking, Santorum endorsed Specter over Toomey in 2004 and then in 2006 lost to liberal Casey by 18 pts. Had he stayed in the2 012 primary Romney would have beat him in PA by 10 pts without any ads that is why he got out

  41. Art Deco
    April 7th, 2014 @ 9:34 am

    I would not hold Santorum’s deal-making with Specter against him. The two had to work together.

    —

    His loss to Casey was an indication that he was willing to walk the plank for his principles, which is interesting because he started out as a careerist Republican lawyer. Generally, people are corrupted by their years in office; he was not.

    —

    The more salient problem with Sen. Santorum would be his deficit of preparation for an executive position. All of his political offices have been legislative positions and he has never been in a line administrative position during his years in the private sector (as few lawyers ever are). The events of the last five years should make clear you do not want a tyro in that job (though, to be sure, Sen. Santorum is a serious person in a way the incumbent never has been).

  42. richard40
    April 7th, 2014 @ 11:46 am

    If Thad Cochran loses I wonder if he will endorse the dem, and become a dem himself. That is what rhinos normally do when they lose primaries. Somebody should ask both candidates at a press conference if they will endorse the primary winner, and promise not to change parties if they lose.

  43. richard mcenroe
    April 7th, 2014 @ 12:26 pm

    Mayonnaise

  44. Bigfoot Steve
    April 7th, 2014 @ 12:47 pm

    People who say we need to keep voting for bad candidates while expecting different results need to stop doing that.

  45. bowman
    April 8th, 2014 @ 12:26 am

    Good luck with ignoring reality and aligning yourself in people’s minds with racists. I’m sure that will be every bit as successful as OJ’s search for his ex-wife’s killer.

  46. Quartermaster
    April 8th, 2014 @ 9:32 pm

    Oh noes! We have us a concern troll.
    Time to engage in education. Tech people reality, instead of knuckling under to liars. Your choice, but at the end your road lies defeat.

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    April 10th, 2014 @ 7:45 am

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