They’re still counting the votes Mississippi’s $12 million Republican Senate primary, but it looks like there’s going to be a runoff election between Cochran and McDaniel. Here’s what’s at stake:
“They really want a McDaniel win because they want a head on the mantel,” party strategist Ford O’Connell said. Tea party groups “need to be able to raise money” to stay afloat, he added, “and to raise money, you have to show results.”
Here’s hoping for a McDaniel win to keep those grifters in the green.
c u n d gulag
OY!
They’re been getting fleeced by conservative political and Jesus grifters for decades, and the fools and rubes in the base STILL haven’t run out of money!
It’s either that fools and rubes actually AREN’T so easily parted from their money – or, that the fools and rubes have a lot more money than we think they do.
Lee
The tea party did really well in Texas. That should also help out their coffers
catclub
The GOP establishment is conflicted because they will need to go medieval on McDaniel to win the runoff, and that will hurt party unity (my ass). The runoff voters are expected to be even crazier, on average, than GOP primary voters. I am still rooting for injuries.
If McDaniel wins, Childers has a chance to win, and the GOP will have to throw lots of money into MS.
If THAD wins, Childers will have no chance, and it will take no money to win, by comparison.
BGinCHI
Morgan Freeman spent a fair bit of his childhood in MS (Greenwood). I wish he was running on the Dem side.
It would be fun to see him play a Senator.
dmsilev
@catclub: The GOP is probably hoping that Cochran throws in the towel and retires gracefully. I have my doubts that that will happen, and I’m standing with you in rooting for Team Mutual Assured Destruction.
MattF
But which one is really worse? I’ve got to think this over.
Tommy
@MattF:
That is my thinking. My mom and dad are Republicans. They’d be confused by somebody like Thad. They are pro gay marriage. Atheist. Yes there are Republicans out there like this.
FlipYrWhig
McDaniel has that Classic Republican Douchebag look. Like the product of a captive breeding program featuring Joe Walsh and Sam Brownback.
Fred
@MattF: They’re all worse but the Teahades are more entertaining ’cause they don’t know when to shut their pie holes.
BGinCHI
@FlipYrWhig: I agree that after the James Gang, Joe Walsh went totally downhill.
catclub
@dmsilev:
I bet you mean the national GOP. The Jackson MS GOP will know that losing THAD means losing lots of Federal Dollars.
I would be very surprised by that, since the fight has been so bitter, so far. Thad clearly caught up with a barrage of advertising at the end, that he never expected to need. He will pour even more into the runoff. I fear he will win due to better turnout operations the second time around.
The main hope for the McDaniel side is a larger fraction of crazy people willing to vote in a runoff.
beltane
@catclub: Mississippi does have an abundance of crazy people so McDaniel does have that going for him.
FlipYrWhig
@catclub: I remember smart people saying the same thing when Rand Paul beat Trey Grayson or whatever his name was, the Mitch McConnell protege. “Now that their nominee is a goofball, the Democrats will have a real chance!” they said. Doh.
dmsilev
@catclub: Well, that’s true. Of course, being Senator Pork Barrel didn’t seem to be enough to let Cochran fend off McDaniel, so that may not be a winning argument with the electorate any more. No matter what, a contested runoff is going to suck lots of cash out of both the establishment groups and the Teanuts, so on a national macro-scale, that’s good news for us.
GregB
We will hopefully get plenty of Ken Buck, Sharon Angle, Christine O’Donnell and Todd Akin moments out of this shitheel before the runoff is complete.
Plus another large pot of money for an inter-party turf war.
jheartney
Senator Cochran and potential Senator McDaniel would be indistinguishable from a legislative voting standpoint. The reason to want McDaniel to win the runoff is A. it makes a Dem win in the race a possibility, and B. even if McDaniel wins the seat, it’ll cost them a lot more to hang on to it. Bonus is that a McDaniel primary win will disappoint longtime Cochran supporters.
FlipYrWhig
@dmsilev: I like that’s it’s now possible to campaign in a state by shaking your fist and saying “The federal government must give us less!”
KG
We are very close in California to having to members of the same party in the general election for a statewide office. The race for Controller has four candidates between 21and 24 percent. Republican Ashley Swearengin came in first, Democrat John Perez is second, but less than five hundred votes ahead of Republican David Evans. Somewhat annoyingly, we don’t have a 50%+1 rule for the primaries, so Brown (who got 54% of the vote) will have to face a not crazy Republican in November
CONGRATULATIONS!
Cochran’s from another time, didn’t understand that explaining to the imbeciles that comprise his “base” that he’d “bought home all this money from Washington” now translates into wingnut-speak as “I bought home all this money from Washington TO BE SPENT ON NEGROES”.
He’s going to get utterly pasted in the runoff. The Kochs and Citizens United dumped millions into this race. They’ll double, triple down, no problem, they have the money, and the national GOP will do what it always does when one of their own is on the ropes…let him die like a dog.
RSA
@MattF:
A Democratic friend in MS thought hard about the risks, and she held her nose to cross over and vote for Cochran in the primary. The polls still give McDaniel a significant advantage over Childers.
KG
@RSA: I don’t understand how anyone could think differently. As long as Tea Partiers are winning primaries, establishment Republicans are going to play to that base. If they lose, particularly in safe seats, maybe the few remaining grown ups can take back control. Not saying they’ll suddenly become DFHs, but at least be willing/able to work with Democrats
Patricia Kayden
@Lee: So reassuring to hear that. Someone has to make loads of $$$ fighting the Kenyan Communist who’s in the White House. TBaggers will fight the good fight until a true American (White male) gets back into the White House.
catclub
@GregB:
ALL of those resulted in Democratic Senators. That is what I am hoping for. It still is not likely.
Indiana 2012:
Cassidy
@c u n d gulag: You can always count on that gov’t check showing up.
kindness
Anyone here listen to NPR drivetime this morning?
Mara Liason was positively drooling at the thought of Republicans taking the Senate. Sounded to me like she was really getting off on it if you know what I mean and I think you do (ew!).
I think I’m about done with NPR. Seems to only piss me off in the morning now and I really don’t need to start my day that way.
@BGinCHI: Joe’s been sober since ’94. The album he released last fall, Analog Man is really good.
NorthLeft12
@Tommy: No offence to your parents or you, but how the hell do your parents justify/rationalize voting Republican given the two facts that you have shared with us?
If being atheist or supporting same sex marriage is any kind of priority for your parents, the Repubs are the last party they should ever support.
I must be missing something.
Belafon
So, Greenwald has decided that since Obama traded the five prisoners for Bergdahl, that Obama really had the ability all along to release everyone from Gitmo, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/04/1304300/-Greenwald-On-Gitmo, and it’s actually him, not Congress, that’s the problem.
Belafon
@kindness: Mara Liason is the only NPR person that goes on FOX, for a reason.
Cacti
@Belafon:
If only Glenn could be our philosopher king.
All problems would disappear, global peace would ensue, everyone would be above average intelligence, and no one’s kids would do drugs or get knocked up.
dmsilev
@Belafon: Oy.
feebog
I don’t think Childers has much of a chance, regardless of who wins the runoff. But if it costs Republicans a buttload of money that they would otherwise be spending in more significant races, I have no problem rooting for injuries.
skerry
@NorthLeft12: Cognitive dissonance. And, if I remember correctly, they live in Indiana.
danielx
@BGinCHI:
Personally I’d rather see Samuel L. Jackson be a US Senator from wherever he’s from….on the floor of the Senate: “You people need to WAKE THE FUCK UP!”
FlipYrWhig
@Belafon: You’d think that Our Greatest Champion Of Civil Liberties would maybe remember that finding nations willing to take even innocent, nonviolent Guantanamo detainees (like the Uighurs) has been a mite challenging. So, sure, if you assume a nation to which every prisoner can be traded, and something with which they can trade, then, sure, great plan. Or, if you don’t do that, you can continue to assume a reductionist self-involved blowhard who uses penny-ante rhetorical tricks and whose nonsense is listened to by far too many otherwise sensible people.
Botsplainer
This is bad. While I want Childers to have a shot, it’s Mississippi, whre good governance and common sense went to die. Each time a teatard wins, it has the effect of injecting the substance from the puke funnel into national dialogue, thereby mainstreaming it.
I want these assholes marginalized and ignored. I want them to be isolated in their little enclaves, puzzled at the success of the world around them.
Calouste
@kindness:
I read that as NPR driveLtime.
Steve in the ATL
@RSA:
Many of my relatives did this as well, on the assumption that the Democrat can’t win no matter who the opponent is.
danielx
@FlipYrWhig:
Could explain a lot. I’ve been having this automatic response whenever I see a perfectly coiffed guy wearing plaid shorts and a pastel polo shirt with the shirt tucked in, of course – the first thought that goes through my head is “Republican douchebag”. Does this make me a bad person? There’s a metric shitload of these guys in Florida, I’m discovering, and I’m only here for a week.
RaflW
@RSA: Saw on twitter so consider the source, but it may be that registered Dems, who could vote in the primary as your friend did, can’t vote in the runoff.
I don’t know what the numbers might have been, or the split. But it could contribute to the crazification vote’s swing in the 2nd round.
I will root for injuries none the less.
Botsplainer
@FlipYrWhig:
Grayson’s main drawback was that he did a good job as Secretary of State. The website builds were awesome and easily searchable, the documents scanned in quickly and rapidly available, and elections were fairly and competently administered. His personnel were happy, and the office wasn’t drowning in politicization.
The harder right wing activists couldn’t have that, and punished him with the Paul candidacy, which is why he ran away from attempting further elective office as a Republican.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
here’s hoping “Pappy” McDaniel wins the r-u-n-n-o-f-t.
chopper
@Belafon:
obama also has the ability to, with the press of a button, nuke russia. there’s a lot of stuff that the guy ‘could do’.
FlipYrWhig
@danielx: That look is basically money + golf, so “Republican douchebag” is an entirely reasonable deduction.
RaflW
@NorthLeft12:
Long-held identities rarely fade. My dad and my uncle both made/make a to-do about not being registered Republicans any more. They comfort themselves with the “independent” myth. But come voting time, 50, 60, 70 years of being a Republican (low taxes! strong defense! Eisenhower!) is very hard to shake. They knew damn well they weren’t Democrats, I’ll tell ya that!
(Though I do suspect that my uncle at least failed to vote for Brownback for governor – whether he voted for some minor party name, or skipped it, dunno. But I think he gets that Kansas is not well served by that bible-imbued jackass)
catclub
@FlipYrWhig:
minus sense
minus taste
? Martin
Looks like by a matter of a few thousand votes, we actually will be sending a Democrat to the general in the Controller’s race, but for a while there it looked like 2 GOPs would be going due to 3 dems splitting votes.
Tim Donnelly did lose, so it’ll be the clearly less insane Neel Kashkari in the General. Still worth noting that Brown carried every county except for Modoc where he lost by 300 votes. Neel doesn’t stand a chance.
Alex Padilla won for the Democrats which means that Leland Yee will have less to do from prison. Both propositions passed – bonds for veteran and homeless housing (which is on the ballot every year) and open meetings.
Here in CA-45, our Dem barely made it to the general, so short of a meteor I’m going to be stuck with a Republican rep again – at least a new one this time. And district 74 state assembly will send two GOPs to the general. Two democratic women beaten by two republican men in OC. What else is new?
Robert Sneddon
@catclub: “The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible”, just updated to more modern times with added lawnmowers.
SatanicPanic
@BGinCHI: After playing God and the president that might be kind of a step down
brettvk
@kindness: Liasson has been showing her ass on the NPR dime for years now — the main reason I stopped contributing to public radio. I don’t know how the national NPR management can possibly delude themselves that one of their “reporters” getting paid to appear regularly on FOX isn’t a total repudiation of everything they allegedly stand for. Just thinking about this raises my blood pressure.
NorthLeft12
@RaflW: Yes, we have people like that up here in Canada too. They would vote a dead skunk into Parliament if he was a Conservative. And what is worse, they admit it.
Botsplainer
Speaking of Teanderthals….
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3163587/posts
They make friends everywhere they go, don’t they?
CONGRATULATIONS!
@? Martin: Kokehead Kashkari? He’s going to get destroyed.
I was recently gerrymandered into 49, Issa’s district. He had Dem opponents – two of them, actually (way to split the vote, guys!). I found out about them from the election flyer. They did no advertising or canvassing.
I was absolutely beyond furious that for both state Senate and State Assembly, no Dems ran in my district. This is California, people. Dems can do well here, even in red districts. In this state, it should be considered political malpractice to have an election with a GOP candidate running unopposed. The California Democratic party needs to get a clue, quick.
SatanicPanic
@CONGRATULATIONS!: You should run. YOLO
CONGRATULATIONS!
@SatanicPanic: In all seriousness, the thought has crossed my mind. I need someone with money to back the bid, is the problem.
ETA: and when you accept that money, they usually have an agenda that’s contrary to any sane idea of “good government”. Nonetheless, I would give it a shot.
Citizen Alan
@RSA:
Then your friend is not a Democrat, because you can’t be a Democrat if you spend your time enabling Republicans. If Thad wins, Childers has no chance at all in the general, and shortly after the 2016 election, Thad will retire and let Gov. Phil Bryant appoint his replacement (who will be a less crazy Teabagger that we’ll be stuck with for twenty years). I consider that a worse outcome than McDaniel winning outright and then making a fool of himself until he has to defend his seat in 2020.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
One of my co-workers has seen the Kashkari “Crazy Train” commercial multiple times, so I had a hard time convincing him that Kashkari was in fact the less insane Republican.
Mnemosyne
@Botsplainer:
I would have no objection to this, though it would be a bit tough on the Taliban who got stuck with Cantor.
Ash Can
Cochran’s going to have to campaign further
off the cliffto the right in the runoff, so it should be quite the shitshow.SatanicPanic
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yeah, that’s the tough part. If I knew one I’d ask him/her to back my bid for city council or something.
Citizen Alan
Further complicating the scene in Mississippi is that our useless whore media (in the form of a single article in The Atlantic) waited until election day to casually mention that 76 year old Cochran may have some mental competency issues (such has having to be repeatedly introduced to the same people at a campaign event and the fact that he refused — or was unable — to give any kind of speech to his supporters last night).
FlipYrWhig
@Botsplainer: A gadfly Republican named “Professor Brat”? That’s positively Dickensian.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Shades of “Ransom of Red Chief.”
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
I had a link ready to go, but I thought it would be too on the nose. ;-)
Ash Can
@Citizen Alan: Look on the bright side — Cochran, McDaniel, and their respective backers are going to have to squander another load of cash on the runoff now. Sure, it’s a shame that it’ll only enrich a few political consultant shysters and not really trickle down to the people who need it, but it’ll still separate a few idiots from their money.
Ash Can
@Mnemosyne:
@FlipYrWhig:
Meh. Cantor doesn’t have the gumption it would take to be a Red Chief. The Taliban troops would just leave him on a mountainside somewhere when they got sick of his whining, and there he’d stay till he dried up and blew away.
Bulworth
@Botsplainer: hey, a circular firing squad…and I’m fresh out of popcorn
Bulworth
I’m looking at the Newsmax feed running on the right side of the page and saw something about Dick Morris. He still alive? I’d almost forgotten him.
Botsplainer
@Citizen Alan:
Feature, not bug. Incompetence in angry old white guys creates opportunity for young wingnut staffers and wingnut lobbyists.
janeform
@brettvk: The key word here is “allegedly.” They aren’t deluding themselves. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. They stand for the Village and for not offending Republicans. I haven’t listened to NPR news in years. It took only a few seconds of listening to drive me bonkers.
Roger Moore
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Thanks for volunteering.
Face
Keep The Eagles out of this discussion, please.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Roger Moore: Had I known, I would have gone down to the registrar, changed my party affiliation back to Democratic (it has been “decline to state” for a long time for mostly work-related reasons), and run. I presume you have some money to fund my race? I need donors for 2016, stat.
NonyNony
@Mnemosyne:
Taliban would say “no deal – Cantor’s more valuable to us in the House.”
FlipYrWhig
@Face: Don Henley / Must die / Don’t let him get back together / With Glenn Frey #mojonixon
jl
@Mnemosyne:
” One of my co-workers has seen the Kashkari “Crazy Train” commercial multiple times, so I had a hard time convincing him that Kashkari was in fact the less insane Republican. ”
Yeah, exactly. That is the problem Ksashkari has, which I think is also a general problem for GOPers in the general. Sure, the establishment GOP held off most of the crazies, but they had to get crazy themselves to do so.
So, when it became clear that Kashkari is a moderate corporate conservative, and (horrors!) voted for Obama in 2008, he had to pump a boatload of money into the race and pump out goofy stupid commercials to catch Donnelly. And Donnelly helped out by, no surprise, showing little or no ability to do things like, you know, think ahead, or plan anything or think seriously about fundraising, and developing a campaign organization, as well as policy. Donnelly is the archetype of extreme feckless clueless incompetent goofball. That is why the CA teabagger base loves him.
Anyway, Kashkari will get beat not matter what he does, but I hope his problem is common among the GOP primary winners. I heard some goof ass political consultant saying that the primary results made a GOP takeover of the Senate much more likely. I hope that is an exaggeration, and that way the guy started getting a little too ‘excisted’ (or maybe better ‘stimulated’) talking about a GOP Senate takeover I started thinking he was a GOP shill masquerading as some expert, which is very common.
Bottom line, the difference between the supposed establishment GOP and the teabaggers is getting smaller every election. I hope the voters notice that in the general election. I hope they notice that either the establishment jackass is either politically extreme, or is dishonest cynical and will say totally different things at different times just to win.
Roger Moore
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I can’t fund the whole race or anything, but I would be willing to donate.
satby
@skerry: The brother’s inlaws live in Indiana, Tommy and his parents live somewhere in west central IL. In a town called Nirvana, where everyone has high speed internet, the schools are well funded and the children, especially his 5 year old niece, are above average.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Roger Moore: I will keep everyone informed. We can’t have uncontested races, not anywhere, but damn, especially not here in CA.
RaflW
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Set up a bare-bones finance committee to get thru the legal crap, and I’ll donate. And not just $5. I bet other BJers would give to help launch your ’16 run. Once you can prove to the state committee that you can actually raise a few bucks, they might even be happy you can afford access to the VAN, an essential for running even a grassroots campaign.
(I donated the legal max to a friend here in MN who was running for MN House. Our max is pretty low, but I gave early so he could afford VAN access. It gets you a lot of info about your likely voters, who to call, who to canvass, etc. If yer gonna run (do it!) you’ll want to at least be half-assed, right?)
[Edited for clarity].
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@kindness: As others have pointed out, Liasson has been that way for a long time. Just this week she introduced Obama’s carbon plan saying it was his “attempt” to do something about the issue. She’s is either clueless about framing, or is part of the right-wing noise machine.
Or maybe she’s taken in by the Very Serious People. As PK said today:
When it comes to US politics, Yup.
Cheers,
Scott.
kindness
I must be an old. I do not agree with California’s new Top 2 getting on the ballot and no one else. I’m so old that I think each party should have the right to name their own person and that person should appear on the ballot.
I mean, there were 17 or 18 people up for Governor and Jerry Brown is really popular. Wtf is the issue with having 5, 7 or 10 parties appear on the ballot in November.
Who thunk this one up?
jl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I don;t know who Liasson is, but I’ve probably heard her on NPR. My folks listen to NPR and get outraged about the economics reporting, and of economic aspects of many policy issues. Since I am an economist, they want my opinion (actually what they often want me to do is join in a pity/outrage party about NPR says stuff they don’t agree with).
But it is worse than journalistic bias. I find most NPR reporting that involves economics to be senseless, incompetent and innumerate on a Robert Samuelson level. I think NPR has been thoroughly corrupted by its corporate adverstisers… excuse me, I meant generous selfless underwriters (my fat wide ass…).
Usually there is not enough sense in the NPR economic reporting to even bother to try to straighten it out. So, I recommend a book or an article on the topic and tell them to not pay any attention to economic analysis or reporting on NPR, since it is just error and nonsense mashed up together and pumped out as a standardized news-like information-like product.
jl
@kindness:
” Who thunk this one up? ”
I think Ahnohld S, the previous CA gubenorator pushed it. Ahnold and his consultants saw it as a way to encourage the mostly lunatic CA GOP to moderate enough to have a chance in the general election.
I have mixed feelings about it. It was easy to see the top two primary system could be gamed if one party could limit the number of candidates relative to the other. The CA GOP is such a miserable wreck that I don’t think they can game it enough to do much damage over the next couple of elections, but it is something to watch.
Edit: I have hopes the top two system will filter out GOP crazies, which I think would be a good thing. Opinions may differ, but I think having extreme lunatics and ruthless swindlers and hatemongers in the general as method to defeat the GOP is a high risk strategy. Over long run, would be better to encourage a return to some degree of honesty and sanity in that party.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@jl: Mara is here on the Twitter machine – https://twitter.com/MaraLiasson as an example of her “reporting” style…
You must love “Marketplace” then. ;-) (I can tolerate NPR – I just quickly turn it down when Mara is on. Marketplace makes me want to yell and throw things.)
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I find Maretplace hilarious fun. Only listen to it when when I visit my folk’s place and they have NPR on.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@jl: Their snark is Ok, but I was and am infuriated on how little they talked about unemployment in a sensible way, and if they mention inflation it is always as if it is bad (almost never about the dangers of it being too low), and they almost never talk about the Fed’s dual mandate, and ….
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I was snarking when I said they were hilarious fun. Or maybe cynical.
I find their snark dull and boring and irritating. I meant the sheer incompetence and senselessness of their attempts to report economics is hilarious fun. it is really just Brooks and Robert Samuelson (no relationship at all to late Paul Samuelson) and rancid Simpson-Bowles nonsense economics dressed up in fancy clothes. They dish out nonsense more than half the time.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@RaflW: Hey, thank you, that’s useful info. I have no idea how one goes about doing the legal/managerial side of running for office. This helps a bit. Obviously I need to do research. I’d like it to be better than “half-assed”. “Half-assed” is what we have now, with Dems unwilling to put a candidate up in an uncontested election.
catclub
@Citizen Alan: This. McDaniel has a much higher probability of pulling a Mourdock/Christine O’Donnell/Todd Akin, or having deep roots in a white supremacist/league of the south/ secession organization,
be uncovered in a race with Childers. Thad has 42 years of incumbency, and says nothing.
Eric U.
there is a reason why NPR is known as “nice polite republicans.” Not because the republicans they have on are polite, they are lying sacks of excrement. No, it’s everyone else that is on NPR. The number of actual progressives is small.
Berial
@RSA: I did the same.
Thad is one of the old school Republicans that knows how to play the game of ‘bad ole Washington. Always spending our money’, then doing everything in his power to bring home the pork for his very poor state because we fucking need that money.
These Tea Party dumb-asses are going to take our very poor state and make it poorer. THEN, when THEIR IDEOLOGY has fucked the state AND THEM, they will turn around and try to vote even FURTHER to the right, because it’ll be OBVIOUS to them that the Democrats(who have NO POWER in MS outside of the Delta and Jackson proper) are fucking them! Hell it’s one of the reasons they exist NOW, because all the bad shit that happens when Republicans were/are in power is someone else’s fault.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
The idea behind the top-2 primary system is that it’s supposed to push candidates toward the center. If you have a party primary, you tend to wind up with candidates who can win the much more polarized party only primaries, which results in candidates who are either far to the left or far to the right, and voters in the general are presented with an unpalatable choice between the two. In principle, the top-2 primary should let less ideological candidates make it to the general by appealing to the centrist wings of both parties as well as people with no party preference.
In practice, not so much. If there aren’t any obviously strong candidates, the vote can get split many ways and candidates with narrow but strong appeal can draw enough support to make it to the general election even though they’re very unpopular outside their base. More generally, if there’s no single strong candidate, the vote will tend to be split within parties, so whichever party has fewer candidates can wind up with only their candidates on the general election ballot. That may still happen for Controller (where there were 3 Democrats, 1 Green, and 2 Republicans), though it’s looking less likely as votes trickle in.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@jl: We really need to be able to post a Sarcasm sign of some sort here. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
RSA
@Berial:
Tough choices you have to make. My sympathies.
Berial
@RSA: At least in the general I can vote how I’d like, but in my opinion the R primary really was the only one that mattered this Tuesday.
Phil Perspective
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: People are only now starting to notice NPR went to the dogs during the C- Augustus years?
Phil Perspective
@Steve in the ATL: Have you looked at the website for the Mississippi Democrats? Does one even exist? From talking to someone on Twitter, Alabama’s was a complete mess and looked like something from Geocities. It compelled him to run for Democratic Party committee member. Sadly, he lost.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Phil Perspective: Dunno. Might have been during Reagan’s time.
NPR is bad, but they at least make an effort to cover the news. You want your only news outlets to be 10 seconds from CBS or something? We’re unlikely to get something like an American version of the BBC World Service here any time soon.
It’s only going to get worse if people stop contributing. At present, only ~ 17% of NPR’s funding comes from corporations. We all know that the teabaggers in Congress want to do away with public radio. If people stop listening and contributing, they’re going to be even more beholden to big/corporate donors. Look at Pacifica for an example of what happens when a contribution-based radio organization gets too small…
So, yeah, I cringe when Mara is on, and want to throw things when Marketplace is on, but I’m willing to throw a few hundred bucks to my NPR and PBS stations every year to keep them on the air. I’m willing to wait her and the other abominations out. YMMV. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Juju
@FlipYrWhig: Bingo!
Roger Moore
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I think it’s the desire to maintain their federal funding as much as anything that puts NPR in the power of the Republicans. As long as there’s hope of some money, the Republicans can influence their editorial policy by threatening to cut it off. They be better off in the long run giving up on the prospect of federal funding, dealing with the short-term financial problems, and getting back some semblance of editorial independence.
ET
If people in Mississippi are stupid enough to ditch a ranking member for a newbie they get what they deserve.
Cochran has been a good rep for Mississippi – or least as good as any Republican can be – and he has gained a seniority that is good for the state. To throw that away because he isn’t loud or overtly pandering is stupid and will not be a benefit to the state or its citizens. But then I remember Mississippi is part of the south which has a long, long reputation for cutting its nose off to spite its face.
Normally I would think yes a candidate that can loose in the general election but in the case of Mississippi I don’t know that any Democrat can win against a Republican so I don’t expect this to be one of those seats Democrats have a chance to gain.
Cervantes
@Belafon: As I recall, her profiles on the Fox and NPR web-sites are the same except that the one on NPR neglects to mention her work at Fox.
RaflW
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Giving it a read, this seems like a decent primer on California-specific campaign committee startup for beginners (and when I said half-assed above, I meant that in a John Cole, self-mocking sort of way. Half-assed meant like, not some political machine hack). The article is 7 years old, so links and suggestions may be out of date, but the overview may be helpful – and some of it may even still be accurate!
Cervantes
@Phil Perspective: The decline started earlier, with the Gingrich Congress.
RaflW
@Roger Moore: They’d just run deeper into the arms of Exxon, ADM, and all the other “enhanced underwriters.”
I still find NPR useful since I drive and cannot abide commercial radio, but I think we’ll be doing more and more podcasts to get away from Kai Ryssdal, Maura Liasson, and in particular, to get away from the mid-afternoon useless twaddle on The Takeaway.
“Take my radio. Please!” I’ll be here all week, try the mashed peas.
Cervantes
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Mara Liasson got her start in radio at KPFA …
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cervantes: Wow.
Roger Moore
@RaflW:
I guess what I find really frustrating is that many of the individual public radio stations are really good. I give to KPCC because their local coverage is far better than the local commercial news stations. And, of course, NPR has some great arts and entertainment stuff like Car Talk and Fresh Air. It just sucks that some of that money winds up going to pay for their crappy national and opinion coverage.