Thad Cochran, incumbent Republican U.S. Senator from Mississippi, came within a few thousand votes of seeing his political career come to an end on Tuesday night this week. His Tea Party challenger, Chris McDaniel, had forced Cochran into a runoff election after Cochran failed to get an outright win in the primary leading up to his re-election bid this fall. A political force in Mississippi for decades, Cochran undoubtedly thought that he was the last incumbent Republican in the country with any re-election worries whatsoever, given (a) the billions of Federal dollars he has brought into the state, and (b), the post-New Deal, reflexive Republican nature of the state's voting patterns. Nevertheless, when he came face to face with those worries, in the form of a forced runoff and lack of support in the polls, Cochran did what any small-government, anti-Washington politician would do.
He doubled down on advice from consultants, and wooed Democrats, including African-Americans. And, as a consequence, McDaniel is refusing to go gently into the good night of losers. If anything, McDaniel is sounding very much like a man whose work is not yet finished. And he's in a position to finish it; although the deadline has passed for filing in Mississippi as a third-party candidate for the fall, he could still run as a write-in candidate. And he's got the resources to make that work in a serious way.
To what does all of that add up?
My twenty-five cents (or more): I think that McDaniel is going to organize a write-in campaign on behalf of the Tea Party. Apart from the resources that are at his disposal, McDaniel's reasoning may be that Mississippi is so dominated by conservative voters, regardless of their party affiliation, there is no way that Travis Childers, the Democratic nominee, could possibly win, even in a three-way split of the vote among Cochran, McDaniel and Childers. Consequently, the goal for Tea Parties should be to give Mississippi the most conservative Senator they can.
There are, however, some problems with that line of thinking. For one thing, Childers is nobody's idea of a bleeding-heart liberal: he's anti-abortion, and opposes the ACA. For another thing, if consultants and African-Americans are now the key to winning an election in Mississippi, the Tea Party is dead in the water. And no one should be surprised by this: the Tea Party is dying, even in the most conservative parts of the country. Take Kansas, for example. If this poll concerning Sam Brownback's chances for re-election is to be believed, it's for one simple reason: the Tea Party's ideology has been given a chance in Kansas and failed, miserably. The Tea Party is now the answer to Thomas Frank's famous question.
This is why there is no reason--absolutely, positively none--for anyone to presume that Barack Obama will suffer the slings and arrows of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell next year. Hell, even if he does face a Republican-controlled Senate, it may not be led by Mitch McConnell.
My advice to Democrats across the country, anxious about the Senate? Look at the Magnolia State as an opportunity. Take a two-pronged approach. Give logistical support to Childers and McDaniel--the former overtly, the latter covertly. Who's to say that keeping the Senate in Democratic hands may not require electing an anti-abortion, anti-ACA Senator? Even if Childers doesn't make it, consider this: every dollar spent keeping the Mississippi Senate seat in Republican hands is a dollar that can't be spent against taking Senate seats from red-state Democrats--or holding on to previously safe seats in Kentucky or Georgia.
It's time to think tactically, progressives. Looking for ideological purity will get you two years of Barack Obama's impeachment trial--and disaster for all of us.
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