[Previously, at WEJB/NSU, on this electoral battle:
“McDaniel vs. Cochran in Mississippi: Who is the Better Immigration Patriot?”;
“Mississippi Tea Party Leader and Attorney Mark Mayfield has Committed Suicide, Following Arrest in Photogate”;
“Mississippi: In Order to Get Out the Black Vote and Beat Chris McDaniel, Thad Cochran Relied on Scandal-Plagued Democratic Operative Mitzi Bickers”; and
“Thad Cochran Campaign Illegally Robocalls Black Democrats Against ‘Racist’ Tea Party (Video).”]
By Nicholas Stix
Slate blogger David Weigel apparently seeks to reduce the Thad Cochran-Chris McDaniel to the following narrative: ‘Cochran Won GOP Primary, Fair and Square, but Crazy, Conservative Sore Loser Tea Partiers and Psycho TP “Reporter” Charles Johnson Seek to Get Results Overturned.’
Ultimately, Mississippi election law is going to have to be changed, to end open primaries (in which voters registered for one party can vote in the opposing party’s primaries), since it is impossible to enforce the current law, which makes it illegal to vote for a primary candidate for whom one has no intention of voting in the general, as thousands of black Democrats did, in voting in the Republican primary for Cochran.
A reader forwarded to me the letter he wrote David Weigel, on the latter’s item yesterday, which I reprinted afterward. (I can't figure out this reprinting of tweets business, so you'll have to hit the link to Weigel's original item, in order to see them.)
David,
Double voting and withholding public voting information is the driving force. Double voting is illegal and is grounds to challenge the election results.
While all other media is reporting nothing of merit, Johnson is actually out asking people questions and getting answers. Fielder sounds like he is telling the truth.
How many circuit clerks have you interviewed? Why are the circuit clerks withholding this public information?
Stop telling us what you think and go do some real reporting which entails asking questions and reporting the responses. Are there more Fielders out there? Put the word out on the street that the money is flowing again to anyone who will talk as to whether money was paid to black Democrats to vote for Thad Cochran.
Here's a tip. Go locate Kenneth Stokes in Hinds County and start investigating all those associated with him and offer to pay for evidence of Cochran paying blacks to vote for him.
No one cares what you think. You come across as a corporate shill when you opine. Ask questions. Get answers. Report the answers.
Election forensic experts are needed here especially the ones who can detect document alteration.
Mississippi Senate Battle Descends into Madness
By David WeigelJuly 2, 2014 6:14 p.m.
Slate
A few hours ago, the campaign of Sen. Thad Cochran —which had (understandably) assumed the June 24 primary election to be on the books already—held a press conference to vigorously rebut charges of fraud. For days, Tea Party activists and the campaign of Chris McDaniel had been looking at poll books for evidence of illegal crossover voting, hoping to find enough to cast doubt on the result. In the last 24 hours, the conservative election watchdog True the Vote and the defeated Tea Party umbrella group FreedomWorks had, respectively, sued on behalf of the people scouring poll books and asked for the FBI to investigate a claim that Cochran had bought votes.
The press conference went largely without incident. The same could not be said of a follow-up conference call with national reporters. At 3:46 pm ET, reporter Charles Johnson—who had reported the "vote-buying" story, which went viral on conservative media—tweeted the details of the call, encouraging followers to "crash it with me."
About eight minutes into the rote call, someone butted in to ask the Cochran campaign's Austin Barbour why "it was okay to harvest the votes of black people."
"I will be happy to answer any questions from any members of the media," said Barbour.
The interrupter was not done. "I'd like to know if black people were harvesting cotton, why is it okay to harvest their votes? They're not animals."
"I'm happy to answer any questions from the national media," said Barbour.
"Why did you use black people to get Cochran elected when they're not even Republicans?" asked the interrupter. "You treated them like they were idiots."
The call spiralled [sic] into insanity from there, with Barbour jumping off, reporters asking for the interrupter to ID himself (he didn't) and more crashers deploying Obama soundboards and a loop of John Vernon's immortal quote from Animal House. "The time has come for someone to put his foot down, and that foot is me."
Left with no official response or answers from Team Cochran, journalists ran to the wires with stories about the botched call. But this was only the tip of the weirdness iceberg. It baffles the Cochran campaign that Johnson, a freelance journalist with a proud conservative bent, has been able to drive a narrative in this race. I've written a couple of pieces criticizing two Johnson stories—one 2013 piece that raised doubts on Cory Booker's residence in Newark (a story Booker's opponent called a press conference to publicize) and one 2014 piece that mistook a satirical news story for proof that a New York Times reporter had posed in Playgirl. Johnson has predicted that his critics would try to discredit him by bringing up stuff like that, so, having cleared the decks, I offer this brief guide to Johnson's Cochran reporting—which is tweeted in what seems like real time.
1. That time he said the National Republican Senatorial Committee's spokesman is culpable in the suicide of a Tea Party leader.
2. That time he defended paying for the vote-buying story.
3. That time he described his talk with an impressed FBI agent.
4. That time he said Cochran will resign if McDaniel successfully challenges the election.
5. That time he made a Breaking Bad reference to shame Cochran's spokesman.
6. That time he said "bring it on, bitches" to Team Cochran.
7. That time he said he could have run the Romney campaign better than Cochran's strategist.
Johnson cannot be cowed; he frequently names his critics and laughs at the idea they would ever sue him. This is the driving force in the Mississippi Senate race's aftermath.
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