Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

When I was faster i was always behind.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

I really should read my own blog.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Consistently wrong since 2002

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Bark louder, little dog.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

T R E 4 5 O N

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2014 / Open Thread: The Outreach Continues!

Open Thread: The Outreach Continues!

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(via Crooks&Liars)

In possibly the Slate-iest #slatepitch of all time, Jamelle Bouie urges African-American voters in Mississipi to come out on Tuesday for… Thad Cochrane:

If the status quo holds, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran will lose his seat to Chris McDaniel, the upstart Tea Party Republican who pushed the longtime senator into a run-off election. And so, rather than persuade McDaniel’s supporters, Team Cochran is trying to change the status quo by appealing to a new class of voters: African Americans…

Because there’s no party registration in Mississippi, anyone can vote in the Republican primary, as long as they didn’t vote in the Democratic one. And, as Philip Bump notes for the Washington Post, turnout for the Democratic primary was substantially lower than that of the Republican one. Which means there’s an ample population of black voters who could give Cochran the edge he needs to win…

Indeed, if there was a time to support Cochran, now is it. A Thad Cochran who owes his next—and probably final—term to black support is a Thad Cochran who might work to secure their interests in the Senate. It’s possible that Cochran could win with black voters and ignore them afterwards. But I doubt it. Politicians tend to respond to key constituencies, and black voters will be in a good spot if they can extract concessions from Cochran in return for their support, and he goes on to win. It’s nakedly transactional, yes, but it’s much better than trying to deal with an ideologue who draws his support from the most anti-government voters in the state.

Which is a long way of saying that, if I were voting in Mississippi, I’d swallow my partisanship and cast a ballot for Thad Cochran. He’s not a great choice, but given the circumstances, he’s probably the best one.

Martin Longman, at the Washington Monthly, notes that the Mississippi GOP has some… issues with this argument:

… Whatever its risks, the Cochran strategy is creating some tactical problems for Chris McDaniel’s campaign. There’s no party registration in Mississippi, so there’s nothing illegal about asking anyone to vote in your runoff, so long as they didn’t first participate in the other party’s first round. McDaniels supporters are trying to invoke a vague “loyalty oath” kind law passed by Democrats to prevent Republican tactical voting, but it’s entirely unenforceable…

So exactly what it is about these voters that makes their participation in the runoff so outrageous? It can’t be their race, of course, so it’s gotta be ideology!…

Republican state senator Angela Hill got close to candor in a quote supplied to Breitbart:

“The Republican Party has never been the food stamp party, or the party of pork until desperation set in with Thad Cochran’s re-election bid,” Hill said. “I have never seen such open collaboration to get Democrats to spoil a Republican party primary or runoff as is being openly displayed by Thad Cochran operatives in the MS GOP establishment.”

I guess Republicans could start administering lie detector tests at the polls and just ask every prospective voter if he or she is a true conservative, which seems to be the implicit qualification here. Otherwise, the argument will be about keeping black folks away from the ballot box, which is of course the oldest of traditions in Mississippi.

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  3. 3.

    Hunter Gathers

    It’s possible that Cochran could win with black voters and ignore them afterwards. But I doubt it.

    That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read in ages. A Mississippi Republican giving a shit about black voters is as likely as me signing an NBA contract to play center, at 5 foot 3.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    It’s like choosing between a member of the KKK and a member of the White Citizens Council. Seriously, that’s supposed to be a choice?

  5. 5.

    Joseph Nobles

    I wouldn’t trust Thad Cochran to honor any tacit agreements to work for minority interests if he were to win. He’d still have the Tea Party screaming at him, and in the next session, they’d also be screaming about Democrats supporting him.

    Better to let Mississippi Republicans move the rock and let the creepy crawlies have their time in the light. Sunshine will do Democrats a lot of good here.

  6. 6.

    MattR

    I wouldn’t expect any sort of thanks from Cochran, but I can still understand believing that the Republican is almost definitely going to win the general election and McDaniel is so batshit insane that it is better to be safe and make sure Cochran is the nominee.

  8. 8.

    MattF

    Well, Cochran wants to win, and that’s plainly sufficient reason to appeal to folks with the wrong skin color. The notion that he’d ever actually do anything for those colored individuals… ha ha.

  9. 9.

    MattR

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): It is not just about the actual votes. It is about how the Republican party builds consensus to decide whether or not they will agree to a Democratic compromise. McDaniel will argue for more extreme positions and for less compromise (and his winning the primary will be portrayed as the Tea Party regaining/reasserting prominence which will also affect what the official Republican positions will be)

  10. 10.

    jurassicpork

    Slate’s rapidly turning into Breitbart’s Big Government and The Blaze. I just read one piece where a Slate writer praised Paul Ryan to the hills for what was obviously Randian, partisan Kabuki theater when he yelled at the IRS commissioner. Paul Ryan, a “hero” for middle class Americans, seriously?

    Anyway, on the home front: The only thing scarier than being evicted is being evicted in a locality where are there no homeless shelters.

  11. 11.

    Frankensteinbeck

    the food stamp party

    What a strange thing to suddenly bring up. One might get the impression that when conservatives everywhere say ‘food stamps’ they mean ‘blacks’!

  14. 14.

    MattR

    @MattR: I should add that I am not sure what I would actually do in that situation. I understand both sides of the argument and can’t really fault anyone for choosing either option.

  15. 15.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @MattR:

    McDaniel will argue for more extreme positions and for less compromise (and his winning the primary will be portrayed as the Tea Party regaining/reasserting prominence which will also affect what the official Republican positions will be)

    Yes, he will. But Cochran would functionally do the same thing while putting a respectable spin on it. Fuck it, I say, let them let their freak flags fly. Maybe it will make “reasonable” conservatives stay home and persuade actual independents to go our way. Functionally as a voting entity, McDaniel will be no different than Cochran, but, as a freak show, he is far beyond Cochran. I say, ‘Please proceed, GOP.”

  16. 16.

    JGabriel

    Is there any chance whatsoever of a Democrat winning the Senate race in Mississippi?

    If not – and I hate to say this because I think Slate contrarians are among the most annoying people in the country – then it just possibly might be …

    Ah, fuck it – I really can’t get interested in, recommend, or defend taking a side in a GOP purity war. Let’em self-destruct.

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @jurassicpork: Blog whoring again? Aren’t we, here at B-J, too impure? Shouldn’t you find someplace that would provide you with pore cash rather than our compromised money?

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @efgoldman:

    He claims he won’t vote for the pork.

    Do you believe him? On any vote of consequence, he will vote the GOP party line, just as Cochran would..

  20. 20.

    ⚽️ Martin

    @JGabriel:

    Is there any chance whatsoever of a Democrat winning the Senate race in Mississippi?

    Yeah, a bit. Obama lost by 12 which is still a big chasm to close, but not impossible with a sufficiently poor opponent. It would be more plausible in an election year, though. I’d give Democrats there about the same odds as the US winning the world cup. Not impossible but seriously unlikely.

  21. 21.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @efgoldman:
    The logic is ‘We will survive on a slice of bread a day if it means those damn niggers starve.’ Important to the racist mindset is the belief that if you take away all help anybody is getting, whites will outperform browns. Always. If you’re a spiteful enough person, that’s more important to you than your own welfare.

    EDIT – There *is* also a selfish element. By scapegoating the browns, they can bring the logic around so that if all those browns are screwed hard enough, the whites will get everything the browns used to have but didn’t deserve.

  22. 22.

    ⚽️ Martin

    @JGabriel:

    Is there any chance whatsoever of a Democrat winning the Senate race in Mississippi?

    Yeah, a bit. Obama lost by 12 which is still a big chasm to close, but not impossible with a sufficiently poor opponent. It would be more plausible in an election year, though. I’d give Democrats there about the same odds as the US winning the world cup. Not impossible but seriously unlikely.

    I think it probably comes down to which candidate is more likely to seriously flame out before November. I’d go with McDaniel on that. Thad so far has only managed to promote sex with animals. I think McDaniel has more in him.

  23. 23.

    Hal

    I don’t know. On one hand, maybe Cochran would be so pissed at his party that he says “fuck it” and becomes a pseudo dem. He might also fall under the delusion that he can win another term, so why not just move to the right of McDaniel to prove to voters that they need not replace him with an upstart with no leverage. At this point he’s just a desperate man who doesn’t want to let go of his day job. Also, I realize there is little chance of a Dem winning this seat, but isn’t the chance at least somewhat greater with McDaniel?

  24. 24.

    Ronnie Pudding

    So does Bouie expect blacks to vote for Cochran in the general? If not, it’s even less likely he will feel beholden to them.

  26. 26.

    JGabriel

    @MattR:

    McDaniel will argue for more extreme positions and for less compromise (and his winning the primary will be portrayed as the Tea Party regaining/reasserting prominence which will also affect what the official Republican positions will be)

    Maybe I’m wrong, MattR, but I don’t see McDaniel getting through a full six year Senate term without getting indicted for something:

    Jim Newell @ Salon:

    The primary campaign was rattled in its final weeks when a pro-McDaniel Tea Party blogger, “Constitutional” Clayton Kelly, was arrested for sneaking into the nursing home where Rose Cochran, the senator’s wife, has been living for over a decade. … The Hinds County Sheriff’s Department is investigating why three people, including a high-ranking Chris McDaniel campaign official, were found locked in the Hinds County Courthouse in Jackson hours after an election official says the building was closed early Wednesday morning.

    Also, according to TPM, Democrats actually do have a chance of winning the MS Senate race this year, an outcome that becomes more likely if McDaniel is the GOP’s candidate:

    Democrats have landed about as strong a candidate as they could have hoped for in the Mississippi Senate race, in which Republicans are heavily favored.

    Former Democratic Rep. Travis Childers, who represented the state’s deeply conservative 1st congressional district from May 2008 to January 2011, jumped in the race on Friday. …

    The deep-red state is a long shot for Democrats in any event. The last time Mississippi had a Democratic senator was 1989 — John Stennis. But operatives believe they have a better chance if McDaniel wins the primary. The Republican state senator has made some missteps such as retweeting a neo-Nazi account and blaming gun violence on hip-hop music.

  28. 28.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    OT: Blow-up is beautifully shot, but it bores me to tears every time I see it. Hemmings’ character is not remotely sympathetic and I always lose interest in the story before the mystery is introduced.

  29. 29.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Hal: Of course, back in the day, Thad was a Democrat. (But that was long ago – he worked on Nixon’s campaign.)

    Thad’s an old man who wants to keep his seat one more term. I expect that if he wins, it will be his last campaign. (He would be 83 in 2020.)

    Would he change his views and voting record to be more representative of minority views? It’s not impossible, but I doubt it.

    It probably makes more sense to let the Republicans continue to battle each other on their own and for the Democrats in Mississippi to do the grunt work of voter registration and outreach now for November, not bother with trying to help Thad.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  30. 30.

    The Dangerman

    I’d be for it for the sole purpose of watching the Red Staters go batshit (ok, batshittier) over losing to Cochran because of African American voters.

  31. 31.

    Jewish Steel

    Indeed, if there was a time to support Cochran, now is it. A Thad Cochran who owes his next—and probably final—term to black support is a Thad Cochran who might work to secure their interests in the Senate.

    Y’all are a bunch of doubting Thomases. Of course Cochran will work to secure their interests. Their interests lie in discovering their own bootstraps. And GOP policy will encourage nothing else.

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @efgoldman: I think he will be. At this point I thing the salvation of our country is is dependent on the GOP becoming so publicly batshit insane that no one who is not also batshit insane can vote for them.

  33. 33.

    Morzer

    If y’all want some quality lunacy:

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/south-dakota-obama-impeachment

    The South Dakota Republican Party passed a resolution at its state convention Saturday calling for the impeachment of President Obama, according to The Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

    “Therefore, be it resolved that the South Dakota Republican Party calls on our U.S. Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States,” the resolution reads.

    The resolution accused Obama of violating “his oath of office in numerous ways,” and mentions the recent trade of five Taliban members for captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, among other issues.

    Delegates voted 191-176 in favor of the resolution.

    “I’ve got a thick book on impeachable offenses of the president,” resolution sponsor Allen Unruh told the Argus Leader.

  34. 34.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Morzer:

    in numerous ways,

    Name them and cite actual legal precedent – case or statutory – you dim-witted fucks.

  38. 38.

    Radio One

    Thad Cochran has been a conservative Republican party loyalist for decades. He’s probably going to lose, but when he loses, he’s not going to do anything to help the Senate Democrats, even if Democratic voters make a serious effort to carry him over the line in the Republican primary.

  40. 40.

    Schlemizel

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Sadly, the Constitution is pretty broad, listing only “high crimes and misdemeanors”.

    I remember a fairly lengthy debate in committee during the Watergate hearings about what that really meant. As a group of lawyers can do the words were play dough and really every President can be impeached because it can be shaped to whatever the public will allow. In Nixon’s case the public saw high crimes very clearly. In Clinton’s they did not & it made all the difference in the world.

    EDIT: Let me add that it helped that Dems controlled the Senate. Had the goopers been in majority there is no doubt WJC would have been removed. It might have been interesting to see how voters handled that situation.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Schlemizel: Actually, around the time of the Clinton impeachment, I read a shitload of law review articles about impeachment. I actually still have them in a banker’s box in a store room. “High crimes and misdemeanors” is a legal term of art that means activities approaching treason. Okay, that is the legal definition. Politically speaking, and impeachable offense is whatever the House votes it to be.

    ETA: Democratic control of the Senate did not save Clinton; the 2/3 majority requirement did.

  43. 43.

    Jewish Steel

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Oranges And Lemons and also The Waterboys Fisherman’s Blues forever associated with my early working life at a tree nursery in the suburbs. I was quite passionate about both albums. And quite not passionate about the working life.

  45. 45.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Jewish Steel: Fisherman’s Blues is wonderful,. I don’t think that I have l played it for 15 years or so. The door opening snippet of Woody at the end is enough to make it brilliant.

  46. 46.

    Amir Khalid

    @Schlemizel:
    Someone here argued to me that because the US Constitution is so vague on what makes an offence impeachable, it would not be an abuse of the process (as I had called it) for the Republican Congressional to impeach Obama solely on the grounds that they had the votes to do it. The commenter reasoned that, if there were enough votes to impeach a president, he was politically toxic enough to warrant removing. That just doesn’t look right to me. Is it really so?

  47. 47.

    Ruckus

    I see the very, very small, possible strategic value in getting McDonald over Cochran, but the need to drive turnout much greater than normal to make it work just isn’t worth it. Why would you play games with them? That’s what they blame us for doing whenever we vote. Why give them any actual ammunition? Conservatives are slime, they have let the bat shit crazy become their voice and set their policy. Either that’s the way they really feel or they are too afraid to stand up to the crazy. They own the crazy, let’s not be a part of that.

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Amir Khalid: “High crimes and misdemeanors” has a meaning as a legal term of art. More or less, it equals dereliction of duty. Okay, but, it also means what the majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate believe it means.

  49. 49.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Amir Khalid: A large enough majority in the US House and Senate can do almost anything they want. That’s why respect for traditions and electing sensible people is so important.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  50. 50.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:
    Short term politically I believe you are right. There is little precedent to stop them. Lawyers may be able to argue differently but the language is not explained in the law, only in opinions. And as a shit pot load of the conservative side of the aisle is insane, what’s to stop them? Their good nature? Their sterling reputations? Their non racist ideals?

  51. 51.

    ulee

    Megyn Kelly has it right. Don’t ever let these money-thirsty self-satisfied fuckers get away with what they’ve done. Remind them of it everytime they open their yaws about Iraq. Go get ’em Megyn. Apparently nobody else in the media can be bothered. Fucking assholes.

  53. 53.

    piratedan

    Fuck Thad Cochran and fuck the GOP and the Tea Party. These bastards would take any help and make sure to contort it to play to a special engagement to the Magical Balance Fairy indicating how the GOP outreach is working. The chances of any GOP candidate “doing the right thing” is a suckers bet at best and a damn waste of time and resources at a minimum.

    in short, Fuck That, work for Democrats

  54. 54.

    ⚽️ Martin

    @ulee:

    Apparently nobody else in the media can be bothered. Fucking assholes.

    Wut? Everyone is covering it. Fallows, Maddow, etc. Just because Cheney and Cheney spawn are too cowardly to actually be measured before anyone other than Fox News is hardly the fault of the journalists.

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @⚽️ Martin: It’s okay, ulee will soon start to explain that black people have cultural problems. Some commenters are just assholes.

  58. 58.

    Hal

    I might be naive, but I can’t imagine impeachment working out for Republicans in the end. The Senate would never remove Obama unless it’s completely taken over by a super majority equivalent to the teahadists in the house, and I don’t see that happening. Moreover, impeachment could be a huge motivator for Dems come 2016 to turn out an vote, and who knows, maybe some Republicans who think the party has gone off a cliff might come with them.

  60. 60.

    Anoniminous

    The writer is an idiot. There’s no reason whatsoever for Cochran to give two farts and a raspberry for cross-over Democratic voters in a GOP primary. The man is one biscuit gravy breakfast from a coffin. He’d chock-up the win and continue doing what he has done since 1978.

  61. 61.

    Joseph Nobles

    @ulee: If you go watch the Kelly segment, she’s only setting up a T-ball for the Cheneys to knock around a while. She never challenges them on facts and gets right on back to the soft strokes after they finish.

  63. 63.

    ulee

    @⚽️ Martin: I suppose I was referring to journalists who actually had the killers in a direct interview. Cheney would never go on Maddow because he knows he would be slaughtered. And yes, after Maddow destroyed him she would graciously thank him for being on the show.

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @ulee: Please tell us how Kelly went after Cheney in toto during that interview? Perhaps it was a “hard” question among a shit load of soft balls.

    ulee, of course, is too much of an idiot to tell the difference.

  65. 65.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    Magical thinking is the only explanation for someone still holding the belief that any Republican these days would feel in any way obligated to Democrats – even if the Dems had helped him or her get elected. I’d rather watch the Rs slug it out.

  66. 66.

    ulee

    Even a little bit helps. Poor John Bolton tried to pull a Mark McGuire by saying he was looking forward and not back but found Megyn calling him on just that dynamic. This Iraq debacle will haunt these fuckers each and every time they try to blame Obama for the monster that they created.

  69. 69.

    askew

    This speech given at the Iowa Dem Convention this weekend sums up why I am backing O’Malley in 2016:

    Maryland is creating jobs at the second fast rate in our region – in fact, our state has created about 9,000 jobs in the past two months alone.

    Not only do our people now earn the highest median income in the nation, but we’re also rated one of the top states for UPWARD economic mobility.

    And just last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – hardly a mouthpiece for the Maryland Democratic Party – named Maryland the #1 state in America for innovation and entrepreneurship…, for the THIRD YEAR IN A ROW.

    But progress is also about creating a more just, more inclusive, and more secure future for our children.

    With a belief in the dignity of work — we expanded and protected collective bargaining rights.

    We don’t attack and belittle our teachers. We support them.

    With a belief in the dignity of every child’s full potential — we passed the DREAM Act in Maryland.

    And with a belief in the dignity of every human being — we passed marriage equality in Maryland.

    Together, we have driven crime down to 30-year lows in Maryland and we passed an important gun safety law that focuses on school safety, mental health reform, and stronger background checks for handgun purchases.

    And because climate change is real, we’ve expanded renewable energy…, accelerated energy conservation…, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

    Progress is a choice.

    We do not move forward by chance.

    Hope drives belief. Belief drives action. And action achieves results.

  70. 70.

    ulee

    I’ve never read Flannery O’Connor but from the quotes and references I’ve read at work the last couple of days she seems to be a writer to read. It’s sort of exciting to find such a great person out of the blue. Gotta get her collection of short stories, A Good Man is Hard to Find. Got to read of the misfit and the grandmother, first hand.

  71. 71.

    James E. Powell

    @ulee:

    Flannery O’Connor quotes and references aren’t found in most workplaces. Curious.

    O’Connor’s one of my favorite writers. I won’t bore you with my lover of her work, but I’d recommend you go with The Complete Stories – well worth $12.

  73. 73.

    Gvg

    this is a primary runoff? I guess I don’t see the harm then if you can get apathetic voters to start voting. I would still vote Dem in th general tho.
    One of the problems I haven’t seen a solution to on how to remodels the the GOP is that they are in a demographics trap but appealing to minorities is hard for two reasons. they only have pretty hard core racists still left voting for them so any softening of the racism loses voters they already have and minorities (especially blacks) would be foolish to trust them without seeing some results first. In other words pass some laws that help for several years in a row before you expect any voter results….They say nice things for about a week then turn around and do worse.
    Ultimately they will have to change but I don’t see how they get there. I guess a few situations like this could begin to find a way out. I dunno.
    It could also get a few more voters to seeing that their vote does matter and in the habit of voting. sounds like it has seemed pretty hopeless to a black Missisippian.

  74. 74.

    Will Twiner

    thing is, the only way the good ole boys even got Thad to run again was to promise him he could retire 1 year into his term, so they could appoint former Gov. Barbour to the seat. So, why on Earth would African-Americans effectively vote for Barbour for Senate?

  75. 75.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): A good portion of the African American community in Gainesville supported the Republican in the last mayoral election. The reasons are complicated but as strategy it was pretty smart. I don’t know that it has completely paid off although the mayor was really treadingvlightly for a while there. The local Dems were doing a terrible job of representing working families interests and labor activists had already started (mostly unsuccessfully) challenging local incumbents so it didn’t come from nowhere.

    Latino labor activists in Central Florida told me they intended to be a swing constituency because it meant whoever won would have to cater to their concerns. It’s just smart politics.

  78. 78.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Concede for the moment that “high crimes & misdemeanors” = “any damn reason we want to.” Then the only thing that saves the I&R process from a drawn-out vote-of-no-confidence is the 2/3 requirement for conviction by the Senate, even though the Senate is by far more the more disproportionate body.

    As we have seen, the TeaOP can assemble a hefty majority of the BSI in the House out of a decided minority of voters: Seize power in enough state legislatures & force through reapportionment to gerrymander the shit out of their CDs.

    Theoretically it would be possible to assemble 67 votes for conviction in the Senate from the votes of less than 1/6 of the electorate–bare majorities of the 34 least populous States, which by 2013 Census estimates are home to < 1/3 of the population (100.5M of 315.5M)–but in practice with only 1/3 of the chamber up for election every 2 years, there's almost no chance that any one party, much less any one faction of any one party, could manage that & then remove a sitting President of an opposing party all by itself. (At least one who was elected by the voters. It’s much more conceivable that [say] an unpopular VP who acceded to the Presidency by accident when the popular President died or resigned could go that way–cf Johnson, Andrew.)

    IOW, impeachment can be (& has been) a product of "faction," but removal almost always requires significant cross-factional agreement. Once again, kudos to the Framers.

  79. 79.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Will Twiner:

    … promise him he could retire 1 year into his term, so they could appoint former Gov. Barbour to the seat.

    Really? If so, no way. The people of Mississippi should reject back-room deals like this. They should go no where near it. Throw the jerks out. Let the Republicans stew in their cholera pit of hate and anger and privilege. The Democrats there should be putting in 20 hour days to try to win the seat for Travis Childers in the fall.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who just sent Childers some money.)

  80. 80.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Uncle Cosmo: I agree with your analysis – the 2/3 majority is such a high barrier for a reason. Similar the 3/4 of the states requirement to amend the Constitution. It means we still have anachronisms like the 2nd Amendment, but it protects things like free expression (flag burning) and has meant that economic kookery (balanced budgets) isn’t unchangeable national policy.

    I was hoping to get a little push-back from someone on my comment that a large-enough majority can do “almost anything they want” though. ;-) “They can’t do anything unconstitutional!!” Sure, if you take the language literally, but in practice lawyers are clever and can find work-arounds. For example, the Defund Acorn hysteria seems pretty obviously to have been an unconstitutional bill of attainder but it went through anyway. Oh well, I’ll try harder next time. :-)

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  81. 81.

    WereBear

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I say, let them let their freak flags fly. Maybe it will make “reasonable” conservatives stay home and persuade actual independents to go our way.

    Exactly. For too long the Republicans have lurked under the cloak of the Grownups Party when they are actually the Toddler Meltdown Party.

  82. 82.

    catclub

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    Functionally as a voting entity, McDaniel will be no different than Cochran,

    Cochran will become chair of appropriations if the GOP takes the senate. In terms of pork coming to Mississippi, he will vote differently than McDaniels will even be able to.

    I think there is an outside chance that Childers, the democrat, can beat McDaniels. But zero chance he can beat Thad.
    I think black voters can be energized to vote for Childers against McDaniel. Whether enough? I don’t know.

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @askew: If only he could have given that speech in a way that didn’t reek of “not ready for prime time”. That was the first time I had actually seen O’Malley, and I was expecting to be impressed. I was not.

    And wasn’t the ACA rollout a disaster in his state?

    I’m not saying he shouldn’t run, I’m just saying that he doesn’t make me believe he is ready to be president.

  84. 84.

    hueyplong

    We know what a fall election against Cochran looks like.

    We don’t know what a fall election against McDaniels looks like.

    Not sure there’s all that much to lose by taking a shot at the unknown.

    Or you could just say, “Forget it, Jake, it’s Mississippi.”

  86. 86.

    gbear

    @Morzer:

    “I’ve got a thick book on impeachable offenses of the president,” resolution sponsor Allen Unruh told the Argus Leader.

    He’s got folders!

  87. 87.

    El Caganer

    @askew: That’s pretty damn impressive. If I were a Democrat, I would certainly want to take a long look at him.

  93. 93.

    Southern Beale

    A Thad Cochran who owes his next—and probably final—term to black support is a Thad Cochran who might work to secure their interests in the Senate.

    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ….. gasp …. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!

    Dream on, Jamelle. Dream on!!!! Who the fuck do you think you’re dealing with here?

    You know what MY answer is to Thad Cochrane? Gee, maybe you guys in the GOP should have thought of this before passing all of those “return to Jim Crow” voter suppression laws.

    Assholes.

    How about, “well, I tried to vote for Thad Cochrane but I didn’t have the proper voter ID and was turned away…” Would LOVE to see a hundred of those stories in the newspaper.

    Fucking idiots.

  94. 94.

    Craig

    I’m used to a much higher standard from Jamelle Bouie. His idea that Thad Cochran’s heart will grow THREE SIZES the morning after black voters return him to office is so remarkably stupid, I can’t see how it survived even the editorial process at Slate.

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