We Are Starting To Think The Mississippi Republican Senate Race Might Be A Bit Of A Clusterfuque

Let us take a quick peek at the ongoing clusterfuck that is the race to be the Republican Senate nominee from Mississippi, which has already brought us so many laughs. There was Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel playing footsie with neo-Confederates, and senile old Thad Cochran’s discovery that black people not only exist but also have the right to vote. (In Thad’s defense, he was already old and senile when the 15th Amendment passed.) There were allegations from blogger and living Garbage Pail Kid Charles C. Johnson that the Cochran campaign paid black voters $15 each to turn out and vote for Thad in the runoff election that followed the initial primary. Finally, just this week the McDaniel campaign demanded that the Republican Party throw out the election results and declare its candidate Supreme Emperor or something, because how is it fair that he lost just because he received fewer votes?

Today’s twist revolves around Stevie Fielder, the self-proclaimed black minister who told Johnson that he was the Cochran campaign’s liasion to the black community to turn out those bought-and-paid-for votes. Fielder’s story for weeks has been that he was approached by Cochran staffers with the plan, and Fielder had the text messages to back him up. (Cochran’s campaign said Fielder was paid for a get-out-the-vote effort but was never told to offer to pay people to show up at the polls.) Then he claimed that he did not help the Cochran campaign, and that when he gave his story to Johnson, he was only describing a hypothetical, not something that had actually happened.

Now Fielder has changed his story again, claiming that it is the McDaniel campaign that paid him $2,000 to give the interview to Johnson. Needless to say, the McDaniel campain denies it. We’re starting to think this Fielder guy might not be an unimpeachable source!

Meanwhile, Johnson has been defending himself on Twitter.

So you paid Fielder for the evidence that allegedly proved his story, but not for the story itself? Okay then! Seems a bit like hair-splitting to us, but you’re the award-winning journalist. We’ll say this, though: when even one of the nitwits who types garbage for the freaking Washington Examiner   thinks you are not practicing journalism, you might want to rethink your choices.

At this point we were going to suggest taking off and nuking the whole state of Mississippi from orbit, as it’s the only way to be sure. But why deprive ourselves of all this hilarity? After all, it’s the dead of August and this is better than anything on TV.

[ Talking Points Memo ]