An OH SO CLOSE Night For The Tea Party

Well, tonight saw a heart breaker of  a loss for a Tea Party backed candidate in Mississippi in the senate runoff, an actual fossil getting another two-years in congress and a win in Oklahoma in the latest round of primary elections.
The Fight Of The Century is probably over in Mississippi as state senator Chris McDaniel fell about 6,300 votes short of ousting the dinosaur Sen. Thad Cochran in the Republican senate runoff. It was a total reversal of fortune for Mr. McDaniel who defeated Sen. Cochran in the original primary a couple of weeks ago. Because neither candidate got 50% plus one, there was today's runoff. At 50.8%, Sen. Cochran barely cleared the mark to probably dispatch Mr. McDaniel.
Why do I not say this with absolute certainty?
Because, Mr. McDaniel may challenge the results.
Why not? After all if the results hold as is, a case can probably be made that there was some shenanigans in the vote.
In a strange voting rule in Mississippi, a voter from another party who did not participate in their own party primary could have voted today in this primary. So if one is a Democrat and did not vote in the primary election a couple of weeks ago, they could participate in today's Republican runoff. And Sen. Cochran decided to go for Black and Democrat voters to make up his deficit and may have them to owe for his apparent win. I look for Mr. McDaniel to decide in the next 48 hours if they would in fact be able to prevail in court to challenge the results. If Mr. McDaniel does not challenge the results, that does not mean he will go away anytime soon. After all there will be future elections and maybe a race for governor in the future.
Sen. Cochran owes his almost guaranteed seventh term as senator to Black and Democrat voters. I don't see how this helps the Republican party in Mississippi much, but that did not matter to Sen. Cochran who wanted to help himself.
While I am more than disappointed with the Mississippi result, I think that I am more disturbed that this fossil, Rep. Charles Rangel, will continue in congress and serve his 23rd term for New York state's 13th congressional district. Although in terms of a Republican chance in this race, there is none as no Republican chose to run. But Rep. Rangel was heroically challenged by state senator Adriano Espaillat. And while Sen. Espaillat is in worse shape to challenge any result as he is about 1,800 votes behind and almost four points down. But Sen. Espaillat is not giving up as of this writing. Sen. Espaillat believes that there are still votes to be had. I sure hope that is the case.
Charles Rangel is a reprobate in every sense of the word. Besides being a tax cheat, he loves to stir up the rhetorical pot big time. Why just before today's election, Rep. Rangel found time to compare the Tea Party to Hamas, the terrorists running the Gaza Strip. In other words, yeah, the Tea Party are nothing but a bunch of terrorists. I just recommend watching the video at the link.
The voters of the New York state 13th congressional district obviously does not seem to care just how awful Rep. Rangel is and I swear he could die and they will still vote for his propped-up corpse. You get what you deserve.
My last highlight race is in Oklahoma between current congressman James Lankford and former Oklahoma speaker of the house, T. W. Shannon. There were five others, but they were insignificant.
Mr. Shannon was very much supported by the Tea Party and folks like Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum. Rep. Lankford got more establishment support, but Rep. Lankford rode the Tea Party wave to congress in 2010. No matter who won this race will be a solid conservative Republican in the senate. This election is to finish the remainder of Sen. Tom Coburn's term as he is retiring.
In the end, it was not even close as Rep. Lankford defeated Mr. Shannon  57% to 34%. It was not even close.  The fact is that Rep. Lankford won huge in and around Oklahoma City and just enough in the Tulsa area to blunt the Shannon challenge. In the end, being a federal legislator helped Rep. Lankford while Mr. Shannon may have been seen as inexperienced. Who knows. In the end, both are and would be solid conservatives and are more of an overlap than a battle as was in Mississippi.
I wanted to see Mr. Shannon and yes, it is a reason I don't necessarily like but needed in the current climate.
Had Mr. Shannon won, he would be the first Black and Indian senator from Oklahoma. He would have joined Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who should win election in the November general. I thought that Mr. Shannon was the more reliably conservative of the two front runners. And my advice to Mr. Shannon is stay politcally active. Mr. Shannon is only 36 and should think about a run for governor in 2018. He will make a great governor as he was a great speaker of the house.
So this round of primaries was a kind of palate cleanser for us. It does not mean that it was a disaster for the Tea Party. The Tea Party exposed Sen. Thad Cochran as the establishment tool he is. We have a good candidate in Oklahoma for senate. In other words, it was a wash at worst.
It was an OH SO CLOSE night for the Tea Party.