Don’t turn back on Cochran’s clout
The GOP’s tea party wing, which is backing McDaniel, is asking voters to forget about that highly favorable balance of payments and to toss Cochran out, even as he has a real shot at again becoming chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful positions in Congress. They are asking the state to commit fiscal suicide, all in the name of making a point about the federal debt, about being uncompromisingly true to conservative principles, about registering general dissatisfaction with the country’s direction.
They make the argument that Mississippi was the poorest state in the nation when Cochran first went to Washington 41 years ago, and it’s still the poorest state in the nation. So what has all that federal spending done? they ask. The answer is simple. It’s kept Mississippi from being even poorer.
Without the clout of seniority, it’s unlikely Mississippi would have a shipbuilding or space industry on its Gulf Coast. It’s likely that the Delta, propped up by farm subsidies and flood-control projects, would be further depopulated. It’s unlikely that the state’s universities would have many of the attractive facilities or programs they now do. It’s likely that the Gulf Coast, decimated just nine years ago by the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, would be nowhere near its current state of recovery. In short, if not for the influence of Cochran and many of his like long-tenured predecessors, this state would be even further behind the rest of the country on most every meaningful economic, educational and social measuring stick.
Certainly, some of these benefits for Mississippi were achieved through legislative compromise. That’s the nature of getting things done in Congress and most any institution that’s democratic in nature. The problem in Washington is not that there’s been too much deal-making of late. It’s that there’s been too little on all sides. The Affordable Care Act to which McDaniel and his tea party faithful object so strongly is in fact the product of an unwillingness to compromise.
One of these days, Cochran should retire. At 76, he is showing his age.
When he does step down, though, it should be to a candidate in his mold: one who can reach across party lines to get things done, who brings this state together rather than drives it apart, who has more to him than a fire-breathing speech.
That candidate is not McDaniel.
We strongly recommend that voters in the Republican primary cast their ballot for Cochran.
Greenwood Commonwealth Editorial
6/1/14
Magnolia Tribune
