The McDaniel Hostage Crisis Day 37 – Stipulations, no ethics, the DeathMobile and Hood v Johnson

We interrupt our coverage to bring you this special report.

The law partners from Hortman Harlow in Laurel can only watch from a distance. It was not a good day for Chris McDaniel’s Magic 8 Ball legal team. To settle their fatwa against the Neshoba County Circuit Clerk, the County Attorney exacted some stipulations from them. It wasn’t enough for the McDaniel side to just drop the suit (after the reaffirmed “Hallmark decision” at the Supreme Court). Neshoba County took it a step further. According to news reports, the County’s attorney required that the McDaniel team stipulate that their Circuit Clerk acted in accordance with the law before agreeing to release the suit. From the article, “Furthermore, the order said if the ballot box and poll book materials where intermingled without proper supervision, it could “adversely affect the integrity of the election materials.” That’s basically making them state in so many words that their lawsuit was frivolous and that they were stupid.

Speaking of ongoing legal issues, Melanie Sojourner disclosed yesterday that she has not filed her campaign finance report due to tornado damage to her home nearly a year ago. YallPolitics noted yesterday that according to the State Ethics Commission, her 2012 Ethics report had yet to be filed (though her 2010, 2011 and 2013 reports had been filed)

Scenarios for today could be anything from the polite and serene to the parade scene in the last 5 minutes of the movie Animal House.

Don’t be alarmed if you see this on Founders Square today (warning minor adult humor and a little course language)

Though there were zero McDaniel supporters on Founders Square yesterday, that doesn’t mean that Hostage Crisis news was not made. Attorney General Jim Hood on the stump alluded to Charles C. Johnson’s attempt to pay Rev. Fielder in Meridian for text messages of his now recanted story. From the Clarion Ledger article, said that his office is investigating the case, but that no laws seem to have been broken at this point. Apparently it’s not a crime in Mississippi to pay someone to lie. However, if being an asshole were against the law in Mississippi, Johnson would be looking at 15-20 years. Word is among Senate Republicans that there will be a bill introduced to officially outlaw being an asshole in Mississippi and it will be assigned to McDaniel’s committee.

Honestly having Jim Hood fighting Chuck Johnson is a vexing but no-lose proposition for the YP nation. Both have been thoroughly beclowned on these hallowed pages. Like an old friend once told me . . . “the unlucky bastards . . . they’ve got us surrounded. We can (rhetorically) fire in any direction.”

Meanwhile down on the Coast, the South MS Tea Party at the behest of the Chris McDaniel campaign sent out an email and is seeking to raise funds for someone promising to heckle Henry Barbour at the next RNC meeting. BUT (big but), he needs to raise money to afford the trip. Seriously, we are not making this up.

Mr Stearns needs our help to pay for the trip. He only needs a few hundred dollars more to reach his goal of $1,500. Christopher is planning to battle with Henry Barbour over the convention rule changes that were made in 2012 and I feel that anyone that will give Henry Barbour a hard time deserves my help.

One important distinction that has become crystal clear . . . McDaniel is not leading an army of 184,000. He’s leading an army that’s maybe 10% the size of that. It’s a vocal group and it encompasses a lot of the self-styled “leaders” of the movement, but it’s not HIS army. The rest of the rank and file, hard-working, self IDd Tea Party folks that have traditionally voted Republican but voted for McDaniel this time are getting increasingly tired of these antics. They seem to be willing to vote for Cochran in a general to help stop Harry Reid and make the Senate better able to battle the Obama agenda. Cochran’s task is to reach out to them, affirm their anger with Washington (which is real and valid) and talk about what his role (in the majority) will be to fix it.

In Day 37, both Joe Nosef and Phil Bryant will have an ideal chance today to publicly disavow this challenge foolishness. Whether or not there is intent to file, I think that it’s a safe bet that the strategy from the McDaniel campaign is not real in nature. They don’t have the goods to file or they would already have done so. As we’ve said consistently from the start, they never did. Privately, Nosef and Bryant need to help McDaniel find a way out. But putting public verbal pressure on the McDaniel camp today would be a good place to start.

That’s the way it was – Day 37 of the McDaniel Hostage Crisis.

Good day Mississippi – and good luck.