There’s nothing like an anniversary and on Thursday, we move into triple digits. So here’s to 100 days of the Chris McDaniel Hostage Crisis.
Thursday will be a pivotal day as the McDaniel legal juggernaut enters its 8th or 9th different courtroom post-runoff (depending on how you count third party lawsuits and staff appearances before a grand jury).
Speaking of grand juries, this past weekend, the Clarion Ledger reported that McDaniel Communications Director and de facto Campaign Manager Noel Fritsch actually testified in front of a Lauderdale Grand Jury, reportedly about his own actions in funding the “Reverend” Stevie Fielder’s now recanted and discredited claims of vote buying.
Let that sink in for a moment. A candidate for US Senate is (reportedly) having his right hand and presumably highest paid staffer having to testify in front of a grand jury (that normally investigates felony charges) about actions that he was involved in. In what bizarro universe does that not wind up with someone getting let go from a campaign, even on just the optics of it?
Anyhoo, Fritsch thought so highly of Stevie Fielder that he recorded his conversation . . . and then published it. Apparently, Fielder wanted to have a prayer meeting with Magic 8-Ball Legal Team Leader Mitch Tyner. After being thrown by the McDaniel apparatus in a legal and political brush fire, Fielder thought it only sporting that the McDaniel campaign should help pay for his lawyer. Maybe one day Attorney General Jim Hood will get to the bottom of what happened. Maybe. For now, it looks like the McDaniel insiders are punking Hood publicly. It’s hard to believe he’s taking it so quietly.
But the fundraising rolls on.
We apparently now know the price of a Rick Santorum candidate endorsement. It’s one fundraiser for the PAC of his choice (his own) hosted largely by McDaniel insiders.
Yep, that’s right. Santorum is having a fundraiser next week in Jackson for (get this) “efforts to elect a Republican Majority to the US Senate”. Of course, the chosen vessel is his own Patriot Voices PAC. So if Santorum were so fired up about electing a Republican majority, it would stand to reason that he’d be supporting Republican candidates who could actually make that happen with the majority of his PAC dollars.
Eh . . . Not so much.
According to Open Secrets, as of Sept. 30, he’s spent a whopping $61,489 of the $1,444,473 he took in this cycle on pro-Republican or anti-Democrat ad buys nationally. That’s 4.2%. However, $941,418 (65%) of PAC expenditures goes to “fundraising mailings and calls.” Y’allPolitics is obviously in the wrong business. Those kind of numbers would make a televangelist blush. That’s power grifting and it’s nationwide. Good luck to the Mississippi attendees of that fundraiser.
What’s next? The trusted conservative thoughtleader Chuck Woolery campaigned for McDaniel, too. Will there be a Chuck Woolery PAC? WOOLPAC has a nice ring to it.
That’s the way it was – Day 100 of the McDaniel Hostage Crisis.
Good day Mississippi – and good luck.
