U.S. Senate candidate Travis Childers made a naked play pandering for Chris McDaniel voters Thursday by signing the same FAIR anti-amnesty pledge as the Republican state senator.
Childers is hoping the news overshadows the fact that the liberal noose of the Democrat Party remains securely tightened around his neck.
Rabid McDaniel voters seized on the news, sending a tingle down their legs. Some attempted to make the leap that somehow it showed that Childers is more conservative than Thad Cochran, the Republican nominee, as if this one bit of news alone gave them the reason they needed to crossover.
However, if you know anything about Mississippi political history what Childers did was no surprise; it’s straight from their usual playbook, just ask folks like Brandon Jones. Democrats have to run to the right and straddle the fence in this reddest of red states if they are to even appear viable in most areas, especially statewide.
So no is the answer to any question if Childers’ news is a game changer; it’s nothing more than political expediency down the stretch of a doomed campaign. If you think it is then either 1). you don’t know Democratic politics in Mississippi or 2). you’re a disgruntled McDanielite who is desperately trying to justify your potential vote for a liberal who will keep Harry Reid in charge of the US Senate and fall in line behind President Obama, violating the same rule of not supporting the nominee of the party primary they voted in while complaining about a similar thing they claim others who voted Cochran will do.
But even if Childers does gain McDanielites and Tea Party types, this move may well backfire on him.
The Southern Poverty Law Center isn’t hip on FAIR, the group which promotes this pledge. According to its website:
“The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a group with one mission: to severely limit immigration into the United States. Although FAIR maintains a veneer of legitimacy that has allowed its principals to testify in Congress and lobby the federal government, this veneer hides much ugliness. FAIR leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have made many racist statements. Its advertisements have been rejected because of racist content. FAIR’s founder, John Tanton, has expressed his wish that America remain a majority-white population: a goal to be achieved, presumably, by limiting the number of nonwhites who enter the country.”
If Childers’ liberal base and Democratic donors are terming FAIR as racists and white supremacists then this move is likely to not play well longterm for the Democratic US Senate candidate trying to hide his already politically sensitive allegiances in Mississippi by taking on the mantle of another his own base disdains.
Magnolia Tribune
