State Senator Chris McDaniel (R-Confederacy) is in hot water with the Republican Party Leadership in Mississippi. McDaniel, the challenger to incumbent Senator Thad Cochran, is listed as a speaker for an event that promotes, “white pride” merchandise. Did no one tell the Republican Establishment this sort of racial sensitivity training is all part of the ongoing voter outreach program for those, “challenging minorities?”
The event, the Combined Firearm Freedom Day/Tea Party Music Fest, takes place in the appropriately named Guntown, Mississippi. One of the vendors at the event is an organization known as Pace Confederate Depot, a group that deals with Tea Party, White Pride, and Confederacy merchandise. Pace Confederate Depot is, unsurprisingly, listed by the SPLC as an, “active White national group,” and founder Brian Pace is on record saying, “whenever we had racial segregation, things were much better off.”
The McDaniel Campaign said that Chris never had any intention of going to the event and wasn’t going to be attending. Damage control handled the issue well; the updated fliers for the event doesn’t show McDaniel as a speaker. Still, Mississippi Chairman Joe Nosef believes that Senator McDaniel needs to backtrack as quickly as possible, clarifying where he stands on the issue. Nosef said in a statement to NBC Thursday:
I think he should clear it up as fast as he can. Running for the United States Senate is a very important thing and as a party we need to always be careful and focused and serious about what our views are and what our interests are. And if Sen. McDaniel thinks that there’s more to tell, to explain it, my thought as the party chairman would be, the sooner the better.
This is just the latest in a series of volleys between the Republicans and the Arch-conservative Right, who are eating the Republican Party alive. McDaniel, backed by a Who’s Who of big money PACs, including FreedomWorks and Club For Growth, is squaring off against Thad Cochran, supported by the Republican Establishment. This sort of thing is happening all over the country, with various moderate (or “moderate”) Republicans in danger of being eaten alive by their more extremist challengers.
This isn’t the first time that McDaniel has found himself in hot water over being politically insensitive; back in February of this year, McDaniel made some critical comments about Hurricane Katrina relief, earning some enmity from the coastal regions of his state.
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