McDaniel, Chris rep

TP lost all but 1 in last round of primaries?

Chris McDaniel	Chris McDaniel

Member of the Mississippi State Senate from the 42nd district	Member of the Mississippi State Senate from the 42nd district
Incumbent	Incumbent
Assumed office January 8, 2008	Assumed office January 8, 2008
Preceded by	Stacey Pickering
Personal details	Personal details
Born	Christopher Brian McDaniel June 28, 1971(age 47) Laurel, Mississippi, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Education	Jones County Junior College William Carey University (BS) [University of Mississippi, Oxford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Mississippi "University of Mississippi") (JD)

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miss today

Even if one were to believe erstwhile candidate Chris McDaniel’s incomplete, conflicting, shifting accounting of hundreds of thousands in secretive campaign donations, it still begs the question: Where did the $15,000 go?

It also begs the question: Why is Attorney General Lynn Fitch overlooking what appear to be flagrant violations of campaign finance law by McDaniel, instead only going after his out-of-state campaign finance chairman and less-clear allegations?

Longtime state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s failed run for lieutenant governor is one for the record books. Primarily, it saw record amounts of out-of-state, secretly sourced campaign money pumped into his campaign and related state PACs. It also saw allegations of flagrant violations of state campaign finance laws and reporting requirements, and has led to calls for reform by multiple statewide elected officials.

Mississippi law says a candidate or state political action committee can accept no more than $1,000 a year from a corporation.

McDaniel, running for lieutenant governor this year, created a state PAC that accepted $475,000 from a mysterious Virginia-based dark-money corporation, the American Exceptionalism Institute.

McDaniel’s PAC then funneled $460,000 of that money to his campaign. It made up the vast bulk of his bankroll as he kicked off his campaign early this year.

But his initial PAC reports appeared to obfuscate this. For starters, he reported the PAC had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars the year before it was legally created, with no sources listed for the donations. After multiple revised reports, it became clear the PAC had received $475,000 from AEI.

Eventually, after questions from Mississippi Today and complaints to the attorney general by his opponent incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, McDaniel said he was returning the money to AEI.

Problem is, by McDaniel’s own accounting, his PAC only returned $460,000 to the corporation.

What happened to the other $15,000?

Mississippi voters will likely never know. His final “termination-amended” report for his PAC gave no accounting. And Fitch appears to have closed the book on that complaint.

And despite laws that require candidates to divulge the sources of campaign donations, they’ll likely never know the original source of the $475,000 from the American Exceptionalism Institute, which has pumped millions of secretly sourced dollars into campaigns across the country.

They’ll also likely never know all the sources of the total of nearly $1 million more pumped into a separate PAC that McDaniel’s Wisconsin-based treasurer created in the eleventh hour of the 2023 race to run TV attack ads on Hosemann.

McDaniel has said he knows very little about the finances of his PAC or campaign, and as he faced questions about them over months, he often chalked problems up to “clerical errors” and provided few other comments.

But in a statement for this article, he refuted that $15,000 remains unaccounted for.

“As a candidate, I have no involvement in the financial operations of any committee or PAC,” McDaniel said. “But I’ve been advised that all the money from the (American Exceptionalism Institute) was refunded.”

McDaniel has refused to answer what he knows about AEI or why it would pump nearly half a million dollars into Mississippi’s lieutenant governor’s race. Little information on AEI is available online, and efforts by Mississippi Today — and several other media outlets over years — to contact the organization or find more details have been fruitless.

When he announced he was returning the money, McDaniel said he believes Mississippi’s corporate donation limit laws are unconstitutional and would fall to a legal challenge. But he said he did not have time or resources for such a challenge, so he was giving it back.

McDaniel has referred to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court Citizen’s United ruling in 2010. It held corporations and PACs can spend unlimited amounts on broadcasts and communications related to an election, provided they act independently of any candidate.

But courts have also upheld state limits or bans on corporate donations to campaigns or state PACs. Only five states allow unlimited corporate campaign donations, while 23 ban them. The other 22 set some restrictions on corporate donations.

Mississippi’s campaign finance laws are seldom enforced, and allegations of violations seldom investigated. The state’s laws regulating a politician’s campaign cash and reporting appear to fall under a special Oops Doctrine. If a campaign accepts an illegal contribution or makes a glaring omission or mistake on a report, it can typically avoid investigation or prosecution by giving the money back, amending reports or filing them later. Few other laws offer this escape.

But typically, these appear to be legitimate mistakes and oversights by large campaigns for far smaller donations. They are typically flagged by the campaigns themselves, the money returned promptly and the transactions duly noted on finance reports.

McDaniel’s PAC and campaign appear to have held onto AEI over-the-limit money for months, and its reporting was confounding. At one point, McDaniel’s PAC reported it returned $460,000 to AEI on the same day it received $237,500 from the corporation. His many amended reports have been difficult to follow.

Mississippi Today first raised questions about McDaniel’s campaign finances in February, and Hosemann filed his first legal complaint with the attorney general’s office in March. For months, AG Fitch’s office’s only response was, “We are looking into it.” This prompted calls for investigation and enforcement. Secretary of State Michael Watson at the Neshoba County Fair called for lawmakers to give his office campaign enforcement authority. He said, “When people do not do their jobs, I will stand in the gap for Mississippians” — a clear dig at Fitch.

Amid this pressure, just days before the primary election, Fitch announced she was investigating the separate PAC run by McDaniel’s campaign treasurer. The Invest in Mississippi political action committee was created in July by Wisconsin political operative Thomas Datwyler, who McDaniel also listed as his campaign’s treasurer. Datwyler has a history of running afoul of Federal Election Commission campaign finance rules with several congressional campaigns.

Datwyler’s PAC ran ads against Hosemann late in the race, fueled by at least $885,000 in donations from out of state super PACs. Hosemann’s campaign had filed another complaint late in the race that the PAC-to-PAC donations were an attempt to dodge the $1,000 corporate donation limit, and that the PAC cannot claim it is independent of McDaniel because it’s run by his campaign treasurer.

In a statement announcing the investigation, Fitch said, “The people of Mississippi should be able to expect that those who participate in our electoral process will not seek to exploit this careful balance and step over that line, and in this instance, there is evidence to suggest that has occurred here.”

Fitch did not mention McDaniel in her announcement of the investigation, but a spokeswoman for her office later indicated the office was also investigating another complaint raised by Hosemann.

But the spokeswoman also said another earlier complaint had been looked into and closed. This, the Hosemann campaign confirmed, was the original complaint about McDaniel’s PAC, the campaign and the $475,000 AEI donation.

Fitch’s office has declined comment on why it would not pursue the original complaint, including where the unaccounted-for $15,000 went. McDaniel appears to have acknowledged violation of the campaign donation limit laws, saying repeatedly he would likely win a legal challenge of the law.

Many political observers have surmised Republican Fitch is loathe to go after complaints about McDaniel for fear of angering his conservative base in the state GOP. Fitch’s office has faced some complaints of failing to fulfill responsibilities of the office, instead focusing on big headline-grabbing national issues and cases.

In a statement, Hosemann spokeswoman Leah Smith said: “When our opponent received $475,000 from the corporation and returned only $460,000, we contend a violation of the campaign finance laws occurred. It was impossible to determine what happened with those funds because accounting was so poor throughout, in addition to all of the other violations. We anticipate a number of legislators will be enthusiastically interested in reform this year and our office is, too.”

McDaniel, who after his defeat for lieutenant governor will be vacating his state Senate office in January after 16 years, was once himself a vocal champion for campaign finance reform and more transparency for voters of the source of politicians’ money. His latest campaign’s legacy, it appears, may be an invigorated push for reform.

In his victory speech on primary election night, Hosemann said: “When you have this much dark money pumped into a race — almost $1 million in the last week — it screams for reform. We are going to listen to those screams.”

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Christopher Brian McDaniel (born June 28, 1971) is an American attorney, talk show host, and Republican Party politician who has served in the Mississippi State Senatesince 2008.^[1][2] McDaniel was a candidate for United States Senate in 2014, but lost the Republican nomination to incumbent senator Thad Cochran in a runoff election.^[3]

On February 28, 2018, McDaniel announced his intention to campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate against incumbent senator Roger Wicker.^[4] On March 14, 2018, McDaniel withdrew from that race and declared his candidacy in the nonpartisan 2018 U.S. Senate special election necessitated by Cochran's resignation.^[5]

Early life and education

McDaniel was born in Laurel, Mississippi.^[6][7] He is the only child of Carlos and Charlotte McDaniel.^[8] He graduated with honors from Jones County Junior College^[6][7] and received a B.S. with honors from William Carey University in 1994.^[6][7] He then entered the University of Mississippi School of Law, graduating cum laude in 1997 with a Juris Doctor degree.^[6][7][9] McDaniel resides with his family in Ellisville, Mississippi.^[6][7] He is the grandson of early country singer Luke McDaniel.[citation ^needed]^

Legal and radio career

In 1997, McDaniel entered a two-year federal clerkship with United States District Court Judge Charles W. Pickering.^[7] After leaving that position, he joined the law firm Hortman Harlow Bassi Robinson & McDaniel,^[7][10]becoming a partner in 2003. His areas of concentration include litigation, insurance defense, corporate law, products liability, commercial litigation, consumer products litigation, mass tort litigation, complex multi-party litigation, legislation, Constitutional law, and civil rights. He is licensed to practice law in Mississippi and Texas.^{[7][9][11][12]} In 2010, he was named one of the top 50 lawyers in Mississippi by the Mississippi Business Journal.^[9][13]

McDaniel is the former host of The Right Side Radio Show on WMXI 98.1 FM in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, nationally syndicated since 2006 by EBN Radio Network and Golden Broadcasters. The show was broadcast nationwide on ABC Radio Networks and the industry standard Starguide III system.^[14] It returned to local stations after McDaniel left the show.^[15][16]

Political career

McDaniel was named 2010 Citizen of the Year by the Laurel Leader Call^[9] and a 2012 "Rising Star" in the Republican Party by The Clarion-Ledger.^[17]

In 2012, McDaniel led a delegation to the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas, for the dedication of a monument to the eight Mississippians who died when the fort was overrun in 1836.^[18][19][20]

Mississippi Senate

McDaniel is a Republican who has served in the Mississippi Senate since 2008.^[2]

2014 Senate campaign

In 2014 McDaniel ran for theU.S. Senateseat occupied byThad Cochran. He was vocal about his intention to repeal Obamacareif elected, and to work toward lowering the national debt.^[21]He was endorsed by theClub for Growth PAC^[22][23] and the Tea Party Express.^[24]In the June 3 Republican primary, McDaniel received 49.6% of the vote and Cochran 49.0%, forcing a June 24 runoff election.^[25][26]McDaniel lost the runoff, 49% to 51%.^[27]

In the aftermath, the McDaniel campaign claimed there were indications of voter fraud, and that about 3,300 Democrats had voted for Cochran in the runoff. The campaign said it was investigating whether the crossover voting violated Mississippi law.^[28]On July 2, McDaniel wrote in a fundraising pitch, "Last week's runoff election was a sham, plain and simple," and charged that Cochran "stole" the nomination.^[29]A day after the election results were certified by the state party, Senator Ted Cruz and some Tea Party groups backed an investigation of voter fraud in the runoff election.^[30]Cruz also told reporters that groups aligned with the Cochran campaign had run racially charged ads designed to persuade black voters to vote against McDaniel.^[30][31]Regarding the ads, McDaniel said that the GOP is "a party that does not need to play the race card to win."^[32]On July 17, the Mississippi State Supreme Court rejected McDaniel's request for access to poll books without voters' birthdates blacked out, which his attorneys argued were needed to identify fraudulent votes.^[33] In August 2014, a Mississippi judge dismissed McDaniel's challenge.^[34] On October 24, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's dismissal in a 4–2 decision.^[35]

2018 Senate campaign

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chris_McDaniel_logo.svg

Main article: United States Senate special election in Mississippi, 2018

McDaniel originally declared his intent to run against Senator Roger Wicker in the 2018 Republican primary.^[36][37] Then, on March 5, 2018, Thad Cochran announced he would resign effective April 1. This prompted McDaniel to switch to the special election, saying, "by announcing early, we are asking Mississippi Republicans to unite around my candidacy and avoid another contentious contest among GOP members that would only improve the Democrats’ chances of winning the open seat." He was the second candidate to enter the race; the first, Democrat Mike Espy, declared his candidacy shortly after Cochran announced his resignation.^[5][38]

Political positions

Eminent domain

As a first-term senator in 2010, McDaniel urged his fellow State Senators to override Governor Haley Barbour’s veto of eminent domain legislation that would prevent government from taking private land for use by private companies.^[39] The override effort failed by two votes, but began a grassroots ballot initiative to amend the Mississippi Constitution. The ballot initiative passed the following year.^[40]

Healthcare

On April 9, 2010, McDaniel filed a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Phil Bryant and 11 other Mississippians for declaratory and injunctive relief seeking a determination that provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590) violated the United States Constitution by requiring American citizens to purchase health insurance.^[41][42]

State flag

In his 2018 Senate campaign, McDaniel's signature issue was a promise to preserve the Flag of Mississippi, which bears the Confederate flag. The flag features on McDaniel's campaign materials.^[43]

Other

McDaniel has spoken at conferences held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.^[44][45][46] In 2006 or 2007 he made statements on his talk show on reparations for slavery, race, and women that Politico, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and other news organizations characterized as controversial.^[47][48][49]

On January 22, 2017, McDaniel responded on Facebook to the 2017 Women's March by referring to marchers as "a bunch of unhappy liberal women" and questioned taxpayer-funded birth control.^[50]

Controversies

McDaniel has said of former Attorney General Janet Reno, "I'm not even sure Janet Reno was a woman".^[51] He has said that the Democratic Party is the party of "sex on demand, the party that supports the homosexual agenda."^[51]

The website for McDaniel's broadcast show "The Right Side Radio Show" listed League of the South as one of its favorite websites.^[51]The group is pro-southern secessionist, describing itself as a "Southern Nationalist organization that seeks the survival, well-being, and independence of the Southern people."^[51]When asked about this in 2018, McDaniel's spokesperson said McDaniel "has never endorsed the League of the South and has nothing to do with them."^[51]

On August 15, 2017, McDaniel claimed on his Twitter account that Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate States Army, was opposed to slavery.^[52](Lee accepted "the extinction of slavery" provided for by theThirteenth Amendment, but believed slavery was good for black people, publicly opposedracial equality, and opposed grantingAfrican Americansthe right to vote and other political rights.)^[53][54][55]McDaniel later defended his views on Lee in a Facebook post that was discovered to have been plagiarized from Dinesh D'Souza.^[56]

In 2007, McDaniel's immigration policy, as stated on his website, plagiarized text from a number of sources.^[57]

Personal life

McDaniel is married to Jill Tullos McDaniel, who was the 1995 Miss Mississippi USA.^[58] They have two children. McDaniel is a Southern Baptist.^[7][59]

Chris McDaniel Campaign Role Affirmed In Clayton Kelly Sentencing 0

BY MATT OSBORNE ON JUNE 16, 2015 LATEST NEWS

Clayton Kelly, the aspiring Mississippi political blogger who entered the nursing home room of Senator Thad Cochran’s comatose wife to take cell phone video for a YouTube hit piece, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and the same amount of time on probation yesterday. Though he is unlikely to serve the full sentence, Kelly did not escape jail time by cooperating and pleading guilty to conspiracy because of a previous felony marijuana conviction.

At trial, the state presented evidence gleaned from email and social media accounts belonging to Kelly and three men connected to the Chris McDaniel campaign which shows them making a clumsy effort to cover up the scheme. According to the The Clarion-Ledger, Kelly was warned to avoid any appearance of coordination with the Chris McDaniel campaign.

“We need you to have no more contact with the campaign,” John Mary, a.k.a. John Bert, messaged Clayton Kelly one day last February. “What we are going to do will be EXPLOSIVE. The other side will be hunting for ANY connection to you.”

The ringleader, Mary was a close confidant of McDaniel who communicated with Kelly through his talk radio persona on Facebook. Pleading guilty to felony conspiracy to commit a computer crime the same day he turned himself in, Mary will not spend a day in jail. Rick Sager, who seems to have been the group’s Twitter user, also pleaded guilty and will serve no time.

Mark Mayfield, a Mississippi Tea Party leader and attorney who also participated in the conspiracy, took his own life in June of 2014. As reported by BU at the time, Mayfield had organized several speaking events that were advertised by the white supremacist Mississippi Council of Conservative Citizens WordPress blog, and speakers included insane birther and genocide apologist Brigitte Gabriel.

The Clarion-Ledger notes that Kelly was at the bottom of the conspiracy, not the top:

[Judge William] Chapman said it’s been his experience with armed robberies and other crimes that the smarter criminals talk the less intelligent ones into doing the actual crime.

“This defendant probably fits into that category,” Chapman said.

It was obvious from the beginning that the 29 year-old Kelly’s video must be connected to the McDaniel campaign, which knew about its existence ninety minutes before anyone else did. All four men arrested for the intrusion were McDaniel supporters, and early reporting indicated that Kelly had made two prior attempts to obtain the same video. In an interview with the Clarion-Ledger, Kelly’s wife Tara stated that her husband had been ordered to take the video down ninety minutes after he posted it.

The brutal primary race between Chris McDaniel and incumbent Thad Cochran was by far the dirtiest election of the 2014 midterms, and also one of the most expensive. Concerned that McDaniel could lose the race to a Democrat, the national Republican Party poured millions of dollars into the race. But as a grassroots Tea Party favorite, McDaniel also enjoyed huge outside support and funding from the most reactionary elements of the conservative movement.

Forced into a runoff with McDaniel, Cochran began a first-person campaign in earnest and encouraged crossover voting to win easily. McDaniel then tried to overturn the results in Mississippi courts while the right wing “voting integrity” organization True The Vote filed a lawsuit to obtain access to sensitive voter information. McDaniel was denied at the state supreme court and the litigation by TTV was dismissed.

Rose Cochran, who suffered from dementia, had been unconscious for years when Kelly entered her room to take his video. Reporting the story from a Tea Party perspective, Matthew Boyle of Breitbart.com focused on rumors of the incumbent senator’s relationship to Kay Webber, a longtime aide, insinuating a lack of concern for Rose’s wakeless feelings.

Rose finally died in December. Cochran married Webber in May.

According to The Clarion-Ledger, Rose and Thad’s son made a brief statement to the court.

“I’m here as much to mourn my mother as to condemn anybody who perpetrated the crimes that have been discussed,” Clayton Cochran said. “She was a lovely woman. We miss her, and she lives in our hearts.”

Acting at the instigation of men within the McDaniel campaign, Clayton Kelly’s stolen video was intended to convince Mississippi voters that Rose did not live in Thad Cochran’s heart at all. Not only did they fail, but in the final analysis they probably did their favored candidate lasting political harm: Chris McDaniel has never been elected to public office, but he already has a Nixon-style scandal permanently attached to his name.

Sen. Thad Cochran hopes Democratic votes can prevent his loss to a Tea Party challenger

Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran hopes Democrats can save him from the Tea Party in Tuesday’s primary runoff, but the state Democratic leader is urging voters to sit this one out

Cochran placed just behind state Sen. Chris McDaniel in the June 3 primary, and polls leading up to Tuesday’s runoffdon’t bode well for the six-term incumbent; the Real Clear Politicspoll average has McDaniel leading Cochran by 6.3 points.

A longtime Washington operator, Cochran hopes his relatively moderate politics and well-established record of bringing federal dollars into Mississippi will convince Democrats to cast a vote for the devil they know to block the devil they don’t. In Mississippi’s open primary system, voters can cast ballots in either party’s primary election so long as they do not vote in both, meaning only Democrats who didn’t vote in the Democratic primary can cast ballots in the runoff.“I’m encouraging Democrats to stay out of the Republican primary,” state Democratic Party chairman Rickey Cole told TIME, “simply because I believe that party primaries should be an opportunity for the party faithful to pick their candidate for the general election.”

In response to Cochran’s push for Democratic votes, McDaniel supporters, including groups like Freedom Works and Tea Party Patriots, have pledged to bring in “election observers” to, they say, “observe whether the law is being followed.”

theblaze:

Adam Brandon, the executive vice president of FreedomWorks, said that while he was in the green room preparing to appear on ”The Glenn Beck Program” with guest host Dana Loesch on Monday, the Associated Press gave him a curious phone call.

Groups like FreedomWorks, True the Vote, and the Tea Party Patriots, among others, have sent poll monitors to Mississippi ahead of the GOP primary runoff between U.S. Senator Thad Cochran and state Senator Chris McDaniel on Tuesday.....

It looks like the Club for Growth really holds a grudge. The right-leaning free enterprise group that has been going after Republican incumbents is out with a new ad Monday targeting Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran (R) -- for votes as far back as the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

The 76-year-old Cochran, who first went to Congress in 1973, certainly has cast a lot of votes, first in the House, then in the Senate, where he has been since 1978. There's plenty for opponents to criticize, and the Club for Growth goes for the whole sweep, starting with Cochran's voting with Carter on education policy. It also touches President George H.W. Bush's "read my lips" pledge of no new taxes, and the many times Cochran has backed hiking the nation's debt ceiling, which just about any politician who served more than a year has had to do.

In fact, while the Cochran ad doesn't mention it, Club for Growth president Chris Chocola voted for budgets that hiked the nation's borrowing cap three times: from $6.4 trillion to $7.384 trillion in 2003, to $8.1 trillion in 2004, and to $8.965 trillion in 2005 and 2006. Chocola was a Republican congressman from Indiana from 2003 to 2007.

The Club For Growth ad is not the only one being dropped on Cochran, who is being challenged by state Sen. Chris McDaniel. Senate Conservatives Action, a political action committee founded by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), also announced it was spending more than $300,000

politico ad wars outside $

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Cochran’s advertising strategy now is almost all about what he can do for the state and his sway over federal dollars. Since he hasn’t faced such a tough race in a long time, he’s re-introducing himself to many voters and reminding them what’s he done for them.

One that the campaign has run in heavy circulation in the past week, called “More For Mississippi,” shows Cochran sitting in the living room of his Oxford, Miss., cabin and talks up his past work to support “our aerospace industry, shipbuilding, military bases, research and development and agricultural breakthroughs.” The screen lists twenty institutions or companies that have benefited from federal largess, including “Catfish and Cotton Research” in Stoneville, Miss.

“Thad Cochran’s strong leadership makes it happen. He’s a powerful voice for our state. Let’s keep him working for us,” the narrator intones.

There’s not one mention of “conservative” in the ad, which may be indicative of an apparent strategy to get moderate Republicans and Democrats to vote for him in Tuesday’s run-off.

Cochran’s ads, made by Stuart Stevens’ firm Strategic Partners & Media and Frontier Strategies run by Quinton Dickerson and Josh Gregory, play heavily on the senator’s personal likeability and easy-going nature.

But Cochran’s campaign also recently released a harsh attack against McDaniel with clips of him saying things on his former radio show such as: “It’s so interesting to see this woman, basically using her … breasts to run for office” and “Mamacita. Hey hot momma. … You’re a fine looking young thing.”

The ad ends with McDaniel yelling “I’m not done! I’m not done!” and the narrator assertively says: “Chris McDaniel – You are done,” the last three words highlighted in red text.

“McDaniel spent hundreds of hours on radio,” said a Cochran campaign source. “About 10 hours have come out so far, the rest would be were he the nominee. And people can make their own decision about what they think of it, and whether or not it’s what they want in their next senator.”

His campaign has also shifted away from previous ads that hit hot-button conservative issues. Before the primary, it ran ads bragging about his to “Obamacare” and that he had been endorsed by the NRA.

“[They are trying] to change the electorate to bring in more liberal Democrats,” said a McDaniel campaign source. “They have focused much more on sort of a more general-election type strategy, reaching out to Democrats, much less on ideology.” Democrats who didn’t vote in their June 3 primary are eligible to vote in the runoff.

All these ads have inundated the state in recent days and weeks, and it’s hard for voters to get a respite from them.

“It’s just a total barrage,” said Dan Davis, president of Jackson-based political consulting firm Southern Research Group, some of whose clients support Cochran. On Wednesday night when watching a local TV news program, he saw three ads in a row: one Cochran, one McDaniel, and one McDaniel supporting super PAC.

With the race neck-and-neck and only a small number of voters who haven’t made up their minds, the ads saturating the airwaves are targeting an exceedingly small number of people while at the same time reminding supporters to show up.

McDaniel’s campaign ads have largely touched on national themes, instead of spelling out what specifically he would do for voters. McDaniel drew flack for telling POLITICO in February that relief for Hurricane Katrina would not have been “an easy vote to cast.”

The one ad that McDaniel’s campaign currently has on the air, created by the firm Cold Spark Media, has upbeat music and tells the viewer they made history on June 3. The words “Endorsed by Sarah Palin” appear on the screen in the final few seconds.

“Chris McDaniel is a proven conservative leader with an agenda for Mississippi: repeal Obamacare entirely, reduce the national debt, cut taxes and term limits for all our politicians,” the narrator says.

McDaniel knows that voters who care most about federal projects probably aren’t going to back him. So his ads attempt to frame the choice in terms more favorable to him.

“You have to figure out what your message is, you have to figure what message works, and you need to hammer that message home and everything else is a distraction,” said the McDaniel source.

Feeling the wind at their backs, outside groups supporting McDaniel with advertising are similarly emphasizing ideology over state-specific issues. One of the groups spending the most money is the Club for Growth, which is putting money into radio ads and mailers as well as traditional television spots.

Their playing now, called “Entitled,” has a somber female narrator saying: “It’s sad what happened to Thad Cochran. He served well but after five decades he’s lost touch.”

“In Washington, he votes with the liberals on spending, on judges, even on funding Obamacare” and shows pictures of Harry Reid, President Obama and Nancy Pelosi to try to tie Cochran to people deeply unpopular in Mississippi. The ad’s faint background shows Obama’s campaign logo.

The ad doesn’t mention Cochran’s opposition to the ACA before and since it passed.

A key statistic that’s cited in some of the anti-Cochran ads is his number of years in Washington: 41. The figure seems to suggests to voters that they should think Cochran, at 76, is too old for another term, although the ads don’t say that outright because Cochran is personally very likeable in the state.

Very conservative groups such as Our Country Deserves Better PAC, Senate Conservatives PAC, Family Research Council’s PAC and The Madison Project have also jumped into the action against him.

The most unusual ad? The “Now or Never PAC” is spending $90,000 on a radio spot that capitalizes on Cochran’s comment last week that he did “all kinds of indecent things with animals” as a kid growing up.

The ad uses the audio of Cochran’s comment and adds the loud sound “Baaaahhh.” The narrator then says: “Tell Thad Cochran you’re no farm animal. And you are not going to take being on the receiving end of his so-called fun any longer.”

The Cochran campaign source said that outside groups were attempting a “hostile takeover of the state so they can own it.” But Cochran has received outside support too.

Groups like the National Association of Realtors and the U.S. Chamber of Congress that have a financial stake in Cochran remaining in office are also on the air, with the Chamber bringing in a big-time closer: NFL legend Brett Favre.

However, one pro-Cochran group, the Mississippi Conservatives PAC, has stepped away from TV advertising in the campaign’s final days.

“It’s more important to put our money into organization than it is to put into TV ads,” said Henry Barbour, who runs the PAC and is the nephew of former Miss. governor Haley Barbour. “We don’t think we’re going to flip a lot of people at this point. It’s a whole lot more about turning people out and identifying people that did not vote last time.”

“The organization, frankly, in the primary [last time around] was just weak, and part of that was just complacency, and the McDaniel campaign was very energized [with its] people working hard,” he said.

The PAC, however, is putting in targeted small amounts of money on mailers, Internet radio ads and Facebook ads, according to FEC records. The message they’re driving is the same as the Cochran campaign: he brings home the bacon.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/thad-cochran-chris-mcdaniel-ads-federal-spending-conservative-credentials-108180.html#ixzz35b5tY9CL