by TONY LEE
February 4, 2014
A pro-Cochran super PAC associated with former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is already on the airwaves to define upstart conservative state Senator and challenger Chris McDaniel five months before the primary.
Haley Barbour
(Photo courtesy konradyvonne.blogfrombed.com)
And even Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who on Sunday endorsed Cochran, criticized the group on Monday.
“I’m disappointed in that – it’s just not something that’s necessary,” Bryant said on Monday, according to the Clarion-Ledger. “I would urge them to stop the Republican-on-Republican attack. I believe it was Ronald Reagan who talked about the 11th commandment – thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.”
The New York Times reported that now-lobbyist Barbour, who is said to have purchased Newt Gingrich’s megaphone before the GOP’s historic “Contract with America” election in 1994, will help raise money for the pro-Cochran “Mississippi Conservatives” super PAC. The super PAC on Friday started to run an ad, which will run statewide for three weeks, that attempts to define McDaniel as someone who is not as conservative on Common Core, deficit spending, and tort reform as he may claim. Those three areas coincidentally may be Cochran’s biggest weaknesses as he tries to ward off a challenge from McDaniel, who has gotten the support prominent conservative organizations, in what will be a low-turnout primary.
Henry Barbour, Haley’s nephew who is advising the super PAC, conceded to the Times that Cochran is vulnerable in this political climate and that his nomination would not be a “cakewalk.” Cochran is a six-term senator whom Time magazine described as a “seasoned appropriator” who is a “spitting image of the Republican establishment” running in a deeply anti-establishment and anti-Washington climate.
McDaniel and Haley Barbour feuded when Haley was governor. McDaniel sponsored a bill to limit the state’s ability to take away private property to transfer it to other private owners, but Barbour vetoed the bill. McDaniel was narrowly defeated in his quest to override the veto.
Noel Fritsch, a spokesman for McDaniel, told Breitbart News that the “dishonest super PAC attack is further evidence that D.C. insiders like Haley Barbour and Karl Rove are desperate to retain any semblance of control by keeping their guy in office spending taxpayer money, voting for gun control, funding Obamacare, and helping Obama’s federal takeover of Mississippi’s education.”