http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=54730212-7F44-4952-AFF8-5D427E52B06D Ann Coulter calls on Chris McDaniel to give up
By: Jonathan Topaz
July 10, 2014 06:20 AM EDT
Ann Coulter is urging tea party challenger Chris McDaniel to concede in the Mississippi Senate Republican primary.
In an op-ed in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, the conservative commentator said McDaniel supporters who are fighting to contest the June 24 runoff election results against Sen. Thad Cochran are hurting the GOP — and McDaniel’s own political future.
“Some McDaniel supporters can’t think about anything but winning this one primary,” Coulter wrote on Thursday night. “They don’t care that they’re gambling with a Republican majority in the Senate — or destroying McDaniel’s future prospects.”
After a contentious and at times ugly primary campaign, McDaniel, a tea party favorite, lost a runoff election to the incumbent Cochran. The Mississippi Republican Party certified on Monday that Cochran won by 7,667 votes.
But McDaniel and some other conservatives have cried foul, alleging widespread voter fraud in the contest and accusing some in the Cochran camp of criminal activities. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas called for an official investigation into the race given “serious allegations of voter fraud.”
Yet Coulter said McDaniel’s supporters’ task to overturn the ruling would be nearly impossible, noting that they would have to prove not only that more than 7,000 ballots were invalid, but that all those individuals voted for Cochran. “Good luck with that,” she wrote.
Coulter also said that a prolonged investigation would hurt McDaniel’s career, making him look like a sore loser instead of a gracious one concerned with the Republicans taking control of the Senate in November.
“Even in cases of actual vote fraud, history shows that the contesting politicians get branded as sore losers and destroy their political careers,” she wrote. “Better to be magnanimous and live to fight another day.”
Coulter alleged that several Republicans in modern political history had been prey to voter fraud, including South Dakota Sen. John Thune in his unsuccessful Senate bid in 2002, a race won by Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson and contested by conservatives for ballot tampering.
