For decades in Mississippi, almost every serious candidate running for statewide office has campaigned as a conservative. It didn’t matter what their party label, they all claimed to be “conservative,” and the contest was over who could out-conservative the other.
A variation on the theme is developing this campaign season, at least among the Republican Party, over the two U.S. Senate seats up for election. The GOP candidates are falling all over each other to show who is most closely allied with President Donald Trump.
Lining up behind the incumbent in the White House, no matter how erratic and controversial he might be, is apparently still good politics in this state, which went heavily for Trump in 2016 and has stood by him.
While these candidates are trying to profess how much they like Trump, let’s hope they don’t think that means they have to act like him and call their opponents by disparaging nicknames.
Last week, the campaign of Roger Wicker, who is running for re-election, stooped to this childish tactic when it referred to his short-lived opponent as “Lying Senator McDaniel.”
Wicker campaign manager Justin Brasell used the term in a prepared statement that questioned whether Chris McDaniel was still hedging his bets about which Senate race he would run in — challenging Wicker, as he first declared, or the seat being vacated by retiring Thad Cochran, as McDaniel says is now his intention.
Label McDaniel as an opportunist, as Gov. Phil Bryant has aptly described his former political ally. But Wicker should tell Brasell to drop the “Donald imitation.”
Name-calling is bad manners and reflects a limited vocabulary. It lowers the public discourse and turns off voters. Even when a surrogate does it, the name-calling reflects poorly on the candidate who authorized it.
These are going to be heated, tough campaigns. Fair enough. But let’s try to act like adults in the process.
