State Senator Melanie Sojourner and the State Senator she beat four years ago, Bob Dearing, are locked in their own death struggle at the courthouse. The vote-counting has been real tight and no one yet knows who will win the race. Things got interesting yesterday as the Butler Snow dons, oops, I meant lawyers showed up yesterday to represent Mr. Dearing at the courthouse. Keith Plunkett reported on his MississippiPep blog:
Affidavits are being counted in Pike County today in a still-too-close-to-call race between Republican Senator Melanie Sojourner and Democrat Bob Dearing in the Senate District 37 race.
With the race tight and every vote in the heavily leaning Republican county more likely to end the race in favor of Sojourner, the Democrat has called in the guns of Butler Snow.
Butler Snow, a law firm turned government affairs operation, is the home base of uber-lobbyist and former Republican Governor Haley Barbour. .....
The attorneys are reportedly stopping the count and asking the names and addresses of every affidavit voter. Rest of post.
The jotting down of the names and addresses of affidavit voters is standard procedure. The elections in Canton alone have shown that is what a competent poll-watching operation should do as people who lived outside the district or claimed vacant lots for residence tried to vote via affidavit in 2012.
However, it is interesting that Butler Snow shows up to help Dearing. Mr. Plunkett is probably on to something in his post. Senator Sojourner and her ally Senator Chris McDaniel have been attacking the Barbours ever since the Senate race last year. They have called out Haley by name more than a few times in press releases and on Facebook. Well..... Haley knows how to play hardball and if you want to pick a fight, Mr. Barbour might be happy to oblige. It appears Mr. Barbour did so in this case as his firm is representing Dearing.
Ms. Sojourner provided some results on her Facebook page two hours ago:
Adams County (w/o absentees)
Dearing 3,631
Sojourner 1,748
Amite County (w/ absentees)
Dearing 998
Sojourner 1,750
Franklin County (w/ absentees)
Dearing 1,590
Sojourner 1,431
Pike County (w/ absentees)
Dearing 1,716
Sojourner 3,086
TOTAL
Dearing 7,935
Sojourner 8,015
She also stated "am headed to Adams County now seeking an explanation on why it is that a week later a report of the final count still has not been released?"
State law mandates that the results can not be certified until after five business days have passed. This is a result of voter ID as an affidavit voter who did not produce his ID at the poll has those five days to show his ID to the circuit clerk. I suspect that might be part of the issue.
Give her some credit. She hasn't backed down over the last year and has stood up for herself, right or wrong. She might go down but if she does, she is going down fighting.
16 comments:
Agree, but not surprising that she posts on FB that she does not understand simple election law.
I'll give her credit for going down fighting the same time I do the Nazis.
Election law is really NOT that simple. If it was, blogs and facebook pages would not have been lit up with explanations and misunderstandings about the Madison County contest day and night for the past week.
She lost. The tea party will have to find some other "babe" to drool over.
Alan Lange is so hot for Sojourner.
It's your fare, so be there!
I am glad Bob has competent representation. It is time to bring focus, attention, reason and sanity back to that seat.
PittPanther, sure appreciate you're civility here and obviously your concern over clean politics. I've been advocating having persons serve in public office that sincerely desire to 'make the system work' not 'work the system'. Why would Bob Dearing at his age (I understand pushing 81) want to return to the legislature?
I recall a conversation with him some years back when I suggested 'term limits' with his response being you needed to serve long enough to get power on committees. Does he expect Tate to give him a powerful senate committee as a Democrat who beat an obviously conservative Republican.
I suspect this is simply more of insiders wanting to maintain control over the state's GOP to continue to use it for personal rather than public benefit.
You seem to have scorn for Tea Party types but support for those who today run the state GOP as Sen. Eastland forces did the Democrats in years gone by. Odd that Haley ran against Eastland in the 80's yet today emulates the Eastland style of operation.
Mr Stog, I don't live in Natchez, so in some respect I don't have a dog in this hunt. However knowing that Sojourner ran the campaign for McDaniel instantly placed her into the pool of candidates who I do not want running my state. The fact that she lost to an octogenarian is simply humorous icing on the cake, so to speak. Of course on there other hand, the fact that the Democrat party only had an octogenarian candidate available is certainly an indictment against their own preparation and their (non existent) succession strategy.
As for my thoughts about the Tea Party, I have no respect for people who are against everything while offering no solutions to the problems this state and nation faces. Just yelling "cut, cut, cut government" does nothing to improve my schools, fix my infrastructure, or bring growth and businesses to Mississippi.
Sarah Fowler reporting Melanie conceded defeat.
Bob's baaack!!!! Thank goodness.
Thank you Melanie for gracefully conceding. Guess she saw up close what happened to his reputation when Chrissy pulled a hissy.
The best news of the entire electoral season.
Now that Bob's back and seeing as I have business interests in more than one county in the district, let's see what he does that makes our lives better than Melanie would have.
He's my senator now, so I expect big things from him.
Stog: Tate is much more likely to give Bob Dearing good assignments than Melanie who would have sat over in the corner with Chris twiddling thumbs.
5:27 This now leaves Michael over in the corner with Chris: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
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