2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDid Cooter From ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ Beat Eric Cantor?
Eleanor CliftEx-Rep. Ben Jones, the Dukes of Hazzard star who once got his butt kicked by the majority leader, wrote an open letter calling on all voters to turn out against himand it worked.
A larger than life country character in real life and as Cooter on the 1980s TV show The Dukes of Hazzard, former Georgia congressman Ben Jones was basking in reflected glory when I reached him Wednesday at his hideaway in rural Little Washington, Virginia. My new quote, I just wrote it on the wall, he exulted. Theres no freude like schadenfreude.
He was referring to whats been dubbed the Cooter factor, an open letter the Democrat wrote encouraging voters of all political stripes to participate in Tuesdays open primary in Virginia and vote against Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Jones portrayed it as a way to make a statement about the dysfunctional Congress and politics as usual. The letter went viral, and GOP pollster John McLaughlin said a surge of new voters who were not Republicans was partly to blame for Cantors surprise defeat.
Only too happy to claim bragging rights, Jones reminded me that he is responsible for the downfall not only of the current majority leader but of former speaker Newt Gingrich. He ran against Gingrich in 1994, and though he lost the race by a wide margin, the ethics charges he brought against Gingrich eventually brought him down. In 2002, Jones ran against Cantor, another losing effort. Both of them whipped my ass, they beat me like a rented mule, and here I am feeling great, and they are all hangdog today, he said.
Between his political forays, Jones built a successful career as an actor, singer, and entrepreneur with Cooters museum and stores in Tennessee and Virginia. Democrats came to him in 2002; they needed someone to run against Cantor, and he reluctantly agreed, knowing it was a long shot and that he would be outspent. The race left him with an intense dislike of Cantor. He ducked debates, slandered me in slick mailings, questioned my patriotism and even mocked my Southern heritage, Jones wrote in his open letter. He simply cannot be taken at his word. You can call that sour grapes if you want to, but I am just telling it the way it was, and surely is. He endorsed Cantors opponent, college professor David Brat, calling him an old-school conservative.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/12/did-cooter-from-dukes-of-hazzard-beat-eric-cantor.html
FSogol
(45,579 posts)yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Every little bit helps.
I admire Cooter's tenacity and vengeful spirit. If you go all in, when the election is over doesn't have to mean it's over!
I wonder if McConnell could piss him off somehow?
FBaggins
(26,783 posts)He didn't hurt... I'm sure that there were a number of democrats who helped him (he reportedly even asked supporters to bring independents and democrats to the polls... but neither was likely to make the difference.
1 - It was a pretty large margin. Even with a low turnout it would be hard to believe that this kind of game would have larger than a 2-3% impact
2 - Cantor received fewer votes than two years ago... even though he spent more to get people to show up. This makes clear that he had a problem with core republicans.
3 - If Cooter'sCall (tm) had much of an impact, you would expect Cantor to do worst in the most Democratic precincts in the district... instead the results were just the opposite
enough
(13,268 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Newt Gingrich in GA. Very interesting...