Saying his victory “would send a shockwave through the incumbent class,” Talk radio host Laura Ingraham endorsed state senator Chris McDaniel Tuesday in his bid against incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran, citing his early adoption of a new anti-amnesty pledge.
Monday, McDaneil signed an immigration pledge the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), raising the importance of the issue in the bloody primary battle in Mississippi.
McDaniel “is now working along with this group FAIR to get politicians to sign a ‘no comprehensive immigration reform’ pledge to focus on American workers and legal immigrants working in this country,” Ingraham said. “He has signed it. Very few other people thus far have signed it. We are monitoring this for you and tracking which senators and would-be senators, congressmen and would-be congressmen, sign this very important pledge. No wiggle room on the issue of amnesty here.”
Ingraham played audio of Cochran’s recent that he didn’t “know a lot about” the Tea Party, joking “you can’t make this stuff up.”
When she was introducing McDaniel to her audience, Ingraham described him as “the closest thing to Jeff Sessions that I have come across, Jeff Sessions meaning pro-American jobs, American economic renewal, really solid on the issue of immigration and American sovereignty.”
When McDaniel came on he likened himself to Sen. Sessions, saying he’d replicate Sessions’ style as a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. “For a change instead of playing political games, let’s focus on what really matters and that’s the American farmers and American workers,” McDaniel said. “That’s why I support Sen. Sessions. He’s been such a champion for farmers and workers over in Alabama–we’re next door [in Mississippi] and that’s what I plan to be as well.”
Ingraham asked McDaniel about the Chamber of Commerce’s support for both amnesty and for Sen. Cochran’s re-election campaign, and played a comment from Chamber president Tom Donohue who said recently America can’t sustain its military or healthcare programs without more foreign workers.
“It’s much more complicated than that, what he’s really saying is he needs more cheap labor,” McDaniel countered. “Look, the Chamber has a job to do, but this is not the Chamber I grew up with. It’s much different. For them to be attacking me in Mississippi it just goes to show how far off the conservative base they’ve moved,” he said.
McDaniel and Ingraham also discussed how former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s political machine is backing Cochran’s re-election efforts, and McDaniel said he and Barbour have different visions for what the Republican Party should be moving forward.
“Obviously Haley has a lot to lose down here and has known Sen. Cochran for many, many years,” McDaniel said. “Their vision of the party is very, very different than my vision for the party. I trust that he’s going to fight me aggressively and he has, and I trust that I’m going to fight him just as aggressively.”