For centuries the term Pyrrhic victory, named after a military action in the third century BC, has come to mean winning a short term gain at a cost that ultimately  lost the war.  Perhaps it is may be time for that phrase to be retired in favor of the term the Cochranesque Victory after the tawdry and possibly illegal win-at-all-costs runoff primary victory of the Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran.  Cochran's Pork Barrel style is very much at odds with the direction the grass roots Republican Party has taken in the last couple of election cycles, and from what I have seen the little people who make the party work are royally pissed off about it. 

On Tuesday night I was at the campaign kickoff of my local Congressman, Mark Meadows.   His guest of honor was an ally from just over the state line, Congressman Trey Gowdy.  Another member of Congress was also in attendance.   Like many residents of South Carolina's low country, Joe Wilson, from South Carolina's 2nd District has long owned a second home in the mountains in order to escape the summer heat and humidity.  Wilson's 2009 "You Lie" outburst during President Obama's address before a joint session of Congress endeared him to those who have never understood the undue deference paid to the highly partisan presumptuous pup who finagled his way into the White House on a wafer-thin resume with the assistance of a race obsessed  media.

The several hundred people in attendance enthusiastically cheered on these three Republican opponents of the genteel politics as usual approach in Washington while the  private conversations were full of disgust with the DC based establishment of both parties.  The allegations of illegal vote buying among black voters by the Cochrann campaign was very much on the minds of these grass roots activists. 

For those who think that the GOP must stoop to pandering to win minority votes, there was one other person of note recognized by Congressman Meadows during his brief remarks.  Among those who came out to support Medows' reelection bid was Michell Hicks, Principal Chief of the Eastern band of the Cherokee Nation.  Long observation has me wondering if the charismatic Chief Hicks may be toying with the idea of a symbolic politcal reconquest of hereditary lands.  He is a most attractive man as well as a dynamic speaker who is has been raising his profile beyond the reservation.  Fauxochantus,  beware!  This real deal Cherokee Indian is a Republican.