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WASHINGTON Chris McDaniel, 41, the flawed paladin of the tea party persuasion who in Mis- sissippi's Republican Senate primary failed to wrest the nomina- tion from the faltering hands of six-term in- cumbent Thad Cochran, 76, came into politics after a stint in talk radio. There practi- tioners do not live by the axiom that you don't have to explain something you never said, and McDaniel had some explaining to do about some of his more colorful broadcast opinions and phrases, which may have given a number of voters pause about whether he is quite senatorial, whatever that means nowadays. Also, Democrats and inde- pendents who had not voted in the Democrat's primary could vote in the Republican's. They probably care more than Re- publicans like to admit that they themselves care about leg- islative pork, of which Cochran has served up heaping amounts during his 33 years on the Ap- propriations Committee. This bright red state has the na- tion's lowest per capita income, the highest federal funding as a percent of revenue, and a sur- plus of cognitive dissonance be- tween its professed conserva- tism and its actual enjoyment of the benefits Cochran can now continue to shovel its way. Mississippi's conservatives understand the bargain they have struck. One resident of a town not named for the tea party spirit, Olive Branch, told The New York Times she sus- pected Cochran engaged in costly logrolling: "There's no telling what kinds of liberal things he had to vote for to get those kinds of things for Missis- sippi — what kind of trading he had to do." Give tea partyers their due by acknowledging the virtue that makes them scary to their cul- tured despisers. The tea party's critics consider its politics not properly focused on the mate- rial things appropriations buy. Ten years ago, a talented po- lemicist of the left, Thomas Frank, wrote a lively lament, "What's the Matter with Kan- sas?" His book's title replicated the title of a scalding 1896 edi- torial in The Emporia Gazette by that paper's famous editor William Allen White, who be- lieved that populist hostility to sophisticates and wealth-cre- ators was impoverishing Kan- sas. In 2004, Frank, a Kansas na- tive, argued that Kansans vote against the Democratic Party because they misunderstand "their fundamental interests." Rather than lining up for lar- gess from liberalism's govern- ment cornucopia, they are dis- tracted by cultural concerns. Instead of seeking con- crete benefits, they vote about abstractions, such as constitutionalism, limited government and cultural conservatism. So, what's the mat- ter with the tea party, according to those who think there is much the matter with it? It is insuffi- ciently materialistic. Hence its reluctance to be bought by the appropriator. And what's the matter with Mississippi? The fact — the state has waited a long time for this to be said — that it is so much like the rest of the nation. The best thing about Missis- sippi's recent moment in the na- tional spotlight is how normal the state seems. It is, like the nation, defined by its ambiv- alence, its uneasy conscience, about its appetite for what Washington dispenses. Missis- sippi today is burning with em- barrassment, but not, at long last, embarrassment about race. Its Republican primary oc- curred three days after the 50th anniversary of the disap- pearance and murder of three civil rights workers — Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney — near the town of Philadelphia in Ne- shoba County. Today, Phila- delphia's mayor is an African- American, and Mississippi, which is 37 percent African- American, has more African- American elected officials than any other state. Mississippi has not elected a Democratic senator since 1982, when it gave a sixth full term to John Stennis, who was first elected to fill a vacancy cre- ated by an incumbent's death in 1947. Which means no Missis- sippian has become a freshmen Democratic senator since Harry Truman was president. So, the tea party's low-risk insuMcDan- iel's defeat, like many the tea party has experienced this pri- mary season, brings that feisty faction face to face with a mel- ancholy fact: Americans' de- votion to frugal government is frequently avowed but rarely in- hibiting. If the nation's trajectory is to be changed, this will not be done as abruptly as tea party- ers wish, and will not be done without their continued whole- some agitation. They must take to heart the truth Thomas Jefferson told in 1790 to a congressional can- didate. Jefferson said that "the ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, that we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time, and eternally press forward for what is yet to get." GeorgeWill'semailaddressis georgewill@washpost.com. George Will Mississippi votes its appetite Cartoonist's take By Danny Tyree A few years ago, my wife and I changed propane companies solely because the friendly re- ceptionist had been fired for taking an extended medical leave. So I can see why the first White House Summit on Work- ing Families (and President Oba- ma's call for legislation and vol- untary reforms to give work- ers greater scheduling flexibility and childcare options) resonates with so many people. Of course the president faces obstructionists, who view the summit as an election-year ploy and a shameless pander- ing to female voters. ("I like an- ything that keeps 'em pregnant, but this would leave 'em way too much money for shoes.") Some think we're putting the cart before the horse and need some family-friendly families first. ("Please, boss. Can't I have a second shift of dipping toys in lead paint? Aunt Prudence is coming for a visit and I need an excuse to be gone. Did I mention she's bringing her bagpipes — to soothe the ferrets?") Obama derided the U.S. for being the only developed coun- try that does not offer paid ma- ternity leave. I hope the pur- suit of a worthwhile goal does not get all tangled up in "Eu- rope envy." I hate passports and plane schedules because they give too much advance warn- ing. I wish we could drop in on the progressive Utopia of Europe unannounced and see how they really live. We'd probably hear things like "You children are crazy if you think you're going to drink beer and wine at the dinner table. If this water is good enough to wash your lederhosen, it's good enough to drink." Or maybe "This job comes with 40 weeks of paid vaca- tion. Of course during that time, you'll have to stand here with your finger in the dike, sort of off the clock..." Obama's plan could very well unlock the potential of some em- ployees, but others have pretty well maxed out their potential and would just abuse the sys- tem. ("What do you mean, I can't telecommute leaning on a shovel? I've got a bad back; can't you assign someone to help me steal office supplies? Is it okay if I send a surrogate to photocopy his butt cheeks for me?") What wrenching changes will come about as we try to make the workplace more respon- sive to our home conditions? Will the Research & Develop- ment department be assigned to find out who left the empty milk carton in the fridge? Will fast- food clerks be encouraged to ask, "You want overpriced holi- day wrapping paper with that?"? Will "Take Your Child's Parole Officer To Work" Day become standard? As a pet owner, I sort of hope that provisions for sick employ- ees, sick children and aging par- ents are expanded to cover four- legged family members — but it could get interesting. ("You say I'm out of order, judge? No, my collie's WOMB is out of or- der. That's why I've brought her along to deliver her puppies while I deliver my summation. Let me borrow that robe. The blood won't really show on that black fabric...") I just wonder if we've re- ally examined the core concept of the new American Dream: all those bright-eyed, healthy, childless workers whose only hope is to endure years of tak- ing up the slack for their co- workers, with the ambition of someday hitting the jackpot. ("What's that, dad? You say your colonoscopy came back clean? Why does everything happen to me?") Danny Tyree welcomes reader e-mail responses at tyree- tyrades@aol.com and visits to his Facebook fan page Tyree's Tyrades. Family-friendly workplace reforms carry pitfalls Another view By Jason Stanford When Robert Scott criticized standardized testing and said that Common Core would na- tionalize schools, he took heat from both Sec. Arne Duncan and Texas business lobbyist Bill Hammond, who called Scott a "cheerleader for mediocrity." But two years later, those are the only ones who still think Scott was wrong. With states aban- doning Common Core and advo- cates of high-stakes testing now criticizing its misuse, it's time to admit that Scott was right all along. Scott announced his resigna- tion as Texas Education Com- missioner in May 2012, but his public career effectively ended that January when he said that standardized testing had be- come a "perversion of its original intent." Testing was wagging the dog, and Scott placed the blame on testing companies and lobby- ists that have "become not only a cottage industry but a military- industrial complex." "You've reached a point now of having this one thing that the entire system is dependent upon. It is the heart of the vampire, so to speak," said Scott, who stood by his remarks even as others failed to do the same for him. Many credit Scott's candor with igniting the Education Spring movement, but it's to be expected that teachers, parents, students, school boards and ad- ministrators would fight back against testing mandates. It's quite another to see the criticism coming from those who pushed for the mandates in the first place, such as Michelle Rhee, the former DC schools chief cel- ebrated by pro-test education re- formers, who recently admitted, "Yes, in too many schools and in too many districts, there is an overemphasis on testing." Even Sandy Kress, the archi- tect of No Child Left Behind for the Bush administration who now lobbies for Pearson, the test company, agrees with Scott now. "You've got drilling and benchmark testing every six weeks," Kress said. "Clearly, there's a lot of overtesting in a lot of places. It's just awful, and it draws really negative reactions from parents, teachers and com- munities." Scott won an early round against testing advocates when he convinced Texas leaders to stay away from Common Core. In a 2009 letter to Sen. John Cornyn, he called it an effort to "adopt a national curricu- lum and testing system in the United States," strong words back then. And while Com- mon Core was sold as volun- tary state standards, in prac- tice the Obama administration offered states millions of dol- lars to adopt Common Core with strings that Sec. Duncan at- tached. The rollout of Common Core made the debut of healthcare. gov look like D-Day. The coun- try's largest teacher's union, once a key Common Core backer, pulled its support and called the implementation "completely botched." Sec. Duncan blamed "white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn't quite as good as they thought they were." It got worse from there. Soon states jumped ship, including Louisiana where Gov. Bobby Jin- dal was a prominent supporter until this year. Now he sees Common Core as a federal take- over of schools that emphasizes tests at the expense of teaching. "Common Core is, to my mind, defined by the test," said Jindal. Initially, few groups supported Common Core as much as the Bill & Melinda Gates Founda- tion. The Gates Foundation has spent as much as $2.3 billion on promotional efforts for Common Core including a series of favora- ble stories on PBS, according to an investigation by Pando Daily. That's why it was such a big shock this month when the Gates Foundation called for a two-year moratorium on using standardized tests to evaluate teachers or to promote students. "No evaluation system will work unless teachers believe it is fair and reliable, and it's very hard to be fair in a time of transition," said a Gates Foun- dation official. Hammond did not respond to repeated inquiries about whether he considered Bill Gates a "cheerleader for me- diocrity" and whether he had any reaction to Jindal flipping on Common Core, but that's OK. He doesn't have to say it. We know already. Robert Scott was right. Jason Stanford is a Democratic consultant who writes columns for the Austin American-States- man and The Quorum Report. He can be reached at stanford@ oppresearch.com and on Twit- ter @JasStanford. Critic of standarized testing right all along GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIAL BOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151ext. 112 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS George Will OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, June 26, 2014 MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6