It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi mud

Austin Barbour, a Cochran campaign adviser, was giving examples of why the campaign felt the charges of double-voting — people who voted in the Democratic primary and then voted for Cochran in the Republican primary runoff — were wrong.

“If they want to file a challenge, we’ve got no problem with that whatsoever,” Barbour said of the McDaniel campaign. But, he went on, “the time has certainly come in our minds for the McDaniel campaign and their allies to either put up or shut up.”

Then someone who was evidently not a reporter interrupted Barbour.

That person repeatedly said that “black people harvested cotton” and accused the Cochran campaign of “harvesting black votes.” Barbour asked him to stop multiple times, saying he would answer questions from anyone at the end of his statement.

The conference call line did not give the Cochran campaign the ability to mute callers’ lines, so there was no way to force the caller to stop speaking.

“I’m happy to address any question, no matter the lunacy of it,” he said.

But the man on the line, who did not identify himself, could not be placated. Finally, Barbour apologized and announced he was ending the call, telling national press that they had the contact information for the campaign if they had any questions.