GULFPORT, Mississippi—After a Tea Party event yesterday, I grabbed lunch (Chick-fil-A, obviously) with an activist whose mailbox had just gotten overwhelmed. He had no fewer than three pieces of anti-Chris McDaniel/pro-Thad Cochran mail, all totally wasted on him.

Counterclockwise from the top left—that's a Cochran mailer advertising his A-plus rating from the NRA, a 100 percent rating from National Right to Life, and a hit on Chris McDaniel for being a "trial lawyer" who opposed tort reform. Briefly:

- Cochran does have the NRA's endorsement, after breaking from his fellow Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker and voting against even debating a gun bill last year. McDaniel has the endorsement of the much less powerful, but much more Tea Party-friendly, Gun Owners of America.

- Cochran's lifetime National Right to Life rating is something below 100 percent—he once scored a 33 percent—so the number highlighted is simply the most recent.

- McDaniel actually supported tort reform after the Republican takeover of the Senate, but was part of a legal team that called the reform "unconstitutional."

I've seen none of McDaniel's current mail, but I did grab some of the one-sheet literature passed out at his events. It features this photo of the McDaniel clan, in which the candidate's wife, Jill, looks uncannily like Sarah Palin.

His sons, Cambridge and Chamberlain, cancel the illusion that this is a snapshot of the Palins.