Dirty Tricks, Tea Party Suicide and Rising Mississippi Anger

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, NYT

JULY 13, 2014

JACKSON, Miss. — Mark Mayfield, one of the founders of the Mississippi Tea Party, had lost his political appetite.

He stayed away from Facebook and stopped writing letters to the editor. He went to his law office, but often had little to do, since his major clients had all but cut him off. When the runoff for the Republican primary came around, pitting longtime Senator Thad Cochran against State Senator Chris McDaniel, the Tea Party challenger whom Mr. Mayfield deeply believed in, friends said Mr. Mayfield could not even bring himself to vote.

Then on the morning of June 27, three days after the runoff that left Mr. Cochran the victor, Mr. Mayfield killed himself.

The story of Mr. Mayfield has only deepened the enmity left by a divisive Republican primary. In May, Mr. Mayfield was arrested by police officers from the city of Madison and, along with three others, charged with a criminal conspiracy to sneak into a private nursing home and photograph Rose Cochran, the senator’s wife, who has dementia and has been living there for nearly 15 years.

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