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Ref. : Local Newsbriefs
Ref. : Letters to the editor
03.05 Open Letter to Congressman Bart Stupak
Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries
03.12 Slick Barry and the $100-Billion Medicaid/Medicare Fraud Claim
03.09 Kill Bill: Death to Obamacare!
03.09 Obama’s Rhetoric May Be “Fiery,” But His Health Care Reform Is Still Lukewarm
03.17 CNN Scrapes Bottom of Right-Wing Barrel With Erickson Hire
03.16 WPost Blames Obama First, on Israel
03.16 Letter to the New York Times' Editor: Stovepiping To Persia
03.12 Cud and Complicity: Burying the Alternatives to Empire's Dominion
03.11 NYT and the ACORN Hoax
03.05 Sorry, Rove, Bush Did Lie About Iraq
03.03 It's Snow News
03.03 The Woeful Washington Post
Ref. : The Daily Howler
02.26 America's Supremes: Court Over Constitution
03.11 Power Rangers: Policing the System With the "Fightin' Progressives"
03.09 Thinking About Countings
03.07 Unnatural Acts: Breaking the Fever of Militarism
02.25 Future Shock: A Better World Beyond the Imperium
03.16 America's Secret Prisons
03.13 Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem
03.12 Israeli Settlement Expansions Continue
03.11 Brutalizing Palestinian Children
03.08 The Russell Tribunal on Palestine: Barcelona Session
03.05 Targeting Israeli Apartheid
03.01 America's Permanent War Agenda
02.25 Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery
03.14 The Crisis in America's Telecommunications Network
03.09 The Business of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource
03.05 Is the Recovery Real?
03.04 IMF-Style Austerity Measures come to America: What “Fiscal Responsibility” Means To You
03.04 Barry C. Lynn's "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and Economics of Destruction"
03.01 Thinking About Fees
03.15 Peace Process Hypocrisy: Stillborn from Inception
03.03 Muslim Disunity
03.02 Funding Israeli Militarism, Belligerence and Occupation
02.26 Iran Captures a 'Good' Terrorist
POLITICAL COMMENTARY:
Republicans Running as Democrats
Desperate to hold on to Congress amid declining polls, enveloping scandals and the deeply unpopular Iraq war, Republicans are trying a new tactic in 2006.
They are running as Democrats.
Around the U.S., suspiciously recent converts are showing up as Democrats in races for the House and the Senate.
Regardless of where they live, these newcomer Dems tend to share a few arresting characteristics. They switched from Republican to Democrat in 2005, often late in 2005. Their switch was quiet and without fanfare. The switch took place without vocal protest or attack from the national Republican Party. They immediately or soon declared intention of running for office as Democrats. Even in a heated election year, their candidacies have not drawn attacks or accusations of treason, betrayal or other name-calling typically beloved by the great noise machine. Often they have functioned in their respective elections as spoilers of a Democratic candidate or of a Democratic primary, and predictably they have chosen to run in a district or state either predominately Democratic or trending away from the GOP.
Self-funded, Rales is pouring millions into a television ad campaign in which he speaks forcefully although broadly against the Iraq war. Polling at 7 percent, he is given no chance of winning the primary against leading candidates Kweisi Mfume and Ben Cardin.
Rales has, however, received favorable media treatment from the rightwing Washington Times and Wall Street Journal. If he chose to run as a third candidate after losing the primary, he would benefit GOP Senate nominee Lt. Gov. Michael Steele in a state where Democrats hold the advantage in party registration.
Calling a candidate like this Democratic is like calling the wooden horse Trojan.
Attempts to spoil a primary election do not always work. Lawyer and Iraq war veteran Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania District 8 staved off a run by a former Republican Bucks County Commissioner who recently switched parties. But for people with little time to research their candidates, media hype against incumbents in general benefits spoilers as much as it benefits genuine alternative candidates. And sometimes the switchers switch back. In Washington state, Warren E. Hanson, a fisherman who switched to Democrat to run against Senator Patty Murray in 2004, is now running in the 2006 GOP primary. Nor do switchers for local office always enjoy a happy ending. Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, was a longtime Republican who switched to run for mayor in a vacant Democratic position.
Some party switchers, of course, owe their conversion to the Iraq war. Of these, the most famous is Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb, a Vietnam veteran and voice for the Scotch Irish who recently switched parties and defeated Harris Miller in the Democratic primary. Webb has been restrained on the campaign trail, but Republican incumbent Sen. George Allen, son of a famous football coach, is aggressively running against himself anyway.
Florida has had its share of apparent party switchers, rather than genuine converts, in the past. The 2004 election in District 5 was influenced by a ringer. And local can become national in a hurry, when it really matters. Theresa LePore, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach County in 2000, was a Republican who had switched to Democrat, her county majority, only shortly before playing her role in regard to those butterfly ballots.
Caveat emptor. Seeming moderates who repudiate ideology but not corporate cronyism, recent converts who show no sign of ethical conversion, and candidates who have never before supported the causes of their new party should be weighed with caution.
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This story was published on September 3, 2006.
