Category: Politics

It looks like suburban Philadelphia Democrats are working hard to ensure that Republicans not only have to overcome the margin of error, but also the margin of fraud. Their first step is lining up self-proclaimed tea party type candidates to funnel off votes from Republican challengers.

I already mentioned the shenanigans in PA-7, and it’s amazing how slimy Democratic candidate Bryan Lentz and the local party leaders are trying to be by claiming that they have nothing to do with the third party candidate. In this age, you can’t hide.  Here are some of the names and titles of Democratic officials and activists who pushed Jim Schneller over the edge to get on the ballot released by PA2010:

• Colleen Guiney is the head of the Swarthmore, PA Democratic Committee.
• Joseph Gallagher is a Democratic Committeeman from Aston, PA.
• Timothy Willard is a former Lentz staffer who previously worked on his state house campaign.
• Nicholas Allred is an officer with the Swarthmore College Democrats – an organization that already backed the Democratic candidate.  (Election fraud – you can’t get started too early!)
• Democratic activists Rocco Polidoro and Arthur Manos signed petitions to get Lentz on the ballot and then turned around to collect signatures for the third party candidate.

Upon further research, PA2010’s editor added this startling fact about the (legal) fraud at work in this self-proclaimed tea party campaign:

With the exception of Schneller himself and one registered Republican, it seems that all of Schneller’s circulators were registered Democrats, and most of them can be tied to Lentz by far less than Six Degrees of Separation. At least five of those circulators also gathered signatures for Lentz. And as we noted from the beginning, one of them is Colleen Guiney, the volunteer who Lentz once called “the hardest worker on my campaign.”

I don’t know how Lentz’s campaign and the Democratic officials can keep a straight face while they issue denial after denial.

It’s worth noting that local tea party groups have asked Schneller to leave the race, and they are making clear that they in no way support his candidacy.

The Independence Hall Tea Party Association, the largest such group in the region, endorsed Meehan in the spring and asked Schneller last year to quit the race, said Teri Adams, a board member of the group’s political action committee. …

The Independence Hall group and the Delaware County Patriots sent Schneller a letter Wednesday asking him again to drop out of the race, or at least to withdraw the signatures that Lentz volunteers and supporters had gathered.

In the meantime, we’re dealing with it here in PA-8, too. Here are the (so far) announced names of Democratic officials pushing a candidate who attended a Tea Party Forum in January only to tell attendees that they suck for attending and suck for voting.

• Brian Caplan now works for the state Democratic Party and is a former staffer for Democratic candidate Patrick Murphy.
• Jessica Milinichik also now reportedly works for the state party, but she was with the Murphy campaign as recently as a few weeks ago.

The third party candidate is expected to pull voters away from the Republican candidate, though the Democrats, again, deny any involvement.  Unfortunately, our local tea party group hasn’t issued any statements about this kooky candidate, even though he got up and insulted them at their own event.  Hopefully, they will make it clear to their supporters that they aren’t backing his candidacy.

I had my first experience with dirty politics from Philadelphia-area Democrats in 2008 when MoveOn volunteers canvassed our neighborhood and destroyed all of the GOP signs they recognized.  Not only were the McCain signs in our yards cut, but the frames were pulled out of our lawns and bent beyond easy repair.  Fortunately for me, I had a stash of extra frames from another campaign that didn’t need as much help, so I set out to repair the ones on our block.  I expect the same kind of shenanigans this year.

I’m not opposed to third party candidates, but I am opposed to those who accept help from one party just to screw over another candidate when they have no intention of running a real campaign.

The ballot access laws in Pennsylvania are notoriously tough for anyone who doesn’t have the nomination of a major political party, so it makes for big news when people qualify. In two local Congressional races, it’s likely to give us some very severe headaches in seats that are otherwise rated extremely competitive or complete toss-ups.

The most frustrating is the birther who plans to try and pull votes away from the pro-gun Republican nominee in PA-7, Pat Meehan, by claiming to be a Tea Party candidate backed by far left Democrats. (In reality, there was a Tea Party candidate in the race earlier this year, but he ran as a Republican in the primary and was defeated.) He’s pretending that he had no idea his most helpful supporters just happen to be officials with the Democratic Party, some of whom have been publicly recognized by the anti-gun Democratic campaign for their grassroots support. The Democrats aren’t even trying to deny what they did here, and they are eating it up. They don’t think their guy can win on a race based on issues, so they are instead trying to add fringe candidates to the right side in order to split off any votes they can.

What’s worse is that these same “grassroots supporters” for the birther also filed petition challenges in the primary campaign to pressure all of the Democrats not personally chosen by party leaders off of the ballot. They really are afraid of any competition at all and will use any tactic other than a clean campaign to get their way.

Here in our neck of the woods, there’s a new independent candidate in PA-8. By new, I mean just got on the ballot. Because he’s the kind of guy who runs for every office every election cycle. Oh, and he told Tea Party supporters at a forum that voters are all stupid because a) they vote, and b) don’t vote for him and his brand of crazy.

Tom debuted a brand new campaign strategy at tonight’s forum: Tell voters how much they suck. They suck for being voters. They suck for possibly being Republicans. They suck because they don’t vote for Tom. They suck for even turning out to such an event.

When not telling voters how much they suck, Tom indicated he may not honor treaties, and it didn’t really sound like he would give much thought to helping out Israel should they get attacked.

He’s likely going to try and appeal to angry Republicans who can’t get over the fact that their favorite candidates didn’t survive the primary. That’s exactly what the Democrats would like to happen – at least by a cursory glance at the race. After all, this is a blue district that would really only go red with a Republican focused on economic issues – the message the party appears to try and focus on this year. In other words, this is the year the seat could go back, especially since the GOP nominee is a former Congressman who only lost by 1,500 votes last time he ran.

Except, oddly enough, it looks like the Democrats might be lining up to kick Angry Crazy Candidate Tom off the ballot. I suspect it’s because they would rather have disaffected Republicans vote Democrat to “send a message to the GOP” rather than voting third party. They may well need every vote they can get, even if it’s just a spiteful vote from some conservatives being pissy about things not going their way every single time.

Ultimately, this means we’re going to have to work even harder for pro-gun candidates to not only beat the competition from both sides – Democrat & Crazy – but also overcome the margin of error fraud. I have a feeling that I’ll be hoarse come September with all of the phone calls I’ll be making and doors I’ll be knocking on.