New Right Wing "Dirty Tricks" Campaign Tactic Being Tested in Washington State

Crazed teabagging and screaming townhall meetings notwithstanding, the Republicans and right wing have never been so thoroughly distrusted and even despised by the bulk of the electorate. A smaller percentage of people nationally trust Republicans to solve their problems than there are dentists who do not recommend Crest®.

In Washington State, this identity crisis was first displayed in the 2008 Gubernatorial campaign. The Republican candidate, Dino Rossi, had lost to Democrat, Christine Gregoire, in 2004 by 127 votes, requiring a third recount and a court case before it was finally resolved.

During that campaign, Rossi tried to hide his right wing views, but not his identity as a Republican. In 2008, he eschewed the Republican label, and ran as "GOP Party." It didn't work; he lost again, this time by a comfortable margin.

Over the last 35 years the right wing built up an alternative universe of "belief tanks" and media that relentlessly hammered their opinions, often disguised as facts. Democrats still, for the most part, do not know how to respond effectively, but the Internet has blunted and exposed right wing lies, so that they do not work nearly as well as they did even five years ago. When John Kerry lost in 2004, for example, Facebook was brand new, and Twitter was not even a gleaming tweet in someone's eye.

The radical right wing never gives up. Instead of trying to win by speaking to issues people really care about, however, they have decided to go even more deeply undercover.

The tactic may be called, "Going Stealth."

Here is how it works. A group of wealthy, right wing zealots offered a benign-sounding charter amendment so that the King County Executive race would be "non-partisan." It seemed like a pleasant, soothing antidote to the bitterness of modern political fisticuffs, and passed easily. [Admission: I may have even voted for it myself!].

King County has a larger budget than 13 of the states, so this is not an insignificant position, and may be the most progressive, environmentally conscious county in the country.

They then selected a person with high name recognition, with zero experience--a former TV news anchor, Susan Hutchison, whose political views were largely kept under wraps while she was on the air, but are quite similar to Sarah Palin's, although Palin has far more experience.

So, the candidates are not known by their political affiliations, because the new law says there are to be none. That removes the shorthand busy people use to determine their votes, and in a progressive county would be a nearly automatic win for the Democrat. Additionally, Hutchison says nearly nothing about her views, spouting only homilies about cutting waste from government (she's never done it).

Finally, the demise of one of our two local newspapers--who themselves had quite different political slants--removes any drama that would cause people to look closely at just who Susan Hutchison really is--e.g., she supports the Discovery Institute that believes creationism should be taught in public schools as science under the guise of "academic freedom."

The "Going Stealth" bet: win on name recognition by keeping her views unknown, and the race uninteresting.

This is not so much the threat of a person with whom one profoundly disagrees getting elected--that is what democracy is about. It is more the threat of this campaign tactic being used to enable a victory for a person who, if the right labels and information had been available, would not have had a snowball's chance on our melting glacier of being elected.

That is, the word "stealth" contains within it the word "steal."

Hopefully, it is not too late. Local bloggers have awakened. Local radio programs are beginning to comment upon it. Young people have been composing homemade campaign ads (some even better than the pros), and posting them on YouTube. (Robber Barons and Dinosaurs, Kids and Elephants).

But, "Going Stealth" has a chance of working. Expect to see it popping up in your local elections as well.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Comments

[KayJay90]

Paul Abrams, blogger Leah Burton has your back.

On her blog "God's Own Party", her two most recent blog entries talk about Susan Hutchison's dominionis­t/evangeli­cal background -- you probably know this.

For readers new to the concept of "stealth candidates", Leah Burton's research is a must-read.

Go to godsownpar­ty.com/blo­g/2009/10/­stealth-ca­ndidate-ba­ils-on-gop­-to-win-bu­t-look-at-­the-compan­y-she-keep­s/

and godsownpar­ty.com/blo­g/2009/10/­hutchison-­non-partis­an-ny-hoff­mans-indep­endent-bot­h-are-poli­tical-domi­nonists/

[aaronostrom]

It's absolutely infuriating when they do stuff like this and get away with it. The mainstream media is completely asleep at the wheel on this one.

[Horus45]

It was already happening in more places than WA in 2008.
There was a repub running for congress here in AZ that never put GOP or Republican on ANY of his campaign materials or tv commercials.

[amaboss52]

Bait and switch, the rethug con game.

[maryyooch]

Thank you for that very important post. It's the first I've heard of it. We must stay on top of things, especially things like this, so that the crazed right wing doesn't ever get enough power again to take this Country and a good portion of the world down.

[PAsteelers]

So they disguise themselves as reasonable people

which allows them to fly under the radar until election day.

It is up to the media and us and ask for and receive in depth

answers to pertinent questions. If not, they will be successful.

[BLBass]

"When John Kerry lost in 2004, for example, Facebook did not even exist, and Twitter was not even a gleaming tweet in someone's eye."

I'm nearly positive that's not true about Facebook. I'm pretty sure that by the time I moved out of my college housing in May '04 I had already owned and deleted a Facebook account, never to return. It was only in the Ivy League and New England (+ Stanford?) at the time, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist.

[swengnikaerb]

It says FB was brand new....

[BLBass]

It's been revised. Now it makes more sense.

[ElTommo]

To be fair, you're responding to this comment more than twelve hours later. It's entirely possibly the author updated the post, and that it originally contained the material quoted by BLBass.

[Marnie1]

When I still lived in Texas there were candidates for city councel Wichita Falls, back in the '70s and in Austin in the 80's or 90' who ran as liberals and in Austin as libral and environmentaist, both ran as Democarts. Once in office they voted the exact opposite of their camplain promises and switched parties. In both Texas and Oklahoma the Religious Right ran stealth candidates for state education boards and won, having run as candidates who supported fact based education, but quickly became anti-fact based board members.

And then there's Joe Liebermann.

[Smithn]

Wow. . .live & learn--thanks for sharing your experience it adds humanity back into the political gamesmanship. Fanned!