Zeese campaign admits they are running to help Steele
On a widely read political website, Alex Zeese, son of third party U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Zeese, advocated a victory for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Steele - citing the extreme right wing views of Steele as a Senator to culminating in a more liberal takeover by Democrats in 2012. This is quite revealing of Zeese's true intentions, and a puzzling look into his odd forecast for the future.
Alex is also a staff member of his father's campaign.Here is the specific quote:
A great point someone else told me recently. Cardin does not deserve to be a senator, he has shown no leadership in 40 years. He will be a crappy Lieberman light type Democrat, and didn't you just knock that guy out. Why not let him lost this time have the Dem's run someone who does not suck (Mfume? VanHollen? Raskin?) in 6 years and kick Steele's ass out then, just don't run a pro-war, pro-patriot act, neo-con again and you wont have the Green menace to worry about from your "left" flank. If Steele win's he will be a one term senator because it shows the leadership that when a state is 30%+ Afro-American you need to show them some respect. If Cardin wins that ass will be in for 20 years. Thats all assuming the Democratic or Republican party does not collapse in 6 years. Then again there are like what 20 die hard Cardin supporters in the state.
This is particularly worrisome because of how close this Senate race truly is here in Maryland. We now have a bona fide example of how Zeese is in this race not to contribute anything but a win for Michael Steele.
I'm ashamed for the Greens that they would act in such a Carl Romanelli type fashion. Ben Cardin is a great progressive candidate, and it's bad enough that he's got to deal with the mega-funded Republican sleaze machine that is Michael Steele.
Current polling puts Zeese anywhere from 1%-4% of the vote... enough to hand the Maryland's Senate seat to far right Republican Michael Steele, just as Zeese and his son intend to do
I've met Alex before. He and his father were guests at a Cindy Sheehan event my organization (the University of Maryland College Democrats) sponsored. Alex was extremely rude to me and other College Democrats, with close-to-face finger waging and random challenges to impromptu debates. To his credit, he did do a very good job of explaining the voting machine debacle we have in Maryland to me at another unrelated event.
At the last debate in the Urban League I attended with Zeese, Cardin and Steele, I noticed Zeese took far more shots at Cardin than at Steele. Steele attacked Cardin with insinuations of racism, while Zeese took cracks at Cardin calling him a sell out and criticized Cardin for actually wanting to fully fund our troops while serving in Iraq (Cardin had the guts and good sense to vote against the authorization of the Iraq war however, a fact glossed over by Zeese)
If you look here Alex seems to have since deleted his little candid revelation of his father's true goal. Good thing I got a screen shot before he did!
posted by Lee Fang at 10:14 PM
4 Comments:
Ah, apocalyptic politics. I recall the Greens trying this strategy once before -- let the country turn so far to the right that a new progressive movement will "miraculously" arise from the grassroots. As one who voted for Nader in 2000 (in Maryland, mind you, so it didn't count), I must say that while, in a sense, it worked -- the rise of the netroots, I think, is mostly inexplicable outside of the extreme policies of the Bush administration -- no political movement is worth 3,000 victims of terrorism, almost 3,000 dead American soldiers, a stagnant economy, a ruined reputation, and an enivronment edging ever closer to collapse.
This Green strategy was tried and successfully implemented in Canada. The more conservative western Canadians got tired of MOR politics and bolted the Progressive Conservatives for a new Reform Party. Reform, later called the Canadian Alliance, destroyed the PC as a national party and then returned to merge with it as the CPC, with the westerners fully in charge of course.
There is no evidence, however, that such a manoever can still work in a static two party system such as ours.
Another comment: I would be more in favor of third parties if the winner-take-all election system we have now didn't make them infeasible. That's why I think the most interesting thing about Zeese's candidacy is that he's nominated by the Green, Libertarian, and Populist parties. If he were to have a court uphold that stance, then we in Maryland could have fusion voting, like they have in New York state, where minor parties can help, not hurt, the major ones. Of course, that would mean that Zeese would have to actually be concerned about making a difference, rather than running on the politics of self-indulgence.
Even without fusion voting, one need not give up on social change. As Neil Sinhababu has said, "Any movement big enough to make a third-party candidate remotely competitive in a general election can easily win a Democratic primary." The successes of Howard Dean and Ned Lamont, for example, show that it is possible to change the system from within. It may take a while, but it is possible.
Isaac,
There is a very good reason why the third parties got together on this campaign. It is called survival. See if any of these parties fail to hit the min. threashold (IIRC 3%) in this election then they have to re-apply to the state with signatures and the like. So these two parties are "on the clock" and they need to get their numbers up or they will have to start over ... or they go the way of the Reform Party.
These two parties may agree on the candidate; they may think he is the best thing since sliced bread but they also have their status tied up in him too.
That is neither a negative nor an endorsement just pointing out the deadline these two parties face.
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