GOP Dirty Tricks: Recruiting Street People To Run On Green Ticket To Take Votes From Democrats

The candidates may be serious, but the political establishment sees if for what it is: a dirty trick. Republican operative Steve May (pictured) is recruiting homeless people and drifters to run as Green Party candidates for the Arizona Corporation Commission, which overseas public utilities, railroad safety, and securities regulation.

“Did I recruit candidates? Yes,” said Mr. May, who is himself a candidate for the State Legislature, on the Republican ticket. “Are they fake candidates? No way.”

To make his point, Mr. May went by Starbucks, the gathering spot of the Mill Rats, as the frequenters of Mill Avenue are known.

“Are you fake, Benjamin?” he yelled out to Mr. Pearcy, who cried out “No,” with an expletive attached.

“Are you fake, Thomas?” Mr. May shouted in the direction of Thomas Meadows, 27, a tarot card reader with less than a dollar to his name who is running for state treasurer. He similarly disagreed.

“Are you fake, Grandpa?” he said to Anthony Goshorn, 53, a candidate for the State Senate whose bushy white beard and paternal manner have earned him that nickname on the streets. “I’m real,” he replied.

Other Republican operatives are doing the same thing, using unsuspecting people, and claiming they’re helping them participate in the political process. If it’s not illegal, it’s certainly downright cruel.

Besides the Mill Rat candidates, the Democrats smell a rat in other races, including one in which a roommate of a Republican legislator’s daughter ran as a Green Party candidate in a competitive contest for the State Senate. They cite a variety of state and federal election laws that the Republicans may have violated in putting forward “sham” candidates for the Green Party.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.