ORLANDO, Fla. — Seeking an advantage in their effort to avoid losing control of Congress, Democrats are working behind the scenes in a number of tight races to bolster longshot third-party candidates who have platforms at odds with the Democratic agenda but hold the promise of siphoning Republican votes.
In California, Republicans have received recorded phone calls from a self-proclaimed but unidentified “registered Republican” who says she is voting for the American Independent Party’s candidate for a House seat, Bill Lussenheide, not for the incumbent Republican, Mary Bono Mack. The caller says she is voting that way because “it’s time we show Washington what a true conservative looks like.”
The recording was openly paid for by the Democratic candidate for the seat, Mayor Steve Pougnet of Palm Springs.
In Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate for a suburban Philadelphia House seat, Bryan Lentz, said last week that his volunteers helped Jim Schneller, a prominent skeptic of President Barack Obama’s citizenship, collect petitions to run against Lentz and his Republican opponent, Pat Meehan.
In Nevada, conservative radio listeners have heard an advertisement promoting the Senate campaign of a “Tea Party of Nevada” candidate, Scott Ashjian. The ads also criticize Sharron Angle, the Republican nominee and favored candidate of the actual Tea Party movement in the race for the seat of Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader.
The ad was sponsored by a group backed by unions and casino and mining companies supporting Reid.
Nevada is one of several states, including Florida, where “Tea Party” political committees have appeared on ballotlines without the knowledge or support of leading Tea Party activists, who have generally chosen not to support thirdparty candidacies. And in most of those cases, local bloggers, reporters and lawyers have traced connections back to local Democrats, drawing a number of lawsuits, complaints and, in a couple of cases, admissions of involvement.
“It is one of the dirtiest moves,” said Rep. Kevin Mc-Carthy of California, a vice chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It’s not as though the Democrats are playing to compete against the third party - they’re helping to build the third party up to make those votes not count.”
Calling it “a concerted effort,” McCarthy added, “In congressional races, it could steer the tide for the majority.”
In response to questions about whether the efforts were being coordinated on a nationallevel, the Democratic National Committee said in a statement, “Republicans have no one to blame but their own ideological intolerance for the bloody civil war on their side.”
Pougnet, the Democrat running for Bono Mack’s congressional seat in Palm Springs, openly discloses his sponsorship of the telephone calls and mailings he is directing to conservative voters labeling Lussenheide as “the Tea Party candidate” and Bono Mack as a “raging liberal” by comparison.
“It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” Bono Mack said. “It’s desperate, and I think the voters see right through it.”
Pougnet’s campaign manager, Jordan Marks, said, “ There’snothing wrong with pointing out to voters who are more conservative that there’s a more conservative alternative on the ballot.”
In Florida, local Republicans and grass-roots Tea Party activists continue to press the case that “Tea Party” candidates on the ballot are stalking horses for Democrats, an assertion that Democrats deny.
Polls and independent analysts suggest that the incumbent Democrat in Orlando, Rep. Alan Grayson, a liberal whose defeat is eagerly sought by conservatives, faces an uphill fight to keep his seat against his Republican rival, Daniel Webster. But the candidate running on the “Tea Party” ballot line in Orlando, Peg Dunmire, could prove pivotal if Grayson is to pull off a squeaker.
The “Tea Party” in Florida was formed and registered with the state in August 2009 by an Orlando-area lawyer, Frederic O’Neal, with help from a longtime client, Doug Guetzloe, an activist, radio host and Republican operative in a running feud with his party, who has earned a colorful reputation as a political trickster. (On Friday, Guetzloe was sentenced to 60 days in prison for a misdemeanor campaign violation relating toan anonymous political flier he sent four years ago, but his sentence does not start until after the election.)
Tea Party activists in the state said they were flabbergasted to learn of the existence of a “Tea Party” ballot line andGuetzloe’s involvement with it.
“I didn’t know who the heck these people were,” said Everett Wilkinson, a grassroots activist who has tangled with Guetzloe and O’Neal in separate lawsuits.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 10/24/2010