As I walked down the epically long aisles of Target this week, I was astounded that not only was Halloween candy being sold in full force, but some of it was already
being marked down. Halloween sales,
in September!
It’s clear however that it isn’t only Target that’s getting into the Halloween spirit. Lately, Republican Senate candidate Jim Torrey has been playing dress up too. Torrey has been calling voters asking, “Are you more likely to vote for Democrat Jim Torrey or Republican Vicki Walker.” Vicki Walker, who’s spent the last 8 years in Salem working tirelessly, is not a Republican. She is, in fact, a life long Democrat, whose commitment to education has been unwavering. Jim Torrey’s campaign, in true Karl Rove fashion, has been intentionally misleading voters into thinking he’s a liberal Democrat.
Torrey’s deception hasn’t been limited to his phone message. It is no coincidence that his yard signs are solid blue or that nowhere in Torrey’s ads or literature does it mention that he is a Republican. In reality, in 2004, Torrey gave the maximum federal donation to George Bush’s re-election campaign. He is also staunchly pro-life and supportive of the President’s crippling tax cuts for the rich. Despite his attempts to dress up as a democrat during this Halloweenseason, don’t believe the hype.
Torrey is a neo-conservative of the highest order.
This Halloween’s game of partisan dress-up isn’t limited to state politics. All across our nation’s capital, Republicans are scrambling to appeal to moderate Democratic voters. In the past three weeks, Republicans Chris Shays, Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, Lindsey
Graham and many more have begun to support a time-table for bringing our troops home from Iraq. Keep in mind that Democrats who supported this position were called, “defeatists” and “cut and runners.” But in the spirit of Halloween (and election season) Republicans are pretending to be Democrats in a last-ditch effort to retain their majority.
I appreciate those Republicans who have finally realized that “Staying the Course” in Iraq is not a plan. However, we should all be weary of those who attempt to swing towards the left solely for gain during this highly contested election cycle.
Halloween is scary. Few things scare me more than the thought of EPD and DPS out in full force. But even scarier than the party patrol busting down my door is the prospect of Republicans maintaining control of the house by using this sort of devious trickery.
While my trepidation may seem overly cautious, let us not forget that these tactics have been successfully used in the past. During the 2000 South Carolina primary, Republicans accused presidential nominee John McCain of fathering an illegitimate black child (in reality he had adopted a daughter from Bangladesh).
In 2004, Republicans attempted to call into question the war record of decorated Vietnam veteran John Kerry.
This last week numerous Republicans were up in arms over President Bush’s request to, “clarify the Geneva convention” which, up to this point, had been perfectly clear to every other president. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention prohibits, “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; and the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”
Perhaps President Bush was unclear on whether or not attaching electrodes to a detainee’s testicles is an “outrage upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” Regardless, Senators R-Ariz. John McCain and R-S.C. Lindsey Graham said they were committed to maintaining the Geneva Convention. In the end, an agreement was reached that strips detainees of the right of Habeas Corpus (the right to have their day in court and be given access to legal counsel) and fails to prohibit torture. It appears that the President’s “Jack Bauer approach” to foreign policy will live to torture another day.
So despite a week of political posturing, in which it appeared that those on the far right had come to its senses, it appears that they too are engaged in this election masquerade.
While Halloween affords us only one day to damage our livers, Republicans maintaining their majority of congress will unfortunately damage our country for much longer. As a wise man (Flava Flav) once said, “Don’t believe the hype!”
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