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01.13 Hawaii, the Unique State
01.24 Can Apple “Rescue” US Education? (Graphics)
01.23 What You (Really) Need to Know
01.22 How to Forecast Weather Infographic w/Simple Explanations
Ref. : Letters to the editor
02.10 LET’S REMAKE THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS
02.09 Cancer rates triple among New York police officers who responded to 9/11
02.08 The seed emergency: The threat to food and democracy
02.07 Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering
02.04 Your Day at the Beach Could Soon Lead to a Night at the Hospital
02.03 Obama Won't Touch Climate With a 10-Foot Pole
02.03 Komen reverses decision to cut Planned Parenthood funding
02.03 Reforming EU Deep-Sea Fisheries Management
02.02 By defunding Planned Parenthood, the Susan G Komen Foundation betrays women
02.02 Ohio Tries to Escape Fate as a Dumping Ground for Fracking Fluid
01.31 Eleanor Smeal dissects Obama vs. Catholic Church controversy over birth control coverage - video
01.30 Scientists Call on Obama Administration to Use Science as Guide for Arctic
01.28 Universal health care proposal stalls in California Senate
01.27 Apple, Electronics and Environmental Ills
01.25 Solar Cheaper Than Diesel Making India’s Mittal Believer: Energy
01.24 Sounding an Alarm on Birds and Mercury
01.24 Why Don’t We Have Abundant Solar Power? Blame Financing, and Industry, not Science
01.22 The Money Traps in U.S. Health Care
01.22 Looking Inside the Twinkie
Ref. Dollars for Doctors - How Industry Money Reaches Physicians
Ref. 2010 Comparative Price Report Medical and Hospital Fees by Country - Graphics
Ref. Health at a Glance 2011 - OECD Indicators
Ref. : Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA (Part 2) [Graphics] (Part 1 is here)
Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
02.07 Did Obama make the economy worse? Not according to most statistics
02.02 ABC's Iran Propaganda
02.02 The Ongoing “Foxification” of the Wall Street Journal
01.30 While temperatures rise, denialists reach lower
01.29 Fox News psychiatrist: Newt Gingrich's affairs 'mean he might make a strong president'
01.22 ‘Shocking victory’: With SOPA shelved, Markos Moulitsas on a way forward for Internet policy - video
Daily The Daily Howler
02.05 Why the AGs Must Not Settle: Robo-signing Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
02.04 THE CAGING OF AMERICA
02.03 Senate Votes To Ban Its Members From Insider Trading... Kind Of
01.31 Senate clears way for vote on insider-trading ban
01.25 Why all the robo-signing? Shedding light on the shadow banking system
01.25 In Iraq, Haditha case is reminder of justice denied
01.22 Still Not Clear on SOPA & PIPA? Infographic w/Simple Explanations
02.10 The Cancer in Occupy
02.10 How Opus Dei Influenced Rick Santorum
02.10 People Are Not Leaving the Labor Force
02.09 Obama, Explained
02.09 OPED: The White Underclass
02.09 EDITORIAL: A Terrible Transportation Bill
02.09 THE OBAMA MEMOS
02.06 Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?
02.04 Soaking the Poor, State by State
02.04 Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian's Rosy Outlook On The Future of Politics
02.03 SUPERBOWL XLVI: Are You Ready for Some Football???
02.03 Buffett rules: Sheldon Whitehouse introduces the Paying a Fair Share Act - video
02.02 Secrecy Shrouds ‘Super PAC’ Funds in Latest Filings
02.01 Rich Patrons Are Major Source of Romney’s Cash
01.31 How Newt Gingrich Crippled Congress
01.30 Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable
01.30 Clashes in Oakland: 400 Arrests, Tear Gas, Flash-Bang Grenades
01.30 A European look at the US primaries - video
01.29 Obama’s Faux Populism Sounds Like Bill Clinton
01.25 Inside Romney’s Tax Returns: A Reading Guide
01.24 ILLUSIONS: Being Led Down the Primrose Path...???
01.24 Science Bulletins: Whales Give Dolphins a Lift - video
01.24 THE OBAMA MEMOS
01.22 Three Takeaways From South Carolina
02.10 This is no bailout for Main Street America
02.10 Why the Foreclosure Deal May Not Be So Hot After All
02.10 Matt Taibbi assesses the $26 billion settlement designed to aid victims of foreclosure fraud - video
02.10 Foreclosure Deal to Spur U.S. Home Seizures
02.08 Banks Paying Homeowners to Avoid Foreclosures
02.07 App Stores Create 500,000 U.S. Jobs
02.07 The Payroll Tax Fight
02.07 Obama super PAC decision: President blesses fundraising for Priorities USA Action
02.06 How Privatizing Government Shovels Cash to Parasitic Corporations and Undermines Democracy
02.05 We’re More Unequal Than You Think – Graphic: Unequal rise in income
02.03 PRIVATE INEQUITY
02.02 The New American Divide
02.02 American Airlines proposes to end all four pension plans
02.01 Economics 101
01.30 New Strategy, Old Pentagon Budget
01.30 Where Did All the Workers Go? 60 Years of Economic Change in 1 Graph
01.29 The Apple Boycott: People Are Spouting Nonsense about Chinese Manufacturing
01.29 Made in the World
01.28 Sugar daddy Adelson could save $500 million in taxes if his boy Gingrich wins - video
01.28 How Swedes and Norwegians broke the power of the ‘1 percent’
01.27 Unemployment in Spain Rises to 22.9%
01.27 Chinese Company Continues Plan To Replace Workforce With 500,000 Robots
01.27 Details Emerge of New Financial Fraud Unit
01.27 Not all jobs are equal
01.27 The Shift from Manufacturing to Service Economy - Graphic
01.25 Billionaires Occupy Davos as 0.01% Bemoan Inequality
01.24 Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted
01.23 State Capitalism: The visible hand
01.22 How Big Money Bought Our Democracy, Corrupted Both Parties, and Set Us Up for Another Financial Crisis - video
01.22 How U.S. lost out on Apple's iPhone work
02.03 What the Occupy movement must learn from Sundance
02.02 US plans to halt Afghan combat role early surprise Kabul
01.31 TABLE TALK
01.30 With its deadly drones, the US is fighting a coward's war
01.30 UN panel aims for 'a future worth choosing'
01.26 Iran is ready to return to nuclear talks
01.24 Reagan’s Hand in Guatemala’s Genocide
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POLITICAL COMMENTARY:
Republicans Running as Democrats
Desperate to hold on to Congress amid declining polls, enveloping scandals and the deeply unpopular Iraq war, Republicans are trying a new tactic in 2006.
They are running as Democrats.
Around the U.S., suspiciously recent converts are showing up as Democrats in races for the House and the Senate.
Regardless of where they live, these newcomer Dems tend to share a few arresting characteristics. They switched from Republican to Democrat in 2005, often late in 2005. Their switch was quiet and without fanfare. The switch took place without vocal protest or attack from the national Republican Party. They immediately or soon declared intention of running for office as Democrats. Even in a heated election year, their candidacies have not drawn attacks or accusations of treason, betrayal or other name-calling typically beloved by the great noise machine. Often they have functioned in their respective elections as spoilers of a Democratic candidate or of a Democratic primary, and predictably they have chosen to run in a district or state either predominately Democratic or trending away from the GOP.
Self-funded, Rales is pouring millions into a television ad campaign in which he speaks forcefully although broadly against the Iraq war. Polling at 7 percent, he is given no chance of winning the primary against leading candidates Kweisi Mfume and Ben Cardin.
Rales has, however, received favorable media treatment from the rightwing Washington Times and Wall Street Journal. If he chose to run as a third candidate after losing the primary, he would benefit GOP Senate nominee Lt. Gov. Michael Steele in a state where Democrats hold the advantage in party registration.
Calling a candidate like this Democratic is like calling the wooden horse Trojan.
Attempts to spoil a primary election do not always work. Lawyer and Iraq war veteran Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania District 8 staved off a run by a former Republican Bucks County Commissioner who recently switched parties. But for people with little time to research their candidates, media hype against incumbents in general benefits spoilers as much as it benefits genuine alternative candidates. And sometimes the switchers switch back. In Washington state, Warren E. Hanson, a fisherman who switched to Democrat to run against Senator Patty Murray in 2004, is now running in the 2006 GOP primary. Nor do switchers for local office always enjoy a happy ending. Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, was a longtime Republican who switched to run for mayor in a vacant Democratic position.
Some party switchers, of course, owe their conversion to the Iraq war. Of these, the most famous is Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb, a Vietnam veteran and voice for the Scotch Irish who recently switched parties and defeated Harris Miller in the Democratic primary. Webb has been restrained on the campaign trail, but Republican incumbent Sen. George Allen, son of a famous football coach, is aggressively running against himself anyway.
Florida has had its share of apparent party switchers, rather than genuine converts, in the past. The 2004 election in District 5 was influenced by a ringer. And local can become national in a hurry, when it really matters. Theresa LePore, Supervisor of Elections in Palm Beach County in 2000, was a Republican who had switched to Democrat, her county majority, only shortly before playing her role in regard to those butterfly ballots.
Caveat emptor. Seeming moderates who repudiate ideology but not corporate cronyism, recent converts who show no sign of ethical conversion, and candidates who have never before supported the causes of their new party should be weighed with caution.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on September 3, 2006.
