Southern Poverty Law Center: Electing Extremism...Right Wing Radicals

[RedEarth]

Electing Extremism
Around the U.S., right-wing radicals are running for everything from national political office to a county mosquito control board.
by Alexander Zaitchik

In 1989, notorious white supremacist David Duke ran for a vacant seat in the Louisiana state legislature and won. Despite repeated efforts -- and winning more than 670, 000 votes, a majority of the state's white voters, in a 1991 gubernatorial bid -- Duke would fail to convert this electoral victory into higher office. But the former Klan leader remains convinced that the road to national power for those who share his views runs through local and state assemblies. At last year's European American Conference, a racist pow-wow Duke organizes annually, he implored audience members to enter politics -- and start small.

"State representative races can be won with modest budgets and small staffs, while affording the winner possible major media attention and the ability to file and promote legislation that can materially improve our people's plight," proclaimed Duke, citing personal experience.

..........

While some of the lessons of Darby's success are particular to the race -- Darby ran against a political unknown, was listed first on the ballot, and was at least a vaguely familiar name to many Alabamians -- one lesson from his race and those of David Duke applies across the country: Dark-horse candidates with extremist views and unsavory allies can make surprisingly strong runs for office and poison public discourse in the process.

What follows are snapshots of 2006 political races featuring candidates that have espoused extremist views or are allied with hate groups.

Ray McBerry (Georgia)

Shawn Stuart (Montana)

Don Goldwater (Arizona)

John Ubele (Florida)

James Hart (Tennessee)

...more names and bio's........



http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=676

[acmejack]

1. I went to that link & when I saw that the article was several pgs long

I initially thought there where that many extremists running for the legislature. 12 pages of the assholes would really be terrifying, but not entirely unsurprising, given the state of present day America...

[rkc3]

2. Surprisingly, that's how the Christian Right got started.

There's plenty of stories about steps taken by the nutters to get involved in local politics and gradually build to state and national offices. To their credit, and our dismay, they've done a good job in getting there.

It will be interesting to see how far these people get in their efforts.