Why would Teapublicans want to help the liberal Green Party get on the ballot in Texas?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/sblow/stories/DN-blow_03met.ART.West.Edition1.333d9b6.html

Don't let Green Party scheme color your vote

<snip>To start at the beginning, the Green Party wasn't having much luck with a petition drive to get on the November ballot. That's no surprise. The far-left party doesn't exactly jibe with most Texas voters.

Its platform goes far beyond environmental concerns to include things like legalizing marijuana, registering handguns and abolishing the death penalty.

When things looked bleak for the Greens getting on the ballot, wonder of wonders, an amazing gift arrived – the services of a professional petition-gathering company.

And just like that, the Greens were on the ballot.

But who paid the $532,000 cost of the petition drive?

That's still a mystery. But as excellent reporting by my colleague Wayne Slater revealed during the summer, the money came with Republican fingerprints all over it.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Same reason the GOP paid for pro-Nader mailings in 2000

[polichick]

2. Yep. nt

[JuniperLea]

5. Yep...

Because their own candidate is not viable by any means.

[tabasco]

3. Cuz they're such swell guys.

You betcha!

[Just One Woman]

4. split the vote, aye?

They saw what happened to them with the teabaggers and think they can split the vote on the democrats by going green.

[OHdem10]

6. Greens will draw votes from Democrats and bingo Republica

or 2 Democratic Parties split votes and the Republican walks
away with the win.

[proud patriot]

7. To Hurt Liberal Causes n/t

[TBF]

8. That might work when Obama's on the ballot in 2012 -

but the big contest right now is Perry v. White (a very popular former Houston mayor). They should be worried - White could actually beat him if enough Houstonians show up to vote. But they are voting based on knowing White as mayor and liking him, so putting Greens on the ticket shouldn't make much of a difference in that contest.

[democracy1st]

9. NYT: Republican Runs Street People on Green Party

Benjamin Pearcy, a candidate for statewide office in Arizona, lists his campaign office as a Starbucks. The small business he refers to in his campaign statement is him strumming his guitar on the street. The internal debate he is having in advance of his coming televised debate is whether he ought to gel his hair into his trademark faux Mohawk.




Mr. Pearcy, 20, is running for a seat on the Arizona Corporation Commission, which oversees public utilities, railroad safety and securities regulation. Although Mr. Pearcy says he is taking his first run for public office seriously, the political establishment here views him as nothing more than a political dirty trick.

Mr. Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats. Arizona’s Democratic Party has filed a formal complaint with local, state and federal prosecutors in an effort to have the candidates removed from the ballot, and the Green Party has urged its supporters to steer clear of the rogue candidates.





http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/us/politics/07candidates.html