Summer Shields: the Leading Edge of the trend toward Phantom Stealth Campaigns

In relation to this comment for this news article:
Hey Gerry Tuoti, this story should be on Frank vs Brown, not on the two people holding signs. Headline says they annoyed the public– why does the Gazette believe that? Were there complaints to the police department? Or is this more Gazette editorializing their opinion rather than reporting the facts. Your article says they refused to be photographed–with an accompanying photograph where the guy clearly isn’t avoiding the camera. Stick to the facts!!!

I think it’s now open to question whether Rachel Brown is even on the ballot.  The answer is, apparently yes.  Having cleared that hurdle — sure, Brown versus Frank.  Really, you want to relive that clip? 

Let’s run through some of the odd repercussions of the Tuesday Primary elections.  The Media is reporting it as a “Night of the Women”, rather tediously — see Jon Stewart’s Wednesday program for some apt mocking of that meme.  But I will report it as a great night of Stealth Campaigns.  It’s with this thread in tow that I can stick in the latest antics of the Lyndon Larouche Movement as a rather severe example of a national phenomenom.

Monday and into Tuesday morning, the blogosphere was rocked with speculation that Orly Taitz – the most prominent name in Birther Conspiracy Theorists–  just might win the Republican nomination for Secretary of State against a certain re-election for the Demcoratic Incumbent.  Her opponent was a man not much campaigning who had not established any name or presence — apparently a former player for the Jacksonville Jaguars, but my wikipedia search on Monday pointed to a Bowl Game he played in college and to a stint in (I’m not kidding here) the XFL.  Money quote from the politico article.
“For professional Republicans right now, the main tactic in regards to Orly Taitz is prayer,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and a longtime observer of California politics.
It turned out well.  It’s hard to ascertain who counts as the Stealth Campaigner here, but Orly Taitz was a known enough quantity — her name registered well enough and out of the “Vaguely aware” category that 75 percent of the Republican party voted against her.

Fate played a trick on the Democratic Party faithful.  Schaudenfruede was reveresed.  South Carolina threw up a surprise win for an unemployed man who filed the $10k filing fee with a personal check and then disappared.  I may be the only person in this country who will go to Bat for Alvin Greene.  Or, actually looking over the blogosphere, I am not — though my good company mostly consists of Republicans enjoying a moment of Schaudenfrede and a chance to throw spit-wads at Democrats — though there’s also the cynical like me in his bunch of supporters.  My first impulse is “Good for him”.  The questioning of why and how this unemployed man dumped ten thousand dollars on a pointless ballot spot is shoved aside to question — why did Carly Fiorni dump $80 Million into a biad that’ll get her such a lousy six digit pay-check?  In respect to the bid of the South Carolina Democratic Party’s request for him to step aside, I urge Alvin Greene to get his Rod Blagojevich on and demand just compensation.  At any rate, maybe he can parlay his Stealth Campaign victory into Reality Television Spot.
See, Alvin Greene’s opponet — name no longer of any import — the supposed Legitimate Candidate — had about as little chance of victory as Greene.  Maybe there is something to the Weakness of the Media in covering poltiical candidates, even down to the flakes and flukes at the bottom of the ballot.  And people have been wondering whether the coverage of Orly Taitz is something of over-kill: it stopped her from being on the General Election ballot, right?

One more Stealth Campaign to note, though to a different effect — the winner of the Republican Primary Contest for Senator from Nevada — Sharron Angle.  Upon winning her nomination, her campaign website was scrubbed away and down-sized to a simple “Contribute” button.  And there we move forward — the Republicans just did the seemingly impossible and re-elected Harry Reid to another term — you know that, don’t you?

But the Winner, and Still Champions.  A Confederacy of Dunces.  Just when I thought that my capacity to be astounded by the absurdity of the Larouche organization had been tapped — they manage to outdo themselves.  In December of 2009, Summer Shields announced his primary challenge against Nancy Pelosi.  This was one of a trio of Larouche Youth Members campaigning, and moving their foces into a organizing force of electoral politics — the Movement’s purpose for the year 2010.  They made various tea party appearances.  They launched with a Press Conference at the National Press Club — “a leadership that can inspire young people, but also inspire the tired, angry frustrated Americans to get out”.  And from this ground, they scored a breakthrough in Texas.  Kesha Rogers SHOOK the Texas Democratic Party as, “The victory in the 22nd Congressional District yesterday by LaRouche Democrat Kesha Rogers sent an unmistakable message to the White House, and its British imperial controllers: Your days are numbered.”

Hm?
“Whenever you hear someone with a British accent talking about this on behalf of British Petroleum they are not telling you the truth.” — Congressman Anthony Weiner.  (But Gad, it took the org forever to jump onto that one.)

So, with the Right Moment of British – bashing coming forward, Momentum, surely, was with them… right?

summershields0003

Mass Strike conditions evident — just see the protesters in front of a campaign appearance from Obama for Boxer and the other Democrats — it spilled over over-seas with a sign alerting to from Bueso in Germany – “Erst Kesha, dann Kascha” (First Kesha, then Kascha) — en route to their usual .04 percent vote total.

It was quite a political contest, wasn’t it?  Here’s the whirl-wind tour:
Memories… of the way we used to be… Misty Water Colored Memories…

summershields0001summershields0002summershields0004
Of the way we were…

summershields0005summershields006summershields007summershields008
Of the way… we… were…

I think I can be forgiven for, after seeing the financial reports available online, seeing Robert Beltran’s $300, reading the Larouche Organization pump up the promise of defeating Nancy Pelosi, reading the reports on the Great Post Office Campaign, seeing the inspiration go down to Carol Smith Johnson in allowing her to wage her campaign in Indiana and garnering 8 percent of the vote, reading Howie G pounce on “Watch out for Summer Shields in California” — you can forgive me for ASSUMING that all the i’s were dotted, and the t’s were crossed, all the lower-case j’s were dotted, all the o’s were circled — the $1,740 filing fee processed or the 3,000 valid signatures gathered (shouldn’t be too difficult, right, with that Mass Strike happening and all) — you can forgive me for ASSUMING that Summer Shields was on the goddamned ballot.

But you know what happens when you assume?  Well, usually you make as Ass out of You and Me, but in this case you just make as Ass out of the Larouchies.
But here we do have this clever solution to a problem the org has with these campaigns.  In the past, the Larouche org ran candidates, but reportedly they stopped doing due to attention being delivered to the candidate themselves as opposed to the cult leader.  But we now run ashunder in a need for a fund-raiser purpose and organization tool for future recruits, in the post Larouche for President Era.  So why not run a Phantom Congressional Campaign — if you leave the man Summer Shields off the ballot, you will keep him from the Media Spotlight, saving the mentions in the media — allowing future campaign events on the Summer Shields Campaign website to spotlight future Cadre School shows (ie: Indoctrination Seminars).  Money well avoided in Spending!

That is, unless you want to believe, this:
I emailed someone at the Oakland LYM chapter about Summer’s ballot status. This is the responce I got,
The party hacks blocked Summer from running in the primary as a Democrat, so he’s a write in candidate. No word yet on the results.
Apparently they didn’t care all that much of this supposed Party Hack block job.  In the past, when the Democratic Party has blocked delegations won in late season low attention primary battles, the Larouche org has cried foul.  When the Texas Democratic Party dis-associated themselves with Kesha Rogers, they’ve cried foul.  Here?  Just a post-humous rewriting of history to record their great Primary Dance as a “Write In Campaign”.  And with that, Lyndon Larouche has now taken the lead over Harold Stassen for largest number of Presidential Bids, Larouche having been a Write-in Candidate for every Presidential Election since the days of Socrates!

 …………….

Okay.  I’ll bite.  Let’s see how the election results turned out for the candidates Howie G endorsed over here.

Tom Fiegen = 9.4 percent
Tyler Gernant = 24 percent (the winner of the primary had 39.)
Nancy Price = NARROW VICTORY!   (Not expected to win in November)
Danny Tarkanian = 23.3% (third in the Nevada contest).
Art Dunn, a LaRouche endorser in 2004 = 11.3 percent

Also, it probably comes as a surprise to everyone listed except Dunn that the Larouche org has, on some level, claimed them.  Today, I see they’re also laying claim to Blanche Lincoln’s victory — strange, as Obama’s support of Lincoln opened up a cleave between him and the Democratic Party rank and file.

In Wikipedia Editing News, the Larouchies are demanding to know why a supportive sentence of a former Soviet Union official keeps being cut out of the Larouche article.  I assume this renewed interest in this old chestnut comes from an interview that the org is currently trumpeting of an appearance in some Russian publication or other.  Such follows the removal of “Albert Sumlin” from the proceedings after another chest-nut attempt in editing the article regarding Jeremiah Duggan.

6 Responses to “Summer Shields: the Leading Edge of the trend toward Phantom Stealth Campaigns”

  1. Dennis King Says:

    Brilliant! One of the best things you’ve ever done on this blog.

  2. Justin Says:

    Why, thank you. Probably a post full of more I was prepared to put forth a post which consisted of merely a batch of photographs from news stories and blog posts from the “Summer Shields for Congress” campaign, but the result turned out to be a little unexpected — more unexpected than even Kesha Rogers’s victory which, inretrospect, really wasn’t much.

  3. joe Says:

    Why don’t the two of you kiss each other?

  4. Justin Says:

    GOAT — is that you?
    http://www.struat.com/election/2008/04/11/in-memory-of-kenneth-kronberg/#comments

    (also posted that comment somewhere else at roughly that time– thought just that highly of the witticism.)

    Never made the comment regarding revenire, though hard to say…
    http://www.struat.com/election/2009/03/01/wait/#comment-65724

  5. Okay Says:

    Come on, get real..

    you don’t get anybody more whorish than Dennis King.

    Dennis King is the whore of whore’s.

  6. Erasmus Says:

    Get real..

    you don’t get anybody more whorish than Dennis King!!

    Dennis King is the whore of whore’s.

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