(Let's try to have some fun with this.)
FREDONIA, Mich. — If you want to run a political campaign against a Democrat in Fredonia, you won't be able to do it as a Republican, as of Wednesday.
That's because a City Council motion passed Wednesday night bars the GOP from "advertising, marketing, promoting or denoting its existence in any form designated for Fredonia or that is found to have arrived in Fredonia through Republican means, including but not limited to third-party efforts supported or condoned by the Republican Party."
The ban was enacted in response to "complete and utter party incompetence in every area of American life," said Mayor Greg Robinson, a Democrat.
The ban was enacted as an extension of the city charter section that provides for penalties for disturbing the peace. Violation of the ban results in a $200 fine for the first infraction, a $500 fine the second time and a $5,000 fine and 10 hours of community service for the third infraction. The ban also calls for any pro-GOP material seized to be destroyed.
(How many right-wing fringe fetishes can I work into one diary?)
Carl Hubbel, chairman of the state Republican Party chapter, says he understands how "some in our great state may be struggling during these tough economic times, but turning away from our First Amendment rights and abandoning the party of fiscal responsibility is the worst thing we can do. During this time of high unemployment and government takeovers of private industries, we more and more find ourselves needing the independent and fiscally conservative approach with which the Republican Party has served this country so well since the Civil War."
The state party chapter has already filed suit in district court, arguing that the ban violated the First Amendment.
Robinson, meanwhile, took issue with Hubbel's statement.
"Fiscal responsibility. He wants to talk about fiscal responsibility. You're talking about a party that cut taxes on the richest people, borrowed trillions of dollars to pay for a luxury war, watched as the price of gas tripled and made President Obama have to be the one to see the automobile industry collapse. I voted for Ronald Reagan, but this modern Republican Party is just full of bad idea after bad idea. So we're not going to allow those ideas to poison our public discourse anymore."
The vote on the ban was 4-0, with the four abstentions coming from members of the council who are Republicans. They left the room to protest the move. One, Regina Wallace, already has had herself arrested in further protest.
"I marched down to City Hall this morning with every GOP sticker and button I could scrounge up," Wallace said, "and I had a giant stack of party literature, and I started handing it out to everyone I saw. And Greg was there, and he tried to get me to come to his office so we could talk. And I said, 'Greg, we talked last night, and then you voted to silence me. So you're going to have to arrest me for disturbing the peace.'"
Wallace was arrested and fined $200 and had her prohibited materials confiscated and destroyed.
"Doesn't matter," she said when asked about the destruction of property. "I'm going to come back today and tomorrow and the next day, and so are the Republican Women of Fredonia, and we're going to keep getting arrested, and when this abomination of a ban is overturned, we're going to sue for destruction of property.
"I'm particularly interested in being told how the mayor plans to compensate me for my 1964 Barry Goldwater button."
Robinson doesn't regret any part of the ban.
"I'm a fan of constructive political discussions, but when you have people from the right side of the aisle talking about how our president isn't an American, how his daughter looked like street trash in her cornrows, talking about how government-run health care is socialism -- look, we already have that, and I don't see anyone saying Medicare, Medicaid or the VA should be done away with.
"These are people who will vote against the stimulus and then parade around with stimulus checks they say they secured for us. Well, where were you when it was time to vote on that money? So they can take their hypocrisy somewhere else -- literally. I've already had my deputies go around scraping GOP bumper stickers off cars. You won't even find a red elephant in a toy store. And we're going to put some Hispanic music on the same frequency as Rush Limbaugh and all those other idiots so you can't hear what anyone's saying."
Robinson says he expects the Republican Party to win the challenge but that "even one day of not encountering quite so much of this anti-Obama and anti-truth garbage will be worth whatever damages we have to pay.
"This isn't going to stand up to scrutiny any more than that dessert ban will. Funny thing is, Ms. Wallace voted for that ban. She also introduced a resolution calling for the city Democratic Party to change its name to the Democrat Socialist Party. She earned a lot of enemies for that one. And she still hasn't stopped saying Government Motors. That's really childish.
"The worst thing was she's recently introduced a bill that would require that anyone running for elected office submit a birth certificate as proof of American citizenship. 'And not a certificate of live birth,' she said. She wants a document that says 'birth certificate.' She wouldn't say what the difference was, only that after 'that African accident in November,' she wasn't leaving anything to chance.
"You don't have to have been born in this country to serve on the City Council. She's just trying to be Michigan's Michele Bachmann."
As for how others may react to the ban?
"I suspect civil libertarians won't like it, but after eight years of the Cheney administration, this can't be that bad. It's not like we're torturing or spying on anyone. We're just tired of hearing lies and nonsense. And it's spreading. Pretty much the only place you don't see right-wing garbage touted as legitimate discussion fodder is some MSNBC shows and Daily Kos."