Here in NY-24 we have a very close congressional race that may be thrown to the Tea Party by a Green Party candidate. Is this happening elsewhere? Is the Green Party trying, once again, to play spoiler in tight races?
Ours is a rematch between Rep. Ann-Marie Buerkle, who is an Operation Rescue leader and member of the Flat Earth Five, among other extreme-right badges of "honor," and Dan Maffei, who was our reasonably progressive congressman from 2008-2010. Dan is a strong environmentalist and feminist who took brave votes for stimulus and health car reform in his one term. Buerkle won in 2010 by fewer than 700 votes, mainly by hammering away at those votes.
A record 7 million dollars has gone into this campaign, featuring really nasty ads on both sides, and the few polls out there show another deadlock. Except that this time, 6-7% of respondents favor Ursula Rozum of the Green Party.
Had she stayed out of it, we could assume Dan would win pretty handily. As a first-time candidate, Rozum could easily have run in one of the many local races where candidates are unopposed and need someone pushing them to the left, such as State Senate or County Executive. Instead, she keeps making the argument that there's no real difference between the D and R candidates. That might have seemed believable to some back in Bush v. Gore days, but it is completely absurd in this case. So I'm wondering if the Green Party is still actively pursuing a strategy of torpedoing Democrats in tight races, in the hope that a far-right government will eventually topple itself?