‘Jack Davis is a total fake,” says Levi Russell, communications director of Tea Party Express. “He is a liberal Democrat who endorsed President Obama, supports cap-and-trade, and has given thousands of dollars to big-government liberals. Jack Davis is no more ‘Tea Party’ than Barack Obama is!”
The man who speaks for one of America’s chief Tea Party groups does not mince words about the 78-year-old congressional candidate. And why should he? Davis, who is running in Tuesday’s special election in upstate New York’s 26th district, has turned that contest upside down. He finagled himself onto the ballot as a “Tea Party” contender, even though he has nothing to do with the Tea Party and is under attack from tea partiers from coast to coast. Nonetheless, his counterfeit Tea Party credentials may have confused enough center-right voters to draw support away from Republican nominee Jane Corwin. What should be an easy victory in this GOP-rich constituency now is a three-way tug of war among Davis, Corwin, and Democrat Kathy Hochul.
Center-right activists have only four days to educate voters on the real Jack Davis. More than just a spoiler, he is a Democratic donor and someone who has run thrice for this congressional seat, as a Democrat and even as the nominee of the far-left, Big Labor–fueled Working Families party.
Public records help make the case against Jack Davis.
As the Center for Responsible Politics’ indispensable OpenSecrets.org website confirms, Jack Davis donated $4,250 to Democratic congressional candidates between 2004 and 2009. This included $2,250 to Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.). She conceived the dodgy “Deem and Pass” procedure that eased the House of Representatives’ adoption of the odious Obamacare legislation as it slithered through Congress last year.
Slaughter also contributed to the Democrats’ vaunted “new era of civility” by claiming last month that Republicans are not merely misguided but, in fact, homicidal.
“In ’94, people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts,” Slaughter said. “Now they’re here to kill women.”
Speaking at an April 7 “Stand Up for Women’s Health” rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Slaughter told members of the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL (formerly the National Abortion Rights Action League) that Republicans were akin to storm troopers.
“You are allowed to have an abortion if you have been raped or it’s a matter of incest,” Slaughter declared. “However, you have to keep a receipt. Did you know that? It’s sort of like an old German Nazi movie. Show me your papers!”
Slaughter’s lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is 5 percent out of a perfect 100. For 2010, she scored a zero. Jack Davis’s political cash has helped Louise Slaughter remain in Congress.
Davis himself has run for Congress in New York’s 26th district. As records from the New York State Board of Elections demonstrate, he was the nominee of both the Democratic and Working Families parties in 2004. Republican Thomas M. Reynolds defeated him that November 2.
Jack Davis lost to Reynolds again in November 2006. Once more, Davis carried the torches of the Democratic and Working Families parties, plus the Independence party.
In 2008, Davis ran in the Democratic primary, but lost to Alice Kryzan. That August 23, he endorsed the Obama-Biden Democratic ticket.
“Over his distinguished career in the United States Senate,” Davis stated in a press release, “Senator Biden has proven he has the experience and leadership necessary for these important times. Together with Senator Obama they can bring real change for working men and women. I pledge to do everything in my power to get them elected in November.”
If anyone doubts that Jack Davis has been an active Democrat, and one associated with the party’s most liberal elements, these documents should disabuse them of those reservations.
“The only real conservative in the race is Jane Corwin, who has been endorsed by the Tea Party Express, TEA New York, Tea Party Nation, FreedomWorks, Marco Rubio, Allen West, and many others,” says Levi Russell, a true tea partier. “We hope the voters in NY-26 won’t be deceived by Jack Davis’s lies, and vote for Jane Corwin.”
— New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.