Interestingly, This Theory Also Explains Al Sharpton's Candidacy

PhilipMichaels.com ^ | 1.2.03 | Philip Michaels

[mhking]

So I was back in San Francisco on business a few weeks ago and headed to the Montgomery Street BART station to catch a train to take me away from the grime and madness of The City to the relatively more palatable grime and madness of the East Bay. Which is when I spotted them -- a couple of young men standing in front of the train station staircase. They were waving sings and carrying on and generally making a nuisance of themselves by trying to stand in front of rapidly fleeing passersby. They also were singing -- at the top of their lungs and nowhere within a five-block radius of the right key -- "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." And, in the evening twilight, it wasn't until I got within a few feet that I could make out exactly what exactly their signs said.

"LaRouche for President."

Good God, I thought -- Lyndon LaRouche is running for president again? Did I oversleep this morning and wake up back in 1988? Are the Bangles popular again? Is The Cosby Show still setting those Nielsen ratings afire?

You can understand my confusion. After all these years, I figured that Lyndon LaRouche was (a) dead; (b) stripped of his franchise and deported; or (c) legally insane and therefore ineligible for the White House. Well, as it turns out, LaRouche is alive and well and still babbling about some crazy thing or another. According to his campaign Web site, LaRouche is on the ballot in 11 states -- that's over one-fifth of the country, pal! -- and the District of Columbia, so if he has been deported, someone forgot to tell the Rhode Island Secretary of State. And after carefully scouring Article II, the Constitution doesn't really forbid someone who's certifiably insane from running this country.

So that's more good news for you, Governor Dean!

Still, I couldn't help but feel that this was all some sort of put-on. I mean, let's say you're a fringe presidential candidate -- so below the radar you're making Dennis Kucinich look like an unstoppable juggernaut. Is it really in your best interest, then, to have, as your point men in your uphill battle for mainstream recognition, a couple of punks who think they're doing you a favor by menacing commuters and slaughtering the lyrics of Julia Ward Howe? My friends, it is not. You'd be better off spouting crazy conspiracy theories and getting yourself thrown in jail for tax evasion, and that strategy hasn't exactly helped LaRouche make any headway in his last seven presidential campaigns.

So I've decided the whole ugly incident was a prank -- probably a hidden-camera stunt for C-SPAN's version of Punk'd, with Brian Lamb leaping out from behind a newsrack to taunt gullible pedestrians taken in by this sham.

Look for the episode to air some time after Booknotes takes an in-depth look at "Truly Tasteless Jokes Three."

[mhking]

Just damn.

If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

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[P.O.E.]

I had to look it up: LaRouche ballot status

My guess is there's plenty of money to be made even being a losing candidate. Which probably does explain Sharpton.

[al baby]

Tawana Brawley
Cried Rape In 1987, black teenager Tawana Brawley claimed that six white law enforcement officers abducted and raped her. Those claims and others that her attackers had scrawled racial insults on her body and smeared her with feces were declared a hoax by a grand jury that also exonerated the man at the center of the accusations, then-assistant district attorney Steven Pagones. Pagones was named as one of the attackers by Miss Brawley's advisers: Maddox, the Rev. Al Sharpton and lawyer C. Vernon Mason. While Miss Brawley refused to speak with authorities or the media, her advisers were soon making wild claims. Jury selection was supposed to have started for the Pagones’ defamation lawsuit, seeking more than $150 million from Miss Brawley’s three advisers when Maddox accused then-state Attorney General Robert Abrams of masturbating over photos of Miss Brawley. Sharpton compared Abrams, a Jew, to Adolf Hitler. All three linked then-Gov. Mario Cuomo to organized crime and the Ku Klux Klan. But the grand jury within a year announced the story was a hoax and specifically cleared a Fishkill police officer and Pagones. Al Sharpton Bio

[woofer]

And after carefully scouring Article II, the Constitution doesn't really forbid someone who's certifiably insane from running this country.

So that's more good news for you, Governor Dean!

Ha!

Bwaaaahahahahahaha!

Best line in the screed.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Actually LaRouche is ahead of Al, Carol and perhaps one other dwarf in fund-raising to date, or at least was so reported a month or two ago. His supporters heckling made for the most interesting dwarf debate last fall.

[Slings and Arrows]

I clicked on the link and saw that LaRouche is running as a 'RAT.

Schadenfreude time!

[logan]

I'm totaly mystified by the Laruche people... they have seemingly normal looking young men and women with tables on a lot of college campuses. Where do they come from? Why do they do it? Where does all the money they raise (apparently a couple mil a year) go?

[ConservativeMan55]

[cake_crumb]

LOL! Heck, I thought LaRouche was in a mental hospital, prison or Paris. IMO, they do it for for the money : campaign donations, talk shows, op/eds and book deals...and free dinners...and all the perks that come from creatively cooking the campaign books.

[weegee]

Lyndon LaRouche is the DEMOCRAT candidate that embarasses the Democrats. State parties will actually deny him a place on the primary ballot even when he has the requisite number of signatures (Tennessee was such a state in 2000).

Delegates who were supporters were locked out of the 1992 convention (too crowded, yet oddly enough there was enough room for the reporters covering the event).

What does this say that Al Sharpton, Kooky Clark, et al are "serious" contenders while Lyndon LaRouche is the only one who embarasses the Democrats? Dean, Clark, and others are espousing antiBush theories to rival Mr. LaRouche's own crackpot ideas.

[weegee]

In fact, Lyndon LaRouche is far from being the only antisemite running for the Democrat nomination in 2004.

[weegee]

One guy I knew from high school became a LaRouche supporter after seeing his followers' public access tv shows. They loved his antiBush (in 1992) message and the antisemitism was another big factor (these were Christians who attended Catholic school but their Lebanese mother was always on about "dajooz"). Being "Democrats" they had to find a candidate who spoke to them and LaRouche was that man. Republicans= "party of the rich", Democrats = "party of the little guy".

Many a talk host on Pacifica (or even NPR) is on par with Lyndon LaRouche for being a crackpot. Ever lurk at DUh?

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

LaRouchies... the conspiracy nuts' conspiracy nuts.

[rockrr]

I believe I read somewhere that LaRouche had qualified for the ballot in Rhode Island, but John Edwards had missed the mark (too many disqualified signatures!)?!

'Tis truly a wonderful time to be a Republican (wish I could say the same for conservatives)

[Dallas59]

All Sharpton has been seen in space as a Black-Hole...

[Southack]

"I mean, let's say you're a fringe presidential candidate -- so below the radar you're making Dennis Kucinich look like an unstoppable juggernaut."

That wouldn't be LaRouche.

LaRouche has out raised Kucinich in campaign funds for this election. In fact, LaRouche (when the leftists permit his name to be mentioned) outpolls Kucinich, Sharpton, Mosely-Braun and others in several states...and he's raised more money than any of them.

Quite a feat for a guy that isn't permitted to have his name uttered on national TV (they don't dare call him one of the "9" Democratic Party candidates).

Media bias?! Can you imagine how much press coverage a *Republican* crackpot would get if he/she managed to crack into the top half of fundraising and polling, nationally?!

[hellinahandcart]

they have seemingly normal looking young men and women with tables on a lot of college campuses.

They may look normal at first glance, but if you look closely, you'll see that their eyeballs are vibrating slightly in their sockets. That's how the disease starts.

We get older Larouchies manning the tables here in New York, you can see their eyes twirling like pinwheels from half a block away.