http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/11/21/cheat_sheet/The GOP's dirty deeds of 2006Salon's guide to robo-calls, push polls, vigilantes and other murky dealings from this year's elections. By Alex Koppelman and Lauren Shell
- snip -
Fortunately, politicians in several states and the U.S. Senate are taking steps to criminalize some of the more heinous tricks played this year. Before any of the bad deeds from this election are forgotten, here's Salon's Cheat Sheet -- our top 10 list of dirt.
- snip -
The progressive group that wasn't Bob Casey, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, isn't your typical Democrat -- pro-gun, pro-death penalty, antiabortion -- but he was running against a Republican, Rick Santorum, who made him look positively liberal by comparison.
Still, there was ample room for anyone who wished to attack Casey from the left -- and there were plenty who did. Like the people behind the Progressive Policy Council, a self-described nonprofit organization that popped up just before the election to denounce Casey's conservative stances. But the group, which appeared to have no signs of actual life other than mailers sent out attacking Casey, may not have been as "progressive" as advertised: It's represented by the former deputy general counsel to President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, who has also worked for the Dole campaign and the Republican National Committee.
- snip -
And last, but not least -- vigilantes On Election Day, a posse of three men in Tucson, Ariz., proved that the Wild West still lives.
The group, which was three strong, and allegedly composed of two anti-immigration activists, Russ Dove and Roy Warden, carried a camcorder, a clipboard -- on which, they said, was information about a proposed law to make English the state's official language -- and a gun. While one man would approach a voter, holding the clipboard, another would follow, pointing the video camera at them. The third would stand behind, holding his hand to the gun at his hip in what activists on the other side called classic voter intimidation tactics in a precinct one local paper had previously declared the bellwether of the area's Hispanic vote.
It's not the first time Dove and Warden have been accused of this type of act. Dove, who is a convicted felon and former militia member, patrolled Arizona's polls in 2004 as well, and Warden has publicly burned a Mexican flag (for which he was charged with in arson) and acknowledged that he sought a concealed carry permit for a gun, partly in hopes of enticing a local police officer to attack him and force Warden to use deadly force in self-defense.
MORE AT LINK