From TPMmuckraker
OK, we’ve done it. We’ve nailed it down: Every single contributor to the Pennsylvania Green Party Senate candidate is actually a conservative — except for the candidate himself.
That leaves only one contribution, for $30, as a legitimate donation from a Green Party supporter. That came from the candidate himself, Carl Romanelli. He made it to his own campaign fund, not the local Green Party.
Romanelli’s latest FEC report shows his campaign currently has $17.20 on hand.
His campaign ‘raised’ $66,000 (an astronomical amount by Green Party standards, trust me on this) to fund a voter signature drive. $65,970 of this came from right wing supporters of extremist incumbent Rick Santorum. Yuck. For a party that claims ethical behavior as a key value, this doesn’t pass the smell test. It fact it reeks.
Romanelli appears to be a newbie Green who just popped out of nowhere. Who is he? Anyone know? Color me curious. His website is so uninspired and bland it almost seems deliberate.
P.S. Democrats may challenge the signatures and their Senate candidate has filed a complaint with the FEC.
[tags]Carl Romanelli[/tags]
Carl was a participant in the 2002 meeting at New Orleans, at the founding of the Green Alliance. I know this because I saw him there. I believe he was also at the GPUSA meeting in Carbondale where a majority of GPUSA decided to join the GPUS, although I was not a participant at that meeting. Walt Sheasby, who, when he was alive, had a keen eye for “outing” FBI infiltrators, never said anything bad about Carl Romanelli. We’ve had plenty of discussions, most of them online — he seems to be a serious Green. (I can provide you with transcripts of the online discussions if you want.)
Carl never claimed to be much of a webmaster — perhaps that explains his website.
I think that Carl comes from an old Italian family, and that he is pulling a family connection — I think he once said to me that he was directly descended from either Sacco or Vanzetti…
Why don’t you email him and find out what he’s up to? I’ve already done so. What’s disturbing to me is that there are so many Greens out there who are so willing to talk smack about other Greens without conducting a serious investigation. If we have grown so suspicious of each other, perhaps it is time to disband as a political party.
The stories here are ballot access, IRV and Bob Casey.
The PA ballot access bar is ridiculously high, and I don’t blame Romanelli for finding whatever way he could to deal with it.
IRV, of course, solves the spoiler problem (though it also removes the Republican motivation for backing Romanelli).
As for Casey, well, the Greens may have accepted Republican money to gain ballot access; the Dems have apparently decided to skip the middle men and run a Republican for Senate.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Bob_Casey.htm
It seems to me that one reason Romanelli is viewed as such a threat is that Casey is so far to the right.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009298.php
“We finally got ahold of that GOP-funded Green candidate in Pennsylvania.
‘I respect the fact that people on the complete opposite side of an issue could respect my point of view,’ he told me.”
From Scott McLarty:
From: Scott McLarty
Subject: [usgp-dx] Re: Pennsylvania’s situation /
Romanelli versus Rs
& Ds
A few more talking points on the flap over Carl
Romanelli’s, ahem, war chest.
— Carl owes no one an apology. Democratic
candidates take money from both Dems & Repubs all
the time. Republicans take money from Dems &
Repubs all time too. Ralph Nader accepted
contributions from both Dems & Repubs in 2000 and
2004, as did David Cobb in 2004, and they had
every right and justification for doing so.
Can anyone imagine a Democratic politician ever
announcing “I will not accept major campaign
contributions from registered Republican”?
The position of Green candidates should be “We
will accept campaign contributions from anyone
who’s willing to contribute, as long as they come
from human beings and not corporations. We
consider any contribution an expression of
support for our Green platform and Green
principles.”
— Democrats aren’t the solution, they’re the
problem. Candidates like Bob Casey are one of
the main reasons the Green Party exists.
Progressive & ‘antiwar’ voters whose perpetual
rationale is “We have to keep voting for
Democrats, despite their support for the war, in
order to keep Republicans out of office” are as
responsible for the Iraq war as Republicans are.
Whether Bob Casey or Rick Santorum wins in
November, it’ll be a Republican victory.
Carl Romanelli has no power to spoil an election.
The only possible ‘spoiling’ that can take place
would be if Pennsylvania voters were denied the
option of voting for a US Senate candidate who
supports peace instead of war, favors women’s
reproductive rights and same-sex marriage rights,
and other Green positions.
— Carl has no power to ‘steal’ or ‘siphon’ votes
away from Bob Casey. Bob Casey doesn’t own
anyone’s vote except his own.
Dems talk as if there’s some kind of moral or
strategic obligation to vote Democrat, whether or
not their candidates deserve people’s votes.
This is nonsense. Voters have the right to vote
for whoever represents their interests & ideals
and to have options on the ballot on Election
Day. Dems need some lessons in civics &
democracy.
— If Democrats are so upset about the
participation of Greens in elections like the one
in Pennsylvania, why aren’t they working hard to
enact IRV? The only possible answer is that
they’d rather lose to a Republican than tolerate
the participation of Greens.
Evviva Romanelli!
Scott
Sam Smith:
“The problem is that the Democrats are once again not taking responsibility for their own politics. They think they can annoy people with impunity. They can’t and some of these people become Greens. Romanelli was one; not only was he a Democrat but he was county coordinator for Gary Hart in 1984. Basically, if you are going to run an pro-war, anti-abortion Democrat for Senate you have to expect some people to go elsewhere and for them to play the same sort of hardball politics Democrats consider routine when they do it.”
http://prorev.com/2006/08/hardball-politics-in-pennsylvania.htm
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/39879/
There is nothing so farcial as the pompous self-righteousness of some progressives. It is on the same level as Pat Robertson using the 700 club to call for the assignation of Hugo Chavez, an act for which he later apologized to the public, if not to God.
The first lesson of mind control and mob psychology is to get the masses to think of everyone lese as somehow different. As long as you can consider them as “the other” and vilify them at will, then you are safely within the protective fold of your own self-righteousness. Take the example of Marcos Zuninga’s vilivication of Carl Pope and the Sierry Club for endorsing Republican Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island. Chaffee, almost single handedly stopped the Richard Pombo led effort to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. He has been a staunch supporter of environmental issue for his entire career. For the the Sierra Club to have turned their backs on Chaffee just because he was wearing a Red State Tie would have been an act of betrayal, putting party purity above issues and ethics. That is the first step toward the totalitarianism of the left, as opposed to the fascism being engineered now by Dick Cheney and the Republican House leadership.
Here is another question: Should Republican Pete McCloskey, have refused Democratic money in his primary race against Richard Pombo? As a Green, I worked my ass off for Pete, who (by the way) authored the original Endangered Species Act and was the Republican Coordinaotor for the very first Earth Day.
Is anybody even suggesting Romanelli promised the GOP or its members anything for their money? Except to run a serious campaign?
If not, then this flap is all about the so-called “spoiler effect.” I have been waiting for seven years for anyone to show me a mathematically valid argument that the “spoiler effect” is real. (Many have tried. They always make some false assumption along the way. It’s a word problem. You don’t get any points for setting it up wrong and then doing the wrong arithmetic correctly.) It makes Dems feel good by giving them someone else to blame for their failures. But there is simply no physical mechanism for “siphoning” votes. Votes belong to each voter until the instant they are cast. They don’t belong to some other candidate before that, no matter how hard Carl Pope and the Dems wish things worked that way.
“In 2000, Gore stole millions of votes from Nader, and then he didn’t even use them!”
Greens Defend PA Candidate for US Senate Against Democrat Slurs
http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2006_08_04.shtml