Are the Teabaggers about to take over the Independence Party?

[Bjorn Against]

Joe Repya, a veteran of the Vietnam and Iraq wars and a former Republican, has registered with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to seek the Independence Party’s endorsement for governor.

“I’m serious about this race,” said Repya, who called himself the first “legitimate” IP gubernatorial candidate. “The bottom line is, we need leadership in Minnesota — somebody who is capable of sitting people down, getting them to put their radical political beliefs aside and work for the people of Minnesota. I’m convinced I’m that man.”

Repya, a co-chair of Minnesota Veterans for Bush-Cheney in 2004 and a candidate for state Republican Party chairman in 2007, announced last summer that he had quit the GOP because the party was in a “death spiral.”

“The national mood is very similar to the mood here in Minnesota,” Repya said this afternoon. “When you do a national poll, and over 50 percent of the people polled say they’re independents — and when in another recent poll, more people said they’d vote for a nonexistent party called the Tea Party than for Republicans or Democrats — it’s pretty evident that there’s a dynamic shift occurring not only in the country, but here in Minnesota as well.

http://politicsinminnesota.com/blog/2010/01/joe-repya-to-seek-independence-party-endorsement-for-governor/

This is the same Joe Repya that produced all the "Liberate Iraq" signs you saw across the state right before the massacre began, he is far to the right of anyone the Independence Party has ran before and you can fully expect that the Teabaggers are going to be out in full force at the convention to try to get him the nomination. Repya's name is very popular with the right-wingers, don't be surprised if his run results in a Teabagger takeover of the Independence Party.

[MineralMan]

1. Who cares? Here in Minnesota, we have already learned

about independent candidates for Governor. Been there, done that, hated the results.

[Bjorn Against]

2. If Repya is on the ballot in November it will make a Democratic win much more likely

Repya would make a horrible Governor, but the far-right loves the guy and he would likely take a lot of votes away from the Republican candidate.

[MineralMan]

4. True enough. Let the Freepers have at it.

So, who's your favorite Democrat for the Governorship? It must be someone who can win. I'll be caucusing on Feb. 2, and haven't made up my mind yet to to support.

[Bjorn Against]

6. I have someone in mind, but I have decided to keep the name private

I am involved in a lot of political activism and I think that it is best that I don't publicly take sides in primaries because I need to work with many people who have different thoughts on the election than I do.

[CatholicEdHead]

9. Maybe, maybe not

In past races, for as much as GOPers talk about going over, they almost always chicken out on election day and mark the R and not the I. When DFLers talk about it, they most often have gone and marked the I and not DFL on election day.

I would expect that Tim Penny and Ventura will watch this carefully as to them the IP is set up as a socially liberal and fiscally moderate party with their platform, and it is the liberal social issues which drive most Republicans away, which makes the Teabagging of the party even more intriguing.

[dflprincess]

3. The Independence party has been a player in at least the last 3 governor's races

And by rights this should hurt the Republicans more. But, if low information voters continue thinking of it as an alternative to the DFL and Republican parties and vote for this guy without really paying attention to him it could cause problems.

We all though Ventura was a joke too and that didn't work out so well for us.

[Bjorn Against]

5. I will say that we should not underestimate Repya.

Ventura was able to capture young voters and independents in a way that a person as far to the right as Repya is would never be able to do. Repya doesn't have much of a chance of winning the elections, but I do expect he will get a lot of votes. Repya has horrible policy ideas but no one can deny that he is a very effective organizer, I have no doubt that he is going to run a very tight campaign because he does know how to get his message out. I don't expect he can actually win the election but people will definitely still need to go after him because he is not just looking at this one election, and he will use this election to mobilize the right-wing to keep fighting into the future.

[Minnesota Raindog]

8. You have to admit that compared to what we have today, Ventura looks pretty good

One big difference between Ventura and Pawlenty is that while Ventura supported the POW/MIA cause, Pawlenty IS MIA.

[glinda]

7. 99% of what appears to be Independents are already Republicans. They just adopt another name.

Only now they are the nutbaggers in the forefront.