Sneaky, sneaky. ;)
Democrats' game plan to hold the House: Divide and conquerWith just six days left until Election Day, a key component of the Democratic strategy to hold the House is becoming clear: In more than a dozen close races, Democrats are encouraging and advancing little-known, conservative third-party candidates in an attempt to fracture the Republican vote enough to eke out narrow victories.
Behind-the-scenes collaboration between local Democratic officials and tea party activists in a handful of isolated races has already been reported — just last week, in suburban Pennsylvania’s open 7th District, Democratic nominee Bryan Lentz finally admitted his campaign’s role in helping a tea party candidate get on the November ballot after months of avoiding the question.
But the divide-and-conquer strategy has become more widespread — and coordinated — through television ads, robocalls and mailers in recent weeks as races have tightened and it’s become more apparent that just a few percentage points could end up swinging the outcome in many races.
“It wouldn’t be the first time that Democrats or Republicans have tried to manipulate votes on the other side. Clearly the goal there is to get Republicans to vote for the tea party person to move numbers off Republicans,” said John Anzalone, an Alabama-based Democratic pollster. “I think that it’s going to work in some places. It’s a case by case" thing.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and two state Democratic parties have paid for mailers sent to GOP households in at least five contested House districts in Colorado, Florida, Michigan and Texas — mail pieces that highlight the staunchly conservative positions of long-shot candidates who barely register in public and private polls.
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The strategy of driving a wedge between the GOP establishment and grass-roots conservatives is reminiscent of one of the only bright spots of the 2010 election cycle for Democrats — a 2009 House special election upset win in upstate New York where the presence of a conservative third-party candidate ended up costing the GOP a historically Republican seat.In Colorado’s Western Slope-based 3rd District, where Democratic Rep. John Salazar, one of Anzalone’s clients, is in a close race with GOP nominee Scott Tipton, a DCCC mailer features Libertarian Gregory Gilman on an American flag background and warns that Gilman’s “first act would be to drastically reduce the size of government.”
Like Stephens in Texas, according to the Federal Election Commission, Gilman has reported no financial activity this campaign.
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Democratic strategist David Plouffe, the architect of President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, acknowledged the importance of third-party candidates in a briefing with reporters earlier this month and said it means many Democrats could win with as little as 47 percent of the vote, “which in this year is something we are happy about,” he said.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44231.html