Republicans used an actor to act black and call white voters to scare them

Republicans used an actor to act black and call white voters to scare them

Post by NewsToBeRea » Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:57:20

http://SportToday.org/

Sleazebag's Ascent: Thriving in the Back Room

Reviewed by Jim McTague

HOLD YOUR NOSE AND READ THIS BOOK: The political memoir of convicted
GOP dirty trickster Allen Raymond is both educational and uproariously
funny.

Raymond is one of the most morally ambivalent, self-serving,
intellectually shallow human beings that you'll ever encounter. But
his book gives us the real low-down on electioneering, by cracking the
door to the seldom-seen political back room. The conduct there is less
encumbered by decency than even a practiced cynic might suspect. This
is a win-at-all-costs world. Ethics is the first casualty.

And Raymond was more adept at the dirty game than many of his
colleagues. He developed a reputation for being the GOP's go-to guy
for sleazy tactics. In 2005, a federal judge sentenced him to three
months in a federal slammer for jamming the telephone lines at a
Democratic get-out-the-vote center in New Hampshire during the John E.
Sununu campaign. He got the light sentence for implicating some of his
former Republican National Committee colleagues in the scheme.

Raymond's adventure began a decade ago, when he was a callow youth,
fresh from college. Because he boasted an impressive pedigree -- he's
an heir to the Underwood Typewriter fortune -- he felt an exaggerated
need to succeed. Yet Raymond had no discernible vocation.

The aimless youth tried a number of jobs, before settling on a
graduate degree in political management from New York's Baruch College
-- because it "sounded cool." He learned that election campaigns are
the m***equivalent of all-out war and that idealists are losers.

After graduation, he began working for the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign
in New Jersey. Raymond saw no real difference between Republicans and
Democrats, but made his choice because a friend and well-connected
Democrat told him, "The Republicans are on the rise. That's where all
the money's heading."

By 2000, Raymond was running his own million-dollar-per-year phone
bank for Republican candidates, financed by investments from party
bigwigs. Operatives for*** Zimmer, who was running for a New Jersey
Congressional seat against Democrat Rush Holt, were among his earliest
customers. They asked him to use an actor who sounded like a black
"***er" to call the homes of white, Eastern-European voters in
the district -- a substantial number of people -- and ask them to vote
for Holt. He said the calls were highly targeted to people whose
psychological response would be, "I'm not voting for Holt because he
uses scary black men to call my house."

Raymond agreed to jam the New Hampshire phone lines after informally
consulting a GOP lawyer about the legality. The lawyer didn't
recommend the program, but saw nothing illegal about it, claims
Raymond. Unfortunately, he has nothing in writing to prove this.

Raymond claims to have gone straight. He now works for a charitable
foundation. He doesn't sound chastened, however. He sounds slick, like
the ex-con that he is.