Yeah, Right
Nope. No stunt here. Nothing to see. Move along. A husband and wife from Overland Park, Kansas are both running for the same seat in the Kansas legislature. She's running as a Democrat, he's running as a Republican.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - The candidates say they offer legitimate political differences. Their conservative critics say it's a campaign dirty trick.
Jeff Ippel is a Republican, involved in a three-way primary race for a seat in the Kansas House. His wife, Pam, is unopposed in the August Democratic primary — for the same seat.
Pam Ippel, whose platform emphasizes health care and funding for education, said she was the first to enter the race for an open seat from this Kansas City suburb.
"The more Jeff thought about it, the more he thought he'd have a better chance," she said.
"Better ideas," said her husband, who is running on a platform of smaller government and fewer illegal immigrants.
Other Republicans accuse the Ippels of working as a team.
"Personally, I think it's a fraud. It's a deliberate strategy of confusion," conservative Republican Jeff Colyer said. He says their real goal is to siphon away votes from his campaign to ensure the nomination of a GOP moderate, Sherrelyn Smith.
"It's an absolute sham. They're trying to confuse voters and manipulate the process," agrees Republican state Rep. Eric Carter, who is giving up the seat to run for state insurance commissioner.
The Ippels deny collusion. Gee, why don't I believe that? Oh, because they're either not telling the truth or have an insane level of compartmentalization of their lives I sure wouldn't want. (yes, I do know about the consultants who do that. Not my cup of tea, sorry.)
The later charge by a college professor is rather odd:
If there were any truth to it, it would be a case of conservatives having one of their own tricks pulled on them, said Kansas State University political science professor Joe Aistrup.
"It's about time the moderates started pulling this stuff," Aistrup said. "Conservatives have been running stealth candidates for years."
I've never heard of this before. Have you?
By Shawn, Sunday, 9 July , 2006 @ 9:21 pm
I haven’t either Gaius, but I’ve no doubt that Karl Rove has been doing so. Because, you know, Rove is behind simply everything bad in the world.
By FormerRighty, Monday, 10 July , 2006 @ 9:18 am
Actually, right-wing Christians have been doing the stealth-candidate thing for years. They usually do it in school board elections.
Many argue that George W. Bush was a stealth candidate in 2000, running as a “compassionate conservative” (thus dissing conservatives in general), then governing from the far right.
About 10 years ago we had husband and wife opponents in a state senate race–she was a Republican, he a Democrat. It was an overwhelmingly Democratic district, so he won. I think he lasted one term–he wasn’t very good (and I’m not talking from an ideological point of view–he was ineffective).
By Gaius, Monday, 10 July , 2006 @ 9:27 am
First time I’d heard of such a thing.
By FormerRighty, Monday, 10 July , 2006 @ 9:42 am
The term has also been applied to Supreme Court candidates who minimize their hard-right viewpoints during confirmation hearings.
The term has been in use at least since the early 90s–candidates would run for school board positions and not participate in candidate events. They would make sure that their candidacy was well known in certain churches, though.