Demagogue

Nadercissim-- to be principled to a fault, doing what you believe is right with little concern for pragmatism or political reality, see also acute political myopia, also known as progressive suicide.

Sadly it appears that the Green Party is still deeply afflicted, at least as evidenced by this proud spoiler in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Romanelli, a railroad industry consultant from Wilkes-Barre and a former family-court support officer, qualified with enough signatures Aug. 1 to get on the Nov. 7 general election ballot. He has said that most of his financial backing has come from Republicans, and Democrats have challenged his signatures in court.

Mr. Romanelli is considered a potential spoiler against Mr. Casey, who is now Pennsylvania's state treasurer, because he supports abortion rights while Mr. Santorum and Mr. Casey oppose them.

I've been following this race pretty closely and Romanelli blows my mind. He takes Nadercissim to a festering level. Romanelli says he is standing up for his beliefs by running against Casey because of Casey's anti-choice views, although he's doing it by taking ANTI-CHOICE MONEY FROM REPUBLICANS WHO WANT SANTORUM TO WIN TO FURTHER THEIR ANTI-CHOICE WORK.

Seriously, but WTF?

Technically, based on party platform and issues alone, I am a classic Green Party person, actually at one point I was even a registered Green. (How could I not be considering the labels that could be used to describe me-- liberal, lesbian, secular Jew, pro-choice, church/state separationist, yadda, yadda.) But I'm also politically pragmatic and know that there is more than one way to win and to get your message across. For some deluded reason Romanelli thinks that taking GOP money and support and staying in the race is somehow helping his party and the issues he supports. I don't get it.

For pete's sake, we're talking about RICK SANTORUM here. The man is King of the Wingers in the fight against reproductive rights and every progressive issue on the list, not to mention he's one of the most powerful GOP leaders overall. Taking him out would automatically be a progressive victory, if only because Santorum is so far to the right. If Romanelli is able to stay in the race he is fully aware that he's only increasing the chances that Santorum could squeak out a win.

In a three-way matchup, Casey leads Santorum 45 percent to 39 percent, with Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli picking up 5 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters. Eleven percent were undecided or did not plan to vote.

Casey's not a bad guy, he might have anti-choice personal views but it's very highly unlikely he'll do much, if anything, about them in office. My parents are active liberal Dems and all the Dems they know are supporting Casey-- as part of the Stop Santorum movement. They openly acknowledge that Casey isn't a progressive's wet dream but he's a step in the right direction; most importantly Casey can defeat Santorum, Romanelli cannot.

As of the end of this month I will be a new Pennsylvania resident, registering to vote is at the very top of my "to do" list as soon as it's official. Between now and November I'll support Casey and will do what I can to campaign against both Santorum and Romanelli. In a contest between a moderate Dem and right-wing theocratic GOPer I'll take the moderate Dem any day.