Green for the Greens
It would appear that the ability of the Green Party to get its U.S. Senate candidate, Carl Romanelli, on the ballot in Pennsylvania this November is due almost entirely to donations from people who otherwise are supporters of Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum. With Republican money, the Greens were able to hire people to circulate petitions to meet the state's onerous requirements for getting a third party on the ballot. Russ Diamond, despite all his fame from the legislative payraise fight, wasn't able to do the same in the race for governor.
It was a slick move for the Republicans, yet another in a long list of ways they have leveraged the great wealth of some of their supporters to achieve their ends. Between money and appeals to the yahoo religiosity of another large part of the Republican base, the GOP has been able to advance an agenda that would be voted down decisively if it ever got into a fair fight. If they could have done this in 1933, we never would have had the New Deal. But avoiding a fair fight is a key part of political success for any party, and the Democrats will have to move to neutralize this threat Romanelli poses to Bobby Casey, their Senate candidate who is currently leading Santorum in the polls by double digits or nearly so.
I have nothing against Romanelli personally. From his website, he seems like a sincere, committed progressive. I agree with most of his issues, even to a certain, limited extent his call to end the "war" on illegal drugs. But he doesn't have a chance in hell of winning, and he could ensure the state has Santorum for six more years.
Getting a pro-choice Green candidate on the Senate ballot was a coup for the Republicans. If Romanelli drains even 1-2 percent of liberal votes away from Casey, it could be decisive in a close race. Liberal Democrats in Pennsylvania have been told they have to accept Casey's anti-abortion and anti-stem cell research views if they want to have a chance of beating Santorum. Casey, to be fair, is great on many other core Democratic issues, most notably concern for working families and the underprivileged.
If I was an elder of the Democratic Party, I would be working hard on Romanelli to persuade him to drop out of the race, or at least to do only minimal campaigning. I would also be urging Casey to reach out more to liberal voters to persuade them not to stay home on Nov. 7.