Guilt by association runs rampant in campaign season, and too often people with thin connections get used as a club to wallop some candidate or other.
Sometimes, though, the connection is strong enough that the tie is legitimate. In the 2004 gubernatorial race, the Building Industry Association of Washington as tight as could be with Republican candidate Dino Rossi, to the point of running point on his post-election battles over vote counting.
So we're paying attention when Rossi's campaign drops mention of his speaking at a BIAW luncheon last week, after being introduced by the group's leader as a “candidate who believes as BIAW believes.â€
That, of course, opened the door: What does the group believe? Said one opinion aarticle in the groups's publication (see page 8): "Hitler's Nazi Party: They Were Eco-Extremists" - and yes, the language in it follows suit: "Knowing my parallel would illicit screams of protest—how politically incorrect of me to mention Hitler and Nazis in the same breath as
DOE or the environmental lobby—I explored the actual connection between environmental extremism and Hitler’s Nazi party. . . So, much like Stalin and Hitler were divided on how to best go about their socialistic schemes, environmentalists are also divided over how to best go about their socialistic scheme of controlling human development—either by burning houses down
with Molotov cocktails, or slowly squeezing the life out of it through extensive, Soviet-esque micromanagement." Quite a view of the world; it drew a complaint from the Anti-Defamation League.
And, of course, elsewhere, such quotables as saying Governor Christine Gregoire is a “heartless, power-hungry she-wolf who would eat her own young to get ahead†whose backers are “witches.â€
In politics, best to be careful who you get close to.