Louisiana Voice

American history is chock full of examples of political chicanery on the campaign trail but this election cycle has become one of the ugliest campaigns in history with no level too low to stoop for desperate candidates on the low rungs of polling data.

In the past, political tricks were little more than pranks like with Dick Tuck signaled to a train engineer that Richard Nixon was finished with his whistle-stop address and the train should disembark—even though Nixon in reality was barely into his speech.

Earl Long said his opponent, Sam Jones, fell into the mud with a bunch of pigs. Someone walking past, claimed Long, said, “’You can always judge someone by the company they keep,’ and the pigs got up and left.”

And then there was George Smathers when he challenged incumbent congressman Claude Pepper in the 1950 election. Without lying or slandering Pepper one time, he told a crowd that Pepper was a “shameless extrovert,” who “practiced celibacy before marriage,” practiced “nepotism” with his sister-in-law, “matriculated” with women in college, that his sister was “a thespian” and his brother “a practicing homo sapien.”

It’s not known for certain how that impacted the election, but Smathers defeated Pepper.

In the 76 years since that legendary declaration, things have taken a dramatic downward turn in terms of civility and decorum as evidenced in two political races in Texas and Ohio. What is occurring in those two states goes far beyond basic human decency. They also manage to paint the entire Republican Party with the broad brush of desperation.

In case you live under a rock, a brochure has been popping up in mailboxes in Texas which purports to be from a trans rights group—just two weeks before the Nov. 3 election for senate and governor that just happens to have Democrats leading in each race.

That, folks, is not an “October surprise,” it’s an “October hit-job” and it has Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton’s fingerprints all over it—All. Over. It.

First of all, the leaflets which claim to be a resource guide for transgender and LGBTQ+ youth are the product of a Wyoming company name the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT) and even link to its website and features guidance on restrooms, pronouns, student clubs and legal emancipation from parents. TENT has denied any involvement, calling it a political attack meant to coincide with the beginning of early voting.

That’s about as transparent as a window pane and anyone who knows anything at all about Paxton knows he’s about as straight an arrow as a barrel of chains. He’s never met an ethical violation he didn’t like and he sure as hell never met Will Rogers.

Second, the company that sent the brochures out was formed in Sheridan, Wyoming, according to The Sheridan Press, which said the address of the LLC filing is linked to nearly 300,000 limited liability companies according to a story in Wednesday’s online edition of THE CHRISTIAN POST. That alone should raise a few eyebrows.

Third, why would TENT shoot itself in the foot by sending out these mailers at this particular time, torpedoing the campaign of Democrat James Talarico who already leads in the polls?

There’s only one explanation: Paxton is desperate that he might finally have to actually find a job after the election and that desperation is forcing him to take drastic measures.

Then there is Ohio. Boy, is there Ohio.

That’s the state where Amy Acton, the Democrat, has been ambushed by Republican Vivek Ramaswamy who, at this point is more like Rama-smarmy.

Acton’s mother, whom she has had no contact with for nearly half-a-century, suddenly is qualified to speak of her daughter’s qualifications in a worse-than-disgusting TV ad approved by Rama-smarmy, no less.

In the ad, mom calls daughter a liar but the records say otherwise. She claims her daughter is lying about having been raped at age 12 by her stepfather or that the family lived in a tent for a year. The records show beyond doubt that both are true and that mom was little more than a pedophile protector, a trait she has in common the Republican members of Congress, the Department of Justice and a majority of the Supreme Court.

Of course, it comes as no surprise to anyone that the Pedo-President has endorsed Rama-Smarmy.

Only a bottom-feeding guttersnipe would choose to launch such a personal and reprehensible attack ad two weeks before an election. Moreover, it smacks of the desperation Republicans must be feeling in the knowledge that many of them are on extremely short leashes for the sin of unquestioned loyalty to a tyrant, a demagogue, a traitor. By extension, the Republicans who have blindly supported Trump are, by extension, just as guilty as he.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, “He who sacrifices [honor] for security deserves neither.”