DGA and RGA Launch Attack Ads and Smear Campaigns against Viable Independent Candidates for Governor in the Northeast

Though the ideologues of the two-party state and duopoly system of government never tire of reiterating that a vote for third party and independent candidates for any office is a wasted vote, that all independent and third party candidates for elected office are doomed to failure and defeat, that we are fated to suffer under the misrule of Democratic and Republican party apparatchiks for all eternity – it is noteworthy that the Democratic and Republican Governor's Associations both clearly perceive a number of strong independent gubernatorial candidates to be threats to the corporatist puppets backed by the ruling parties.

It was reported last month that the Republican Governor's Association had put Maine independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler under video surveillance, a tactic the independent called a "juvenile practice" that "distracts from real campaign issues." The RGA has also launched a series of advertisements attacking Massachusetts independent gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill, calling the Democrat-turned independent "reckless." The group also appears to be behind a fairly pathetic Facebook page called "The Cahill Report" dedicated to gaining a wider exposure for the RGA's advertising campaign against the independent.

Now the Democratic Governor's Association has launched a new website attacking Rhode Island independent gubernatorial candidate Lincoln Chafee. The Providence Journal Politics blog reports:

The Democratic Governors Association has taken aim at former U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee's independent campaign for governor with the launch of a new web site that ridicules his call for a sales tax on items currently exempt, and tries to blame him for the Iraq war, the excesses of Wall Street and "the economic hardship facing Rhode Island today.'' . . .

Chafee campaign manager J.R. Pagliarini denounced the Democrats' "third party effort to attack Chafee and bolster Caprio and Lynch without having either of their fingerprints on it.''

While denouncing the Democrats' "smear campaign,'' he also issued this statement: "It's obvious that Senator Chafee's successful campaign has the national Democratic party very nervous . . ."

If both the Democratic Governor's Association and the Republican Governor's Association have already begun attacking independent gubernatorial hopefuls, they have clearly determined that these candidates represent credible threats to the continued hegemony of the Democratic-Republican Party apparatus precisely because they are viable candidates for the office. What was it again that the ideologues of the two-party state and duopoly system of government are always saying about independent candidates?