GOP On A Witch Hunt Against Anti-McCain Republicans-- Ting And Treadwell

Jan Ting ran for Senate against right-wing Democrat, Tom Carper (D-DE), a sniveling corporate shill who has voted far more frequently for the Bush agenda than most Senate Democrats. (Only Ben Nelson, Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln have supported Bush more than Carper, who has been more of a Bush rubber stamp than Joe Lieberman, by a hair.) Ting only managed to pull 69,732 votes (29%) against Carper in 2006, at the same time that incumbent Republican Congressman Howard Castle racked up 143,892 votes (57%). But this isn't why Ting was kicked out of the Delaware Republican Party hierarchy.

Ting supported Giuliani in the primary season but can't get behind McCain who he thinks is too old, too hot-tempered and too nasty to be president. He also opposes McCain's pro-war posture and doesn't feel comfortable with his flip-flopping on immigration reform. Ting says he would have been comfortable backing Huckabee, Romney or even Ron Paul. But he drew the line on the corrupt and deceitful McCain. And donated to Obama.

That brought down the Republican Party purity police on his neck. He was kicked off the Republican Committee, which he has been on for 25 years.

Ting said after the April meeting, he wrote an e-mail to then-GOP Chairman Terry Strine, who then told Ting that, essentially, he would be welcomed back when he decided to support McCain.

"I'm still a registered Republican and still have affinity for the Republican Party ... but on the other hand, I'm ticked off," Ting said, adding the demand for his resignation was "uncalled for," and inconsistent with past party practice.

He noted that the man state Republican Party officials enthusiastically supported and expected to be the party's nominee for governor this year-- Alan Levin-- had donated money to Democrats, including Ting's 2006 opponent for the U.S. Senate, Democrat Tom Carper.

Similarly in upstate New York, a vicious intra-party battle is brewing between the Establishment machine hack, trust fund Republican Sandy Treadwell, and grassroots right-wingers in the district. The winner of that battle, pitting the elitist milquetoast Treadwell against former Green Beret Michael Rocque and retired State Police officer John Wallace, is likely to be slaughtered by conservative Democrat Kristen Gillibrand. Treadwell, a former GOP state chairman and George Pataki's clueless Secretary of State, is loathed by grassroots Republicans. This is a high stakes, red-leaning district and the GOP is hoping to win it back. As of June 30 fundraising has been huge with Gillibrand racking up $3,707,861 for the general election and Treadwell bringing in $2,695,047 (over $700,000 of which comes from his own deep pockets). He's had to spend nearly a million and a half of that to beat back the harsh attacks from the right in his own primary. He's gotten some heft donations from Big Oil ($11,100) and he is already promising to support policies that will keep gas prices high. (One of his top dozen contributors is Koch Industries, probably the most venal of the GOP-supporting Big Oil companies.) Treadwell has also gotten an enormous boost from PACs headed by Pataki ($14,400), Tom Reynolds ($7,500), right-wing extremist Eric Cantor ($5,000), John Boehner ($5,000), and Roy Blunt ($5,000), as well as from the pro-choice group Republican Majority for Choice ($6,537), something that infuriates local right-wingers, and from the Republican Mains Street Partnership and the Republican Leadership Council, three groups usually at loggerheads with GOP extremist factions.



Oddly, I pass a mansion every day in my Los Angeles neighborhood, one I've mentioned before and it is festooned with Obama signs and the car in the driveway, like many in the neighborhood, has an Obama bumpersticker and, unlike any other in the neighborhood, a Sandy Treadwell bumpersticker. Turns out, this is one of the two multimillion dollar mansions Treadwell has bought in Los Angeles for family members in the last year.




UPDATE: Treadwell Opponents' Petitions Disqualified

The Republican Party Establishment hack may or may not have had something to do with this but both his primary opponents had their petitions disqualified by the NY state Board of Elections on Monday. Each gave up and withdrew from the race leaving the self-funding multimillionaire as the de factor GOP nominee against Blue Dog Kirsten Gillibrand.