Repub NH phone jammer: "You always want to polarize somebody"

By Lee Russ

Saturday, June 10, 2006 at 06:38 PM

Allen Raymond, the Republican operative who carried out the 2002 Republican scheme to jam Democratic phone lines in NH has gotten out of prison and started explaining himself to The Boston Globe:

A lot of people look at politics and see it as the guy who wins is the guy who unifies the most people," he said. ``I would disagree. I would say the candidate who wins is the candidate who polarizes the right bloc of voters. You always want to polarize somebody.

Gee, really? Every time I say that, every time anyone says that, about Republicans the frothing outrage machine accuses "the left" of "raging paranoia," or of "having no ideas, so they claim we don't play fair."

Like crap.  If you don't know the Repubs are into polarization at this point, you're probably brain dead, a devout believer in all the conservative myths and lies, or so unwilling to get involved that you probably live in a house without electricity.

Other gems from the Boston Globe piece:

++Raymond said the phone jam scheme reflects a broader culture in the Republican Party that is focused on dividing voters to win primaries and general elections, exemplified by events ranging from recent efforts to use border-security concerns to foster anger toward immigrants, to Raymond's own role, also in 2002, in arranging phone calls designed to polarize primary voters over abortion in a New Jersey Senate race.

++Republicans have treated campaigns and politics as a business, and now are treating public policy as a business, looking for the types of returns that you get in business, passing legislation that has huge ramifications for business," he said. ``It is very much being monetized, and the federal government is being monetized under Republican majorities."

++The idea to jam Democratic phone lines in New Hampshire originated with Charles McGee, then executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party.  McGee, who had served as a helicopter crew chief in the Marine Corps, testified that he learned in the military that "if you can't communicate, you can't plan and organize," so Democrats would be hampered in their efforts to get voters to the polls if their phones were constantly busy.

++The New Hampshire Republican Party paid $15,600 to GOP Marketplace [Raymond's telemarketing firm], which in turn sent $2,500 to an Idaho company that agreed to place the computerized calls that would jam Democratic lines. GOP Marketplace pocketed $13,100 as profit. [Editor comment: now that's a Republican business, for sure: in with the big shots, inside contracts, and an 84% profit margin]

++Raymond said he had qualms about the phone jam plan, but been reluctant to turn down a prominent official of the RNC, fearing that would cost him future opportunities from an organization that was becoming increasingly ruthless.

++The case may not be over yet, as Justice Department officials say they are still investigating leads, and the New Hampshire Democratic Party filed a civil suit requesting documents and asking to interview former White House officials who had talked with participants in the phone-jamming plan before it was carried out.

Question: How do you correct the direction of a country once it has passed the tipping point of sleaze, and there are no longer enough non-sleazy people to run the country?

Ahh, the sweet smell of sociopathy in the evening, as I sit by my keyboard in Vermont, where it is raining for the 25th day of the last 29.  If I believed in that kind of stuff, I could almost believe that the rain was just universal tears over the sorry state to which this bunch of sleazos has brought America.