NY hedge fund manager Robert Mercer is behind the ads trying to defeat Peter DeFazio. Frank Rich discusses the craziness of super extreme candidates and transcontinental influence on local races.
NY hedge fund manager Robert Mercer is behind the ads trying to defeat Peter DeFazio. Frank Rich discusses the craziness of super extreme candidates and transcontinental influence on local races.
Democrats activate maniacal pre-election smear machine
Posted: October 19, 2010
12:13 am Eastern
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
One of the most extraordinary and consequential races to be decided Nov. 2 is one you’ve probably never heard of – the challenge to powerful 12-term “progressive” Rep. Peter DeFazio by renowned scientist Art Robinson in Oregon’s 4th Congressional District.
There’s been little press on this race. Dick Morris and Karl Rove, during their nightly election-race analyses on “Hannity,” don’t mention it. And the Republican National Committee hasn’t even given a cent to the Republican challenger.
Why? Because they’ve all considered Robinson’s race against DeFazio unwinnable.
Until now.
Art Robinson, Ph.D.
As WND reported Friday, an eye-opening independent poll shows DeFazio – who won re-election in 2008 with a staggering 82 percent of the vote – is running neck and neck with Robinson in the home stretch. The Wilson Research Strategies poll shows DeFazio up by only 6 points, leading Robinson 48-42 percent, with a 5.6 point margin of error. In other words, this “unwinnable” House seat is suddenly “in play.”
But there’s much more at stake here than a House seat.
This particular congressional race epitomizes everything that is rotten – and wonderful – about America today, and about the historic choice Americans will make Nov. 2.
Consider: Peter DeFazio is one of Congress’ most influential progressives, having co-founded the House Progressive Caucus and served as its chairman. A true left-wing radical with a folksy Oregonian exterior, he supports socialized medicine (he voted for Obamacare) and partial-birth abortion. To bolster his re-election chances, he now brags that he opposed Obama and Pelosi on the stimulus – but doesn’t disclose the reason: He voted no because the $787 billion stimulus had too many tax breaks!
Worse than all this – and I’m choosing my words carefully now – DeFazio is a deceitful political hack, so desperate to hang on to his coveted congressional seat he’s occupied for 24 years that he’s willing to blatantly libel and slander his opponent with wild untruths – all crafted to scare voters just before election time.
The DeFazio attack machine is running a series of outrageous television, print and online ads accusing Robinson of being funded by Big Oil, of being in the pocket of Wall Street, of planning on shutting down the nation’s public schools, of planning the demise of the Social Security system – and even of plotting to irradiate Americans’ drinking water! Oh, and he’s also being called a racist – of course.
It’s the same old miserable pre-election tactic we’re seeing all over the country right now, like in Delaware where Christine O’Donnell is being tied to witchcraft. Or in Florida where out-of-control Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson is airing TV ads characterizing his GOP rival Daniel Webster as “Taliban Dan” by twisting Webster’s words about the Bible to say exactly the opposite of what Webster actually said. We’re seeing it everywhere because it’s the only thing any Democrat can do to get himself re-elected: Try to marginalize your opponent as a truly dangerous wacko, since the public is so totally disgusted with you that they wouldn’t send you back to Washington under any other circumstance.
Please bear with me for a moment while I tell you what kind of a man Art Robinson – whom I’ve known personally for many years – really is.
A Ph.D. research scientist of international stature, Robinson co-founded, with Nobel-winner Linus Pauling, the Linus Pauling Institute in Menlo Park, Calif. Then in 1980, with the help of his chemist wife Laurelee, Robinson founded the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. While carrying out influential research, Art and Laurelee also raised and homeschooled their six children on 350 idyllic acres in southern Oregon.
Then tragedy struck. In 1988, Lauralee died suddenly from hemorrhagic pancreatitis, leaving Art alone to care for all those children ranging from 18 months up to 12 years of age. What did he do in such a terrible, crushing circumstance?
Art restructured their homeschooling curriculum in such a way that his children could, to a considerable extent, teach themselves. He also eventually packaged the curriculum and offered it to the homeschooling world. “The Robinson Curriculum” apparently works pretty well, as today all six of Art’s children either have doctorate degrees or will shortly. One has a chemistry Ph.D., two have doctorates in veterinary medicine and the last three are all in the Oregon State University graduate program working toward their Ph.D.s in nuclear engineering.
Oh, and how’d they pay for all that expensive college and postgraduate schooling – six times? Sales of “The Robinson Curriculum,” which remains very popular among homeschoolers.
Talk about the American can-do spirit!
More important, at least as it pertains to the upcoming election, Art Robinson is a straight-shooting, problem-solving Reagan conservative who not only loves this country, he understands this country – what makes it work – and is willing to fight the good fight to restore it to greatness and prosperity.
One example of his can-do attitude: Robinson has single-handedly documented the utter lack of unanimity in the scientific community on manmade global warming through a petition he started – not an online petition, mind you, but an actual document physically signed – that to date has been signed by more than 31,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s. All 31,000 agree that “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
That’s all great, you might be thinking, but what about those allegations from DeFazio and his proxies that Robinson is a dangerous, wacko extremist? Any truth to them? Let’s take a look:
One part of “The Robinson Curriculum” is a recommendation that students read as many as possible of the 99 short, classic historical novels for children penned by celebrated British author G.A. Henty (kind of like the “Hardy Boys” books). Now it happens that in one of these 99 Victorian-era books – all of which Robinson personally reprinted and offered to the public as an adjunct to his homeschooling curriculum – one fictional character makes a two-sentence remark while in Africa that could be considered racially insensitive by today’s standards. Because of this, candidate Art Robinson is being labeled a racist.
Yes, I know, it’s insane. But wait – there’s more.
Robinson discusses in his newsletter “Access to Energy” an emerging field of science called “hormesis,” which hypothesizes that very low levels of ionizing radiation (which occurs naturally most everywhere, though to different degrees) may be beneficial to human health, so that one day human beings may actually control the level of background radiation in their environment for optimal health. DeFazio translation: Robinson wants to poison your drinking water with radiation.
Robinson has said one way to help America attain energy independence as soon as possible and end its dangerous slavery to hostile foreign sources is to reduce or eliminate the tax burden on all energy industries, from oil, gas and coal to wind, solar and nuclear. DeFazio translation: Robinson is in the pocket of “Big Oil.”
Robinson’s campaign is funded almost exclusively by large numbers of small donations from individuals, but DeFazio has fabricated the notion that Robinson is being bought off by Wall Street. One of DeFazio’s main TV ads ends with this: “Tell Art Robinson and his big-money special interests that this election isn’t for sale.”
There are other attacks, but you get the idea. This is defamation, pure and simple.
Friends, in this era when socialist “progressives,” environmentalist wackos and radical change agents of all stripes are attempting to “transform” America, there’s a lot of talk among normal folk about the founding fathers. As tea partiers and others strive to reconnect with our country’s roots and set it back on a right course, they often invoke the men of America’s founding generation for guidance and inspiration.
Let me tell you, in this election, Art Robinson reminds me more of the Founding Fathers – principled, multi-talented Renaissance men, some of them scientists like Jefferson and especially Franklin – than anyone else in the current candidate field. Think about it: Ben Franklin was a scientist, writer, printer, political theorist, inventor, civic activist and statesman. Art Robinson is all of these things – except the last one, statesman. He needs your help to make that happen.
Art Robinson loves his farm and his kids and his science work and doesn’t really dream of power and Washington and living at the public trough. That’s exactly the kind of person we need in Congress. Believe me, it’ll be worth electing him just to watch a real scientist stand up in the House chamber and verbally annihilate the silly rhetoric of all those congressmen and women touting “global warming” and cap-and-trade.
Right now – while there’s still time – you can donate to his campaign the funds needed to run the TV and print ads necessary to refute the outrageous lies of his opponent in the next two weeks.
Please, help Art Robinson, support him financially, campaign for him and tell others about him. And if you live in his district, vote for him.
David Kupelian is an award-winning journalist, managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com, editor of Whistleblower magazine and author of the best-selling book, “The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom.” His newest book is “How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America.”
Fivethirtyeight.com weighing two polls including the one you list here still rates Robinson’s chances at less than .5%