The Arizona Republican party has cut ties with the two men who posed as communists to try to make a damaging contribution to Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ) just before the midterm election.
An Arizona GOP spokesperson told TPM that one of the men was an employee and has been “terminated.” The other was a volunteer and is “no longer affiliated” with the organization, according to the spokesperson.
As first reported by the Guardian, in a clumsy attempt to tie O’Halleran to communism, the two men arrived at his campaign office on Friday bearing a jar of money and insisting on making a donation with a receipt made out to the Northern Arizona University Communist Party.
Finance director Lindsay Coleman immediately drove the money to the local Republican field office and returned the jar to one of the men involved in the attempted donation.
In a statement, O’Halleran called it a “bizarre effort” to “embarrass” his campaign.
“Fake Communists Booted From Arizona GOP After Donation Stunt”
Another entry in the things you never thought you would read category.
All Democrats are communists is a common trope on the right wing, so of course a couple of dim dums would come up with this kind of stunt. Hoist on their own credulity. I’m sure they were not really booted, just wrist slapped for embarrassing the party and told to try smarter next time. Not quite ready for project veritas.
I know it doesn’t matter in a sound bite world, but IF a “Communist” or “Communist Party” wanted to contribute to an election without a Communist Party Candidate, they would likely contribute to a Democratic candidate since that would be “as close as they could get” to similar interests, so this is just idiotic on it’s face, and not likely to have worked anyway. Sheesh
Better headline:
Funny part, I don’t think the Russians did it this time. It is kind of home brewed stupidity on their part. I can hear the Russians, “We have standards.”