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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Alabama in between

Alabama in between

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Another principled Burkean Republican:

Leaders of the Republican Committee of Luzerne County, Pa., are trying to figure out whether they can oust a reputed white supremacist who was elected to the committee with one vote – his own.

Steven Smith, co-founder of a racist group called the Keystone State Skinheads, was elected to one of two committee seats for his district, Pittston City’s Ward 4, during Pennsylvania’s April 24 primary election.

Pennsylvania election law allows any registered Republican or Democrat to write in their name to become a member of the County Committee. Smith was elected with only one write-in vote, which he has since acknowledged was his own, said Terry Casey, chairman of the Luzerne County Republican Party.

Reader Interactions

35Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Don’t the GOP bylaws have a you’re-being-too-honest-about-our-true-nature clause?

  2. 2.

    The Bearded Blogger

    This sounds like an isolated kook type thing. Not saying the GOP isn’t racist, though…

  3. 3.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

    I don’t understand what the GOP is so concerned about. It’s not like this would cost them one single vote. Just reinforces their “White People’s Party” creds as far as I can tell.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Fascists just hate it when the masses are reminded of the excesses of the German branch of fascism.

  6. 6.

    Valdivia

    But both sides do it!

    Maybe he can go on TV and pull and Greek Fascist moment like the Golden Dawn guy did and the Village will swoon and call him a truth teller and brave.

    Gah.

  7. 7.

    Hunter Gathers

    If they can’t find a way to boot him out, they can always take him bowling.

  8. 8.

    JGabriel

    MSNBC:

    Smith told WNEP-TV on Monday that he is no longer a member of the Keystone State Skinheads and denies being a racist. Asked why he left the group, Smith said, “Just because of the name ‘skinhead.’ People get a knee-jerk reaction from it and they think of movies like ‘American History X’ and think we are a bunch of violent thugs …”

    Now why would people think that?

    In March 2003, Smith and two other members of the Keystone State Skinheads were arrested in Scranton, Pa., for allegedly beating a black man with stones and chunks of pavement. Smith pleaded guilty to terrorist threats and ethnic intimidation and received a 60-day sentence and probation, according to the SPLC.

    Oh, that’s why. Oops.

    .

  9. 9.

    JGabriel

    The Bearded Blogger:

    This sounds like an isolated kook type thing.

    SPLC via MSNBC:

    While its members attempt to project a mediagenic image of being part of a new breed of more sophisticated and less spasmodically violent skins, the truth is that the group’s members have been convicted of a string of remarkably violent attacks dating back to at least 1998, ranging from bar brawls to murder. Keystone United frequently sponsors white-power picnics and music festivals across Pennsylvania, including the annual “hatecore” event known as “Uprise.”

    I’d say if you’re successfully staging music festivals and white-power hatecore picnics, you’re really not that isolated.

    .

  11. 11.

    The Bearded Blogger

    @JGabriel: I mean the fact that he got elected to the republican committee. All I’m saying is this particular racist event can’t be attributed to the GOP.

  14. 14.

    JGabriel

    @The Bearded Blogger:

    All I’m saying is this particular racist event can’t be attributed to the GOP.

    How many racist events have to be associated with the GOP before we can say, “You know, maybe there’s a pattern here?”

    .

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    Mr Smith complied with all the rules, such as they are. Despite receiving only his own single vote, he was not outvoted for that committee spot. That, right there, is surely the local Republican party’s biggest problem.

  16. 16.

    The Bearded Blogger

    @JGabriel: Oh there’s a pattern all right. The GOP is made up mostly of racists and draws much of its political power from the political use of racism. But this racism is veiled, covert. They are embarassed to have an overt racist in their committee, he did not get in because of but in spite of the GOP.

    And that’s all the GOP defending I’m doing this month.

    PS: I actually like it that the racists are coming out of the closet. Makes for a more frank and open public sphere.

  17. 17.

    Someguy

    It’s a terrible thing that these Republicans have to put up with somebody who is an open and out Republican being on their central committee.

  18. 18.

    Martin

    I keep telling you people that turnout is all that matters. What more proof does anyone need?

  19. 19.

    Baud

    @Martin: No shit. I’ve commented on this before, but this year’s GOP primary really hit home for me how few people actually determine the trajectory of our political parties.

  21. 21.

    Eric S.

    This is far from unprecedented. And just to be absolutely clear I’m not associating the woman from the NPR story to Smith, the skinheads or their politics. I’m just saying that winning with a bear minimum or write in votes happens.

  22. 22.

    gelfling545

    I have only had the misfortune of meeting people who could be considered “white supremacists” a few times in my life. In each case they were specimens of humanity who left you pondering how they could have arrived at the conclusion that they were superior to anyone at all.

  23. 23.

    Martin

    @Baud: I was looking at the turnout here in CA, and it’s absolutely criminal that we still run primary elections with such low turnout. We should only have the general election with an IRV system and call it a day. There’s no way the results could be worse compared to having 4%-5% of the electorate determine who is on the ballot in the general.

  28. 28.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    I had to laugh when I saw the pic of him and noticed that the person next to him is wearing a Ron Paul T shirt. White supremacists, skinheads and Ron Paul? I’m not surprised one bit, they’re a perfect match.

    If the foo shits, wear it. Ron Paul and his supporters are covered in ‘it’.

  29. 29.

    Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)

    Leaders of the Republican Committee of Luzerne County, Pa., are trying to figure out whether they can oust a reputed white supremacist who was elected to the committee with one vote – his own.

    Fuck that. Republican assholes think they can just suck up to these racist psychopaths, and then keep them safely out of sight once they get their votes? I’ll say it again, fuck that. You creeps wanted these votes, you’ve done everything you could to earn those votes, you’ve been willing to (to quote Don Henley) crawl on your lips through busted glass for those votes, but it’s only now that these slime molds are creeping up into the ranks of party officialdom that you’re getting worried? And only because it’ll make you look bad? Well, fuck you, Terry Casey, chairman of the Republican Committee of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and all you other leaders of the Republican Committee of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. You asked for Mr. Smith and other losers like him to infest your happy little gathering. You might not have meant to ask him, but you did: you just opened the door and welcomed him in. Now you’re stuck with him. Good luck. Oh, and fuck you.

  30. 30.

    Nicole

    As Carvelle (I think it was Carville) said, Pennsylvania is Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in the middle.

    Having grown up in the Alabama section of PA, I can’t disagree with him.

  32. 32.

    themann1086

    Ha, and that’s why you always make sure you run a candidate for every position, especially for your own county committee.

    They actually might be able to kick him out; the Dem Machine in Philly did it to a reformist that won a seat because she had “views antithetical to the party” or some such BS. No link, sorry, but City Paper has written about it a few times.

  33. 33.

    Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)

    This fucking thing ate my goddamn comment.

    I’ll try to write as much of it again as I can recall. I don’t know if the first one is really gone or just floating around, somewhere, disembodied, so if this turns up twice, that’s why.

    Anyway. I really hate the “Alabama in the middle”. I mean, that is, I hate the Alabaminity of it; I love that part of the state itself. I grew up in Pennsylvania, not far from Philadelphia, but my father grew up in “Alabama”, near Harrisburg, and his family has been in that part of Pennsylvania for 300-odd years, and that part of Pennsylvania is in my blood and my bones.

    And I hate the assholes who smear the other people from “Alabama” who aren’t racists, many of whom are liberals and Democrats, as my father was. But it’s the inbred, subhuman racist assholes who end up being what so many people think of. Oh, and I really hate the fucking confederate flag I see flying so often in that part of the state.

    And I also wonder why that is. I really don’t get it. I mean, what the hell? Pennsylvania? Really? I can understand why there are so many subhuman inbred racists in the real Alabama. Or in Mississippi or South Carolina or Georgia. I can even understand why there are some in relatively advanced states, like North Carolina and Virginia. So much of it has to do with slavery and the Civil War.

    But Pennsylvania? We fought for the Union, for fuck’s sake. We voted for Lincoln. Twice. Pennsylvania was, for 100 years after the Civil War, the most reliably Republican big state in the country, and this was when the Republican Party stood for racial equality. Somehow middle Pennsylvania has gone from being Lincoln’s stronghold a confederate sympathizing redneck hatchery. It makes me weep.

  34. 34.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    I believe Don Black(founder of Stormfront) has a son who ran for the post of precinct officer in Florida awhile.

  35. 35.

    mikeyes

    At least he isn’t a Paulista. If he was they would have simply re-done the election until he lost as per the hidden GOP rules. A skinhead is marginally OK but they have to ponder over the election for a while for the press.

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