GOP's tricks in Maryland

[Quasi]

I was curious to get people's thoughts on these types of strategies. I'll post part of the story since the Washington Post requires signing up.

GOP Fliers Apparently Were Part Of Strategy
Md. Tactics Similar To Ones in 2002

By Matthew Mosk and Avis Thomas-Lester
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 13, 2006; Page B01

The six Trailways motorcoaches draped in Ehrlich and Steele campaign banners rumbled down Interstate 95 just before dawn on Election Day.

On board, 300 mostly poor African Americans from Philadelphia ate doughnuts, sipped coffee and prepared to spend the day at the Maryland polls. After an early morning greeting from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s wife, Kendel, they would fan out in white vans across Prince George's County and inner-city Baltimore, armed with thousands of fliers that appeared to be designed to trick black Democrats into voting for the two Republican candidates.

The glossy fliers bore photos of black Democratic leaders on the front. Under the headline "Democratic Sample Ballot" were boxes checked in red for Ehrlich and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele, who were not identified as Republicans. Their names were followed by a long list of local Democratic candidates.

Nearly a week later, a fuller picture has emerged about how the plan to capture blacks' votes unfolded -- details that suggest the fliers, and the people paid to distribute them, were not part of a hurry-up effort but a calculated strategy.

Republican leaders have defended the Election Day episode as an accepted element of bare-knuckle politics. But for many voters, it shattered in one day the nice-guy images Ehrlich and Steele had cultivated for years.

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On the eve of this month's election, the mailers began landing in Prince George's mailboxes. One was a glossy red, black and green flier -- the colors that represent African American power -- sporting pictures of County Executive Jack B. Johnson, his predecessor, Wayne K. Curry and past NAACP president and former U.S. Senate candidate Kweisi Mfume.

Above the pictures of the three Democrats the flier read, "Ehrlich-Steele Democrats," and underneath it announced: "These are OUR Choices."

None of the three candidates had endorsed the governor, and only Curry had declared his support for Steele.

There were other fliers, too. A similar "Democratic" guide with Ehrlich's and Steele's photo on the front appeared in Baltimore. Another distributed in Baltimore County identified the Republican candidate for county executive as a Democrat.

An Ehrlich aide who agreed to discuss the strategy on the condition of anonymity said the purpose of the fliers was to peel away one or two percentage points in jurisdictions where the governor would be running behind. No one inside the campaign expected a strong reaction.

But that's what they got.

"This was so offensive, to so many people, they're not about to let this go," said state Democratic Party Chairman Terry Lierman.

Wayne Clarke, a political consultant hired by Ehrlich and Steele to help draw blacks' votes, said he would neither confirm nor deny whether he was involved in the Election Day episode. He said Lierman and other Democrats were "trying to make something out of nothing."

Just as Cummings had done four years earlier, Johnson denounced the mailer at a news conference and in a recorded call to residents. "It's untruthful. I'm offended by it, and I'm angry about it," he said at an Election Day rally.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...111201084.html