Will the Real Bob Ferguson Please Stand Up?
Because they cannot win by following the rules, the WA State GOP decided to play a game of To Tell the Truth. (I’m old, this is the show I remember, not the new one). Our Dem candidate for Governor, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, has a rather common name. What are the chances that TWO other candidates named Robert Ferguson would file for the governor’s race? The REAL Bob Ferguson has been an excellent AG, and has made a name for himself bringing successful challenges ranging from companies responsible for the opioid crisis to dark money in politics to Catholic Church sexual abuse to environmental protection to immigration to scam artists, and even TFG himself (85 times during his term as President). He even made Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2017 (he was fine with not being on the cover). So why would these two doofuses think they could pull a fast one on the Attorney General with lots of justice notches on his belt?
There is a WA state law that they could be liable for a class B felony for attempting to mislead voters. We have a top 2 primary, and these kinds of shenanigans can easily affect the outcome. Of course they don’t see it as election interference at all. It turns out the orchestrator of this strategy, conservative activist Glenn Morgan, was hoping to get a few more Bob Fergusons before last Friday’s 5 pm deadline to file. He’d contacted 12 but ‘ran out of time’. AG Bob Ferguson was having none of this. He sent a Cease and Desist letter to each of the Bobs, and called on them to withdraw their names by 5 PM yesterday or face legal action. BOOM! Both of the Bobs who were persuaded to file as Democrats to confuse voters withdrew before the deadline,72 hours after they filed. Smart move for a couple of dummies. Chalk up another win for the Good Guy, who was obviously working over the weekend.
This happened in Wisconsin years ago when Robert La Follette was repeatedly re-elected on his good name and policies forged by the Progressive Party. Anyone opposing him in an election was lucky to receive vote totals in the teens. Then one year the Republicans found a Robert La Follette to run against the real Robert La Follette. He didn’t fare well, and as usual finished a dismal second place.
1This issue came up in an undergraduate poli sci class decades ago. There is a raft of common last names as well as first names among the populace. The prof said no matter how many names are alike, there is always only one who came in with more votes. Somehow that was not a balm to our nerves.
2Just like repugnanticans do, if they can’t beat em, they cheat and lie. Probably on the first page of their playbook.
3Borrowed straight from Russia:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/06/three-near-identical-boris-vishnevskys-on-st-petersburg-election-ballot
4It was this kind of outrageous behavior that got me to pay closer attention to local politics. They even ran radio ads.
5Yep, the GQP did that locally – because the guy in office was really known mostly by his first name, all they had to do was run another guy with the same first name against him…no matter that their candidate is basically a deer in the headlights with the IQ of overstuffed furniture. It was enough to get their guy into office.
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