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Article clipped from The Tampa Tribune

LaRouche backers fizzle at the polls By MILES BENSON Newhouse News Service WASHINGTON - As a political phenomenon, Lyndon LaRouche is beginning to fizzle. Voters in Democratic primaries are overwhelmingly rejecting LaRouche's candidates, making his single success last March in Illinois look more like a quirk than an earthquake. In state a after state, the common strategy of LaRouche candidates seems to be to get their names on the ballot, then sit back and wait for lightning to strike. But the lightning isn't Analysis cooperating. La- Rouche disciples fared poorly in recent contests in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Indiana, winning only where they were the sole candidates on the ballot in a few strong Republican districts where regular Democratic Party leaders felt there was no chance to win the general election and offered no candidates of their own. In upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Alabama, California and several other states, LaRouche candidates are numerous but their campaigns are invisible, Democratic Party leaders say. In New Jersey, which has a June 3 primary, LaRouche candidates are running in 13 of the state's 14 congressional districts, "but we haven't seen any real campaigning," says state Democratic Chairman Raymond Durkin. "We don't see any chance of any regular Democratic candidates losing to any LaRouche candidates. What happened in Illinois alerted us, and we're going to be ready here." In Alabama, another June 3 primary state, LaRouche supporter Steve Arnold is one of four Democrats seeking the party's nomination to oppose Republican Sen. Jeremiah Denton in the November elections. Alabama State Democratic Chairman John Baker says he met Arnold only once when he came to party headquarters to pick up a copy of the rules. "He's not waging any kind of campaign, at least there's no sign of it," Baker says. "I don't think anybody takes him seriously." LaRouche and his conspiracy theories - he says the queen of England is a drug dealer, Henry Kissinger is a Soviet agent and the AIDS epidemic is a creation of the policies of the International Monetary Fund - drew public attention after two of his followers were nominated for lieutenant governor and secretary of state in Illinois in upset victories over regular Democratic candidates. LaRouche, who has run for the presidency three times, declared the Illinois results evidence that Democratic voters were fed up with their party's leadership and ready to turn to him in protest. He said hundreds of his supporters would be running - and winning - in many other states this year. But in Ohio on a recent Tuesday, LaRouche candidate Don Scott got only 13 percent of the vote against Sen. John Glenn in the Democratic primary. On the same day, in Indiana, regular Democrat Jill L. Long Campaign steamrollered LaRouche supporter Georgia Irey to win the party's nomination to oppose incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Quayle in November. And on the same day, in North Carolina, Milton Croon, who was linked to LaRouche, ran ninth in a field of 10 Democrats seeking the Senate nomination won by former Gov. Terry Sanford. National Democratic Party officials say Texas party leaders did a "solid job" of identifying LaRouche candidates and educating voters to defeat them in the state's primary earlier this month. "We contacted our precinct chairmen and party activists and told them the time for amused tolerance was over and to get to work," says Texas Democratic Chairman Bob Slagle. "Now we've got only one more clean-up job to do - in San Antonio," Slagle said, referring to the only near-success for the LaRouche forces in Texas. That came in heavily Hispanic San Antonio in a fiveway contest for the party post of Bexar County Democratic chairman. In that race, the LaRouche candidate, Donald Varella, the only candidate with a Hispanic name, and a favorable ballot position, led with 39 percent of the vote. There will be a runoff June 7 between Varella and Jane Searcy Hibler, a regular Democrat who has the support of San Antonio's popular Mayor Henry Cisneros. LaRouche candidates, running without competition, won Democratic nominations for Congress in two districts in Texas and two districts in Ohio. "The bottom-line concern is whether these (LaRouche) people can ever win public office," says Terry Michael, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. "I think from everything we know now there is near zero chance of that occurring in the general elections in November. As far as I know there are no LaRouche cult followers who currently hold public office, and we expect that to be the case after November." The LaRouche forces, however, shrugged off their reversals. LaRouche spokesman Mel Klenetsky says he saw further evidence of Democratic dissatisfaction with their leaders in the votes that were cast for LaRouche candidates, "although we certainly didn't see the same kind of dramatic victories" that took place in Illinois. "In spite of attempts by the media to portray our candidates as extremists, and in spite of the 'freakout' on the part of Democratic Party leaders who made a massive attempt to discredit our candidates," Klenetsky predicts, "there will be more and more Illinoises in the future."
Article from 15 May 1986The Tampa Tribune(Tampa, FL)
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