Racists on the Ballot: Hard-Right Radicals Run in 2006

By Alexander Zaitchik, Intelligence Report. Posted October 20, 2006.

In 1989, notorious white supremacist David Duke ran for a vacant seat in the Louisiana state legislature and won. Despite repeated efforts -- and winning more than 670, 000 votes, a majority of the state's white voters, in a 1991 gubernatorial bid -- Duke would fail to convert this electoral victory into higher office. But the former Klan leader remains convinced that the road to national power for those who share his views runs through local and state assemblies. At last year's European American Conference, a racist pow-wow Duke organizes annually, he implored audience members to enter politics -- and start small.

"State representative races can be won with modest budgets and small staffs, while affording the winner possible major media attention and the ability to file and promote legislation that can materially improve our people's plight," proclaimed Duke, citing personal experience.

"Most importantly, a state representative office is winnable for political novices and provides an excellent springboard for higher office."

This electoral strategy for building an extremist political movement in the U.S. was recently echoed by neo-Nazi John Ubele in an essay posted on the website of the Nationalist Coalition, a white nationalist group. In "The 2006 Elections: A Call to Action," Ubele expounds upon the positive uses of local campaigns, even failed ones, in helping lay the groundwork for a "national pro-White political party." These include heightened exposure for extremist ideas and organizational and management experience for activists.

One extremist who has gained both exposure and experience in 2006 is Larry Darby. As a candidate in a two-way Democratic primary race for attorney general of Alabama, Darby lived up to his recently earned reputation as an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. While campaigning, Darby made headlines by stating the Holocaust did not occur, telling an Associated Press reporter that no more than 140,000 Jews died in Europe during World War II, most killed by typhus. His outspoken atheism -- and support for legalizing marijuana -- pushed Darby even further outside the conservative mainstream of Alabama politics.

Yet, despite his views, his (later abandoned) atheism, and his near total lack of resources, Darby managed to poll 44% of the vote -- more than 163,000 votes.

While some of the lessons of Darby's success are particular to the race -- Darby ran against a political unknown, was listed first on the ballot, and was at least a vaguely familiar name to many Alabamians -- one lesson from his race and those of David Duke applies across the country: Dark-horse candidates with extremist views and unsavory allies can make surprisingly strong runs for office and poison public discourse in the process.

What follows are snapshots of 2006 political races featuring candidates that have espoused extremist views or are allied with hate groups.

Ray McBerry (Georgia)

Office sought: Governor

As the far-right anti-establishment candidate in Georgia's Republican gubernatorial primary, Ray "States' Rights" McBerry urged voters to back his vision of a return to "the Bible and the Constitution." The 38-year-old president of Dixie Broadcasting and hate group leader positioned himself against both "the downtown Atlanta establishment" and "the federal leviathan in Washington," fusing strident anti-immigrant rhetoric with paeans to God and the Old South.

McBerry is chairman of the Georgia branch of the racist League of the South and has ties to the extremist Constitution Party, which includes many radicals who seek to impose Old Testament law on the United States. He is also tied to the neo-Confederate Southern Party of Georgia. If elected, he promised to hold a state referendum on the return of the Georgia state flag of 1956, which included a small representation of the Confederate battle flag and was adopted as a symbolic protest against early civil rights advances such as the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to desegregate schools.

The longest plank on McBerry's platform was his plan to end illegal immigration, which he called a threat to Georgia's "way of life". He promised to secure state borders using "all ... resources at our disposal" and to apprehend undocumented immigrants residing in the state, which already has some of the toughest anti-immigration legislation in the country. To accomplish this purge, McBerry cryptically called for the use of "numerous state departments ... not currently involved." Once rounded up, McBerry wanted to bill Washington for expenses accrued holding the prisoners "until they are removed from Georgia." In May, McBerry spoke at an anti-immigration rally in Montgomery, Ala., in which participants waved baseball bats and shouted anti-Mexican slurs.

See more stories tagged with: elections, 2006, radicals, right-wingers

Alexander Zaitchik is a journalist currently based in Moscow.

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »