Fake Democratic Candidate: Really a Conservative, AND Hate Group Affiliated; Fake Democratic voters behind his primary win

The right is fond of fraudulently representing themselves.  You have to wonder at the utter massive failure of the values and integrity of the Republicans and other conservatives who try to deceive voters, who take pride in misrepresenting themselves to voters.
Where, again, are those core values, those BIBLICAL values, those FAMILY values?  Ah, so you as a party never really had those, did you?  Of course the right is lacking in those -- the MN GOP is a perfect example of the utter failure of ethics and responsibility.  No moral and ethical party or movement could , pardon the pun, RIGHTLY condone deception and immorality, including hate group advocacy, in pursuit OR conduct of public office.
That is true of candidates in Wisconsin and now Tennessee, that is true of ballot initiatives like the less than clear efforts for the 2012 election cycle in Minnesota by the Minnesota immoral right wing majority in our legislature.
Here is the story, from the HuffPo, about Mark Clayton, in Tennessee:
Mark Clayton, Winner Of Senate Primary, Disavowed By Democratic Party For Hate Group Association

The Tennessee Democratic Party disavowed Mark Clayton over his association with a hate group after Clayton won Thursday's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate to face Republican Sen. Bob Corker.
"The only time that Clayton has voted in a Democratic primary was when he was voting for himself. Many Democrats in Tennessee knew nothing about any of the candidates in the race, so they voted for the person at the top of the ticket," the party said in a statement Friday.
Clayton, a 35-year-old flooring installer, won slightly more than 48,000 votes in the primary, or about twice as many as the nearest of his six other unknown challengers.
"Mark Clayton is associated with a known hate group in Washington, D.C., and the Tennessee Democratic Party disavows his candidacy, will not do anything to promote or support him in any way, and urges Democrats to write-in a candidate of their choice in November," read the statement.
Clayton is vice president of the Public Advocate of the United States, a Virginia-based group that advocates a conservative social agenda. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls it a hate group. Its opposition to gay rights is extreme: "GAY MUPPETS CONDEMNED BY PUBLIC ADVOCATE AND NOW SENATOR JIM DEMINT," "Gay Curriculum Already Out Of Closet And Into Some City Classrooms To Millions In New York" and "Eating Chicken Declared A Hate Crime Pro-homosexual Socialist Dictators Attack Private Companies just like their President Barack Obama Attacks Private Companies" read recent press release headlines.
The candidate's website is now no longer viewable. Mother Jones reported that it contained conspiracy theories about NAFTA and suggested that people who disagree with the government could be sent to "a bone-crushing prison camp similar to the one Alexander Solzhenitsyn was sent or to one of FEMA's prison camps."

It shouldn't come as too big a surprise then, to find out that Mark Clayton wasn't the only Faux Democrat running in Tennessee, or that the majority of the voters who voted partisan democratic in Tennessee were NOT, apparently, genuinely Democratic EITHER.

There was this from the Daily Kos, written by a voter in that same Tennessee election:

Dems didn't vote for hate group's darling in the primary

by turkmen

I was very busy traveling this week and didn't have time to check who won the TN Democratic Party's primary for US Senate seat. Last night I caught a tail end of Rachel Maddow Show (it was promised to be a really good one - and it was) to find out that a guy named Mark Clayton had won the primary. And apparently, as first reported by Rachel and now even in the state's biggest (and fairly conservative) newspaper "The Tennessean", this Clayton guy is really not a Democrat, never voted for a democrat in his life (except for himself this time around), and that he also belongs to anti-gay hate group.
Unbelievable, right? How could the Dems vote for this guy? Could this be an accident? I strongly believe this was not an accident. Here's what happened when I went to vote during early voting period.

I must preface that this is only my second time voting in my life because I became a US citizen in early 2010. I had voted in that year's election so I don't know how everything works with respect to voting rules yet. So last month when I went to vote in the Democratic primary and once I provided my ID and other required documentation, I was put in line to wait until more voting booths become available. In front of me stood a tall gentleman in his late 30s - early 40s who also waited for an open booth. When two booths opened up, we were both directed to the booths and the people that get the machines ready proceeded to press the buttons so we could start voting. It was at that time, the man who stood in front of me asked the working volunteer if he would still be allowed to vote for Republicans in November if he voted in the Democratic Primary this one time. I didn't think much of it at the time but I wondered about it because as a new voter I didn't know what the answer to that question was.
But I was trying to focus on my own voting and not taking too much time while doing so because there were other people in line to vote, so I proceeded to vote for the best Democratic candidates.
By the time I finished voting, I had already forgotten about the question the man who stood in front of me asked and I went on with my life.

Fast forward to yesterday when I first heard the news about TN primary on the Rachel Maddow Show. When I was doing the research, Mark Clayton, the winner of the primary, really stood out to me as the craziest, I mean totally wacko candidate of the bunch, and even at that time I thought that Mr. Clayton couldn't belong to the Democratic Party. However, pretty much all but one (Park Overall for whom I voted) were either pro-life, deeply Christian, and overall conservative, so I thought: "It must just be the way Tennessee is these days".

So after a moment of disbelief I started thinking how could this have happened? Was this really an accident? Do Democrats of the state really support the things Clayton talked about on his website? No. No freaking way. And then it struck me. The guy in front of me! The guy who was asking all these questions about being able to vote for Republicans in November if he voted in the Democratic primary that one time. He must have been a Republican cross over to vote in our primary. It was all planned! How could 48 thousand plus people vote for someone who hasn't done anything during the campaign, whose political signs I haven't seen anywhere?

I have heard about all sorts of shenanigans in politics, but this episode really touched me. I am so mad this happened. I am so upset about this that I strong think that we, Democrats of Tennessee, need to do something about it. I know the state's Democrats have disavowed his candidacy and encourage to write in a candidate - any candidate but him - but we need to do more. We need to back a real Democrat and write in that candidate to send a message that we are not "dead" as some have called our party in the state. Let this event be a wake up call for all Democrats, not just the ones in Tennessee, but everywhere where Democrats have no solid chances of winning. We need to be better prepared to deal with such situations, to make sure this never happens and we should never give up just because we live in a heavily conservative state.
So what can we do? If you're in TN or have some ideas, please share in your comments. Park Overall, the most progressive candidate of the primary, placed third with 15% of the vote (.3% less than Gary Davis, a guy who wants to cut foreign aid, to do away with federal programs and restore state's right to give people full control of their own healthcare) and I hope we can get behind her candidacy for the write-in campaign. What should the next steps be? What tools can we use to start a campaign that informs people of what happened? How can we effectively spread the word about who the Dems' real candidate is?

I've written here on Penigma before about Right Wing Authoritarianism; fascist and totalitarian efforts like advocating for "bone crushing prison camps" for dissent.  Consistently it goes hand in hand with dishonesty and hate positions and groups; chronically, it is classically conservative.  It tends to be racist, and tends to be anti-gay, and tends to be in favor of denying full and equal religious freedom and other freedom for Muslims.

Before you even consider defending the conservatives above - ask yourself the following questions.
1. Would you feel that you were treated badly by your fellow citizens if they did this to you? (Seriously - can you imagine the feigned outrage by the right if this were the other way round?)
2. If this were done in a foreign country - say Egypt or Afghanistan or Mexico - would you think they had a legitimate or illegitimate and dysfunctional election process, and held a dishonest election?
3. Could you do this and then turn around and look a new citizen in the face, and say to them this is really how a representative government should work, after either running like this, or voting like this? (I would hope not.)

To answer the question in Turkmen's post - we get out the word by having the blogosphere and hopefully an honest 4th estate focus on this UNAMERICAN conduct by the right.  We turn the bright light of sunshine and transparency on the dishonesty and cowardice and cheating by the right, on their willingness to engage in deception.

If you want HONEST government, don't vote conservative, ANY kind of conservative, regardless of who they claim to be.