Dan Plays Dirty

Welcome Back.  Last time I wrote about Dan Onorato's truth allergy and his imaginary poll.  Why does he need to pretend he has better poll numbers than he does?  Because his numbers are terrible.  No one has Dan even close to winning this thing.

So what do you do when the chips are down and the odds are stacked against you?  Most people would say "buckle down, work hard and do your best".  But most people are not a Pittsburgh politician, and that is today's reason why Dan Onorato sucks:

Dan Onorato put a Tea Party candidate on the ballot.

According to the reports, Dan's campaign staff and supporters circulated petitions for John Krupa who listed himself as a Tea Party candidate. 

 "Members of unions that endorsed Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, as well as one of his campaign workers, helped get Tea Party candidate John Krupa onto Pennsylvania's gubernatorial ballot for November's election, state records show."

Now I wouldn't consider Dan a friend to progressives like me even on a good day -  his pro-gun, pro-life, anti-gay agenda will be a topic for a later date - so to see him trying to prop up these gun-toting law-ignoring Palin-loving idiots makes me cringe.  There is only one reason to do this - to pull votes away from your opponent.  And yes, both parties do this, but that doesn't mean you should get lazy about it, otherwise you get editorials like this one:

"Dan Onorato must think Pennsylvania voters were born last night. Why else would his failing gubernatorial campaign deny culpability in a political stunt as old as the hills?"

"Smell a political rat? Or should we say an OnoRATo?"

The Tribune Review tends to be GOP friendly, but if Democrats want to get the country back on track we need to have a strong message, and giving these people any credibility is not going to help at all.  And if you are going to play sloppy tricks, at least be subtle about it.  Here are three reasons why this was completely retarded:

1. Krupa is not a member of the Tea Party, he is from the Constitution Party.  And the GOP and the Tea Party is suing to get him off the ballot.  So good job Dan, you just wasted thousands of dollars and made yourself look stupid for someone over someone who will probably get booted from the ballot.
2. The Tea Party may be crazy but they are not dumb. And they hate unions, so when they find out it was union labor that put Krupa on the ballot, don't you think they will be a little pissed off?  Again, good job - you just convinced people who might have otherwise stayed home to go out and vote against you.
3. It is cheap and dirty politics at its very ugliest.  We condemn politics as usual, but who will take us seriously if we don't walk the walk?  Stupid stunts like this just give Republicans more talking points in a year where we are already hurting.  Now not only does the GOP have good ammunition for the governors race, they can use this against Sestak, Altmire, Lentz, Dahlkemper... you get the idea.

So in summary, way to go douchebag.  With Wagner we had a chance of winning the governor's mansion.  With Onorato, we risk losing control of the state.