Eating Their Own

Earlier in the week, I posted about the Tea Bagger/Reid challenger candidate John Scott Ashjian's tax problems and how there would likely be some serious spin on this later.

Turns out I was right. And it's fairly unique in it's presentation.

Some [Republicans] are accusing Jon Scott Ashjian, a new Tea Party candidate running for U.S. Senate, of being a fake. The allegation? He was put in the race by agents of Senate Majority leader Harry Reid to siphon votes from the GOP.

"No doubt about it", says Danny Tarkanian, one of the many Republican senate candidates hoping to challenge Reid in November. "Nobody in the Tea Party knows who he is. He didn't know any of the principles of the Tea Party," Tarkanian tells CNN. He even accuses "Harry Reid's staff, campaign, whatever" of picking Ashjian because he's Armenian, as is Tarkanian. He explains, "They know the Armenians are very close they'll vote for each other."

And while conservatives have long used the "plant" meme within the context of townhall debates and speeches that show that Democrats are a little more in touch with the realities of America than their liberal/progressive counterparts, I don't think I've ever seen this kind of defense used against a candidate.

But there's a little more intrigue to this than one might get at first blush.

Sue Lowden, the Republican front-runner in the Senate primary according to recent polls, is the former Nevada Republican Party chair and seems to be the Republicans' best hope of unseating Harry Reid in November. Or at least she did, until Ashjian got into the race. Lowden says she's been very active with Tea Party groups in Nevada. "I am a Tea Party voter, absolutely." Which is why she tells us she finds it "a little strange" that Ashjian is emerging now. "I don't know who this person is. He's never been involved with anything that I'm aware of in this state." She doesn't know if he's a spoiler. "We'll find out for sure," she promises, adding "I've never seen him at one of our tea parties, by the way."

Its clear why Lowden and Tarkanian would be concerned. A recent poll conducted for the Las Vegas Review-Journal indicates Lowden and Tarkanian each beating Reid in one-on-one hypothetical general election matchups. But add a Tea Party candidate on the ballot and that siphons off enough conservative votes to give Reid a narrow victory. According to the survey Reid would grab 36 percent of the vote, the Republican candidate 32 percent and the Tea Party candidate 18 percent in a possible three way showdown.

Are the Tea Baggers more afraid of splitting the GOP vote or Ashjian's tax problems coming to light? Is it both? I'm leaning on the later. And the only way that these people can reconcile this within the context of socio-political debate is to accuse him of being a Democrat, a spy, if you will.

I'm not entirely sure if they actually believe it themselves. After all, if a Tea Bagger shouts loudly enough that Obama is going to ban bass fishing or that churches are being taken over by pinko, commie, progressive, Nazis, it won't take long until the entire collective actually believes it.