They had set up outside the Maryland DMV. They had a newspaper which showed, among other things, a map of a highway going from the lower 48 states up through Alaska, over the Bering Strait, into the Russian Far East, and down into China. As if anyone would actually make that drive after the massive infrastructure was built.

I think they also wanted the US and the Soviet Union to gang up and nuke Red China (this was in the 80s). Or maybe that was some other group of nuts.

I never really got their philosophy or why they thought their ideas were better than everyone else's.

They nab a few new college kids to their ranks every year (the LaRouche Youth Movement) and brainwash them into their idiocy. Many of them get so sucked into it all that they drop out of school to work full time for LaRouche.

It's pretty much degenerated into a cult.

Although now I understand why I saw people having a rally with both save NASA and impeach Obama signs at the same time.

Amazing that LaRouche is still alive at 89. Fortunately, for everybody his political power disappeared with that of Ross Perot. (although I do have a lot of sympathyand admiration for Perot's running mate, Admiral James Stockdale who asked the one rhetorical question that had the most meaning in the 1992 election, "Why am I here?"

Sic transit Gloria mundi, LaRoucies!

Holding these same Obama with Hitler mustache pictures, and passing out fliers at intersections.

I assumed they were tea party types, but I took their literature once and sure enough they were LaRouchies intent on "impeaching Obama"

A strange group.

in her name about the campaign, being a LaRouche Democrat, and was calling for the impeachment of Obama.

Banned in 1 post, IIRC.

This occurred in the Texas group

I was a little taken aback that she was getting any traction at all.

In 2010, literally no one knew who she was or who the larouchies were. Most of her political signs were about saving NASA and this district included NASA. Just before the 2010 primary, word got out that she was a nut case but we did not have time to get the word out.

This year the primary was moved to the Tuesday after Memorial Day. The Fort Bend Democrats did an okay job of getting the word out and we kept her to 42% in Fort Bend County. Again, we had a weak candidate who wanted people to vote for him and not against Kesha. The guy refused to put out signs saying that Kesha Rogers was not a Democrat. The Silver Democrats Club did a mailing to voters in Fort Bend warning them about her just before the start of early voting and the true Democrat won early voting in Fort Bend County.

There was low turnout in the Democratic primary and the CD22 and the Senate race were the only races where there was a contest in my part of Fort Bend County. Look what happen in the Texas Senate race where a candidate who was a candidate in the GOP primary twice made it to a run off.

I really think that the timing of the primary depressed turnout and helped both Yarlborough and Kesha to do well in their races. I was really upset to find out that the party has a 100 or so Kesha is not a Democrat signs sitting in a garage that were not distributed for election day voting because the candidate did not want to use these signs.

I remember when she posted, but didn't know anything about the history. Appreciate you documenting all of that.

Get in line

First, Kesha is not going to win. In the current configuration of this district, McCain won 60% to 40% in 2008. I was part of a group who tried to recruit a real candidate to run but that person's professional advisers told him that the district was too republican to waste his money.

Second, as a result of this we had a very weak candidate as the true democrat. Our candidate was a nice guy but he had no chance of winning in the general election. Our candidate got no labor help because he was too clueless to know what labor's concern. One of the local union reps came to a party meeting and told us that our candidate was an idiot and we could not really argue with him. The party chairman and our SDEC representative both raised some money for some signs that said that "Kesha Rogers is not a Democrat" and he refused to put these signs out on election day because he wanted people to vote for him and not against Kesha.

Here is a story about the signs from Juanita Jean http://juanitajean.com/2012/05/20/kesha-rogers-is-a-silly-little-girl/

Third, my county party did its job. A democratic club did a mailing to our members during early voting. The real democrat won early voting but lost on election day. We held Kesha to 42% in Fort Bend County but she won in Brazoria and Harris county. Again, the real democrat running in the race did not campaign in those counties. As I said, he was weak candidate.

We can at least recruit and train candidates who will understand how to beat a political cultist in the primary... good practice if we're ever going to beat one in the general election.

I am hoping that the party will be more active but normally it is the local party's responsibility to recruit candidates. It is hard to recruit someone and tell them they will need to raise a couple of million dollars for a race that they are very likely to lose. As a result of the latest GOP gerrymandering, the Texas CD22 is even more conservative than it was in 2010.

In 2010, Kesha got less than 30% of the vote and I doubt that she will break 35% in this election

I hope he's an effective one.

Yes, the county party has the responsibility to recruit the local candidates but the state party needs to get its ass in gear and provide some leadership and guidance for the weaker counties instead of just letting everything drift along and hope that the demographic changes to be enumerated in the 2020 Census makes Texas Democrats viable again. Part of that could be providing some training to prospective candidates so they'll realize that if their district extends into three counties they need to make an effort in all three... and that it doesn't matter if people vote FOR them or AGAINST their opponent, it's the number of votes that matters.

Seriously, what is the deal with CD-22? Is their really such a high degree of insanity among Democratic primary voters that actually makes them think that Obama is Hitler and should be impeached? I hope that the TDP makes crushing Kesha Rogers a priority for 2014.

On Edit: I don't mean to rag on Fort Bend Democrats, I realize that it's a rough place for you guys. But Kesha Rogers is an embarrassment to us all.

Please understand that I think that the Fort Bend Democrats have done everything possible to defeat Kesha given the finances. Let me summarize what was done with respect to Kesha Rogers.

First, the party attempted to recruit a stronger candidate. I was a party to these attempts. There were some serious attempts made to recruit a stronger candidate who could have self funded part of the race. With some more funding, it would have been easy to defeat Kesha in that the only Democrats who voted for her were those who did not know her positions.

Second, the Fort Bend Democratic Party pushed the State Party rules by endorsing KP George over Kesha. Technically, the party is suppose to be neutral in a primary race. The Party County Executive Committee with a large percentage of the precinct chairs present voted to endorse KP George. The State Party informatlly approved of this endorsement. I do not think that the Harris County Party or the Brazoria Party made such an endorsement.

Third, members of the party raised funds and put out signs that stated that Kesha Rogers was not a Democrat. Kesha was not happy with these signs and accused the party of being anti-Semitic (I still have not figured that one out yet).

Fourth, the Fort Bend Democratic Party Chairman submitted to the local papers a couple of different editorials telling people that Kesha Rogers was not a Democrat. One of these editorials was cut and pasted onto the Texas Group Forum. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10782568 Kesha actually tried to publish a rebuttal to this editorial on that thread but her post was hidden by a jury (a very good decision).

Fifth, one of the local clubs raised money and paid for a mailing to all of the hard Ds in Fort Bend County warning them about Kesha. That mailing went out just before the start of early voting and given that KP won the early vote it appears that the mailing was effective.

Kesha only got 42% of the vote in Fort Bend County and won due to getting 57% of the vote in Brazoria County and 62% of the vote in Harris County. The only thing that I think that we could have done more would have been to coordinate actions with the other county parties. I know that Harris County Democrats were a little distracted by the contest for who would be the party chair.

The Fort Bend Democrats put a great deal of effort into defeating Kesha and we are sad that our efforts were not sufficient. It is my understanding the SDEC has adopted a resolution that permits Democrats to ignore Kesha and to exclude her from our events. I can assure you that there are people in the Fort Bend Democrats who are very upset but we did keep Kesha from winning in our county.

I think that an important role for the state party could be helping to coordinate the efforts of county parties in races which cross county lines. Of course there are many toes which may be trod upon since county/CD/SD/HD lines do not necessarily coincide but I see no other way to drag our party out of its doldrums and start electing Democrats in this state again.

Boyd Richie was on his way out and the State Party has been busy fighting voter id and redistricting. In addition, leadership in the Harris County Democratic party was in flux and there were a couple of nasty primaries in Harris County including a strong challenge as to who would be the chairperson of the Harris County party. I was glad that Lane Lewis won the chairmanship of the Harris County Democratic Party. In the future, I expect that there will be more coordination between the local parties under Judge Hinojosa.

The Fort Bend Democrats are hoping to win Fort Bend County for President Obama. We lost Fort Bend County in 2008 for less than 5,000 votes and think that we easily make up that gap in 2012. The Party has recruited some decent candidates in other races and we have a chance to pick up a couple of district court judges and county positions. Fort Bend County is the first suburban county that could go blue in Texas and that could lead the way for Texas becoming a blue state.

The Texas CD22 is a safe GOP district. McCain won this district in its current configuration by 60% in 2008. That is why we were not able to recruit a stronger candidate who could have funded some decent attacks on the LaRouchies. One potential candidate had labor support and could have self funded a race but his professional advisers looked at the numbers and told him that he was wasting his money and these advisers were correct in their analysis. Kesha got 29% of the vote in 2010 when the district was slightly more Democratic. Kesha will break 30% in 2012 due to straight party votes but she will not win. The GOP candidate, Pete Olson, could die and the GOP will still win this seat.

I also note that the LaRouchies can only win in seats where there are not strong democrats in the race. In the New Jersey CD5, a LaRouchie candidate got 10% of the vote in a competitive race.

We have a county party CEC meeting on Monday and will no doubt be discussing Kesha. My best guess is that we will simply ignore her and will concentrate our efforts on winning the county for President Obama and winning some county wide races.

I don't get very involved locally, but heard about the efforts of the Fort Bend democrats through a friend here in Brazoria. I volunteered for Obama in 2008 and luckily got on this guy's email list so I heard about Kesha and what she is up to. If I had not gotten his email I wouldn't have had any idea and probably wouldn't have even voted in the primary. But since I knew I wrote an OP about it here in the TX group to pass along the information I had been given, and I did indeed vote.

She's not going to win, this area is way too strong for Pete Olson. I am excited about the new Texas chair though in hopes that he can get labor coordinated somehow.

You still have some problems, GOP.

he is the opposite extreme of Ron Paul (he's leftist). But he's also 89 and these cults usually die out when they lose their leader. But I would agree with the statement "Fuck Lyndon LaRouche" for sure.