They always tell you to read the fine print before signing a contract, and that’s good advice.
Voting for candidates is like a contract of sorts. They offer certain things in exchange for your vote — their experience, character, and promises.
Instead of just voting for the “D” or “R” after a candidate’s name, you should check them out like you would a used car, because if they get in office and represent you, you may well be stuck with them — and you could get a lemon.
This could happen to voters of either party, but Democrats in general seem to do a better job of vetting their candidates, and jettisoning those who fail to satisfy minimum standards of quality control. A defective or tainted “R” candidate is much more likely to slip through the cracks.
Take, for example, H. Russell Taub (photo above), an “R” who ran in 2016 against Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI; bio here) and lost in the heavily-Democratic Rhode Island 1st congressional district (profile here). It’s probably true that nothing would have allowed an “R” to win in that district. But in 2016, the lack of quality control on the “R” side couldn’t have helped matters.
In 2019, Taub pleaded guilty to federal charges of diverting more than $1 million of campaign funds to “personal use,” of which “over $217,000 went toward expenses that included airfare, hotel rooms, restaurant meals, clothes, cigars, strip club visits and escort services” (see story here; additional details here). He got 3 years in prison for that (story here), and got out of prison on January 13, 2022 (mentioned in next story linked below).
In February 2022, Taub was back in the news again, also in connection with his 2016 campaign, but for a different reason.
“H. Russell Taub, the onetime Republican congressional candidate who was imprisoned for defrauding political donors three years ago, illegally sought help from Russian intelligence in his failed bid to unseat U.S. Rep. David Cicilline in 2016,” the Providence Journal reported on Monday, February 21, 2022 (story here).
“A few months before the November 2016 general election, Taub sent a direct message to a Twitter account known to be used by the GRU, Russia’s main intelligence agency,” the Journal continues. “Taub asked for a list of Republican donors … provided an email address and later received a dossier that included opposition research reports, polling data and other information about his … Democratic opponent ….”
The Federal Election Commission determined the GRU stole that information when it hacked Democratic National Committee computers during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Russians don’t just give stuff away. When they called this chit, what would they have wanted, if Taub had been elected to Congress? Let me guess: A vote against military assistance to Ukraine? I’m just speculating about that. But you can be sure any help, in any form, that anyone gets from the GRU isn’t free.
Don’t blindly trust the “D” or “R” after a candidate’s name. Check out the goods. And read the fine print in the contract before you mark “X” on the ballot. Especially with those “R” guys, because the GOP isn’t as picky in their candidate recruitment.