Stop LaRouche Followers

Democrats around the country may have scoffed at their colleagues in Illinois when two followers of Lyndon LaRouche won nomination to statewide office, leading gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson III to renounce his nomination rather than run on a ticket with the right-wing extremists. But anyone whose memory of local politics runs back at least six years knows it could happen here, too, if voters are not vigilant Tuesday.

In 1980, the Democratic Party, facing impossible odds in the 43rd Congressional District where Republican Rep. Clair Burgener had been elected five times, failed to run a candidate with strong name identification, and voters wound up nominating Ku Klux Klan leader Tom Metzger. The embarrassment was so great that Democratic leaders, including Sen. Alan Cranston and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, then endorsed Burgener for reelection.

The situation is somewhat similar this time in the 41st and 45th Congressional districts, where Republican Reps. Bill Lowery and Duncan Hunter, respectively, are overwhelming favorites to win reelection. This time the threat from the right comes from candidates who back LaRouche’s National Democratic Policy Committee. That organization, which has nothing to do with the Democratic Party, embraces policies such as quarantining all AIDS patients, and it has accused Queen Elizabeth II of being a drug trafficker.

In the 41st Congressional District, LaRouche follower Alex Maruniak has been active on the campaign trail and has debated Democrat Dan Kripke. The LaRouche candidate in the 45th Congressional District, George Hollis, has not campaigned since filing for the race, but his primary opponents, Dr. Hewitt Ryan and Michael Seeto, are not as well-known as is Kripke, a former state Senate candidate.

It is not generally our policy to endorse candidates in partisan primaries. But to avoid an embarrassment similar to that of 1980--and to prevent LaRouche’s followers from achieving undeserved attention and credibility--Maruniak and Hollis should be defeated by the Democrats of these two congressional districts.