Dear California, please don't accidentally vote for a neo-Nazi for U.S. Senate
A new poll shows that a neo-Nazi candidate not only is the most popular GOP candidate on the ballot for U.S. Senate, but that he’s running second in the race, putting him in a position to face off with incumbent Dianne Feinstein in November.
Patrick Little of Albany had about 18% of the vote, compared to Feinstein’s 39%, according to the SurveyUSA poll released Tuesday. Take the results with a grain of salt — SurveyUSA did not reveal its methodology, other than to say it interviewed 1,100 adult Californians, less than half of whom were identified as likely voters, during the week of April 19.
Little is running as a Republican, and his ballot designation is “civil rights advocate.” His views are unabashedly anti-Semitic. On his website, he calls the Holocaust a “propaganda hoax” and says he would limit the number of Jewish people in government and judgeships.
I’m going to give Californians the benefit of the doubt and assume Little’s strong showing in the poll is the result of voters not yet paying attention to the June primary and the lack of familiar GOP candidates in the race.
Last week, another Republican candidate, James P. Bradley, made a strong showing in a different poll, surprising even himself. Bradley is a more conventional, even moderate Republican candidate from Laguna Niguel. One expert suggested to the Sacramento Bee that Bradley benefited from ballot order — his name appeared second among 32 candidates — along with “an Anglo-sounding name” and a respectable-sounding designation of chief financial officer.
The lesson here to voters is do a little homework before you cast your ballot.
