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Spannaus to run against Sen. Warner, again
This will be her fourth run for the U.S. Senate. In 1990 she ran unsuccessfully against Warner, taking less than 20 percent of the vote.Warner campaign spokesman Ken Hutcheson said, "We are expecting a handful of Independent candidates to be on the ballot. Sen. Warner welcomes all competition."
Spannaus has long been associated with inveterate presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, whom she confirms will run again in 2004.
In campaign literature, Spannaus describes herself as a "LaRouche Democrat," but she has, in fact, been locked out of the Democratic Party for the past decade as a result of her LaRouche connections and can only run this fall as an Independent.
Party insiders and political observers say that they believe the LaRouche organization is trying to use the Democratic Party to legitimize and restart its once-successful fund-raising operation.
Former Democratic Party chair Rollie Winter confirmed that for much of the past decade county Democrats have fought to keep LaRouche and his followers from taking over the local Democratic Party.
Mary Broz, communications director for the Democratic Party of Virginia, said there is no such thing as a LaRouche Democrat. "That just doesn't exist."
Added Alan Moore, former director of the state Democratic Party, "Followers of Lyndon LaRouche are not Democrats."
To file as an Independent, Lorraine Thompson of the State Board of Elections confirmed, Spannaus has until June 11 to collect 10,000 signatures from among registered Virginia voters.
Another Independent candidate running against Warner, Libertarian Jacob G. Hornberger of Ashburn, already has filed petitions with the State Board of Elections to have his name placed on the November ballot. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy explored running as a Democrat, but decided not to press her challenge.
Her platform
Spannaus said she is running because economic crisis is about to hit the world, a crisis that will set off another global war.
"Ariel Sharon doesn't want peace, he wants a broader war," she said. "It's happening as we feared it would, and it cannot be divorced from the broad financial crisis."
LaRouche and his political followers see themselves as the true supporters of the political legacy of Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt.
"Only the outlook expressed by President Franklin Roosevelt can lead the nation and the world out of this crisis. Now, as in 1932 and 1933, the job of the Democratic Party is to bring into place a leadership which acts now as the Franklin Roosevelt coalition did then," said Spannaus.
On the national scene, she supports using the broad economic power of government for the common good. "This is what government is for, protecting the general welfare of the population."
Spannaus believes the Democratic Party stopped being the party it once was during Carter's administration, when Paul Volker was head of the Federal Reserve and raised interest rates.
She also acknowledged more localized challenges to her U.S. Senate race.
"I am aware that I face a special problem in Virginia, a problem symbolized by the fact that both Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are headquartered in this state, as well as the Falwell-Robertson wannabe, Mike Farris, whose base is here in Loudoun County," she said.
Farris is founder and president of Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, a new institution designed for students who were taught at home during their high school years.
Spannaus is undaunted by the deck she sees as being stacked against her, because she feels dramatic change is coming on the political horizon.
"Indeed, pro-FDR Democrats are virtually underground in the commonwealth, but, under the impact of the new world depression, the times and political winds are turning in new directions," she said.
LaRouche and his followers did turn in a new direction when they arrived in Loudoun in the early 1980s from New York City.
At first they billed themselves as a cultural group of sorts, but changed orientation, quickly becoming a high-powered, political fund-raising operation with headquarters on King Street in Leesburg. The organization also took in matching fund money for its candidates from the Federal Election Commission.
But by the end of the decade, many members of the organization, including LaRouche himself were sent to prison by federal authorities after having been convicted of tax evasion and fraud.
The group's fund-raising message was based on the LaRouche economic and political philosophy.
LaRouche constructed an elaborate theory of history based on his belief that the world economy is controlled by a secret financial oligarchy that came down to the present day from 18th-century British colonialism. The heirs of those fortunes, he says, continue to control society through banks and other financial institutions.
Joe Borda can be reached at jborda@timespapers.com.
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