“Luke Skywalker” Hopeful to Challenge Bob Goodlatte in the 6th
By Jason Johnson | Friday, June 10th, 2011 | PoliticsPerhaps it’s only natural for a congressional district that hosts not one, but two annual comic conventions to produce a candidate who fancies himself to be the next Luke Skywalker.
Dr. Andrew Schmookler, a 64 year-old Shenandoah County resident has announced his intentions to challenge Rep. Bob Goodlatte for the 6th Congressional District seat in the 2012 General Election. A self-described intellectual, originally from Bellingham, Washington, Dr. Schmookler earned degrees from Harvard College and the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of seven books, is an infrequent commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and in 1999 was named one of the “Outstanding People of the Twentieth Century” by the International Biographical Society.
He also knows how to make friends and influence people.
In his first presentation to local Democratic committees, congressional hopeful Andy Schmookler called Republicans deceitful and evil and compared his 6th District campaign to the rebel Jedi mission to destroy the Death Star.He said talking plainly about Republican maneuvers would be akin to finding the blueprint to the famous Death Star from “Star Wars.”
“The shaft that leads to the Death Star’s core power here is the moral truth,” he said, repeating: “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.”
Dr. Schmookler’s presentation to Augusta County Democrats included references to the Republicans’ “pattern of lies” and “pervasive deceit.” While he eventually had everyone in the room agree that they were outraged by positions taken by the Republican Party, it became apparent that not everyone was buying his “Death Star” rhetoric when one attendee brought Dr. Schmookler back to reality:
“Your theories are great, but … you gotta beat [Goodlatte],” he said.
That’s an excellent point. The Cook Political Report rates Virginia’s 6th Congressional District (as it’s currently configured) as R+12. Any Democrat that hopes to win the seat must hope for 1.) widespread Republican apathy, 2.) significant crossover support or 3.) a three-way race with a strong Democratic candidate. By calling Republicans evil and liars, Dr. Schmookler can likely forget option two, and quite possibly option one, as well. Finally, it goes without saying that Dr. Schmookler–with a quiver full of esoteric theories so divorced from reality that a Democratic activist had to remind him of why he is running in the first place–would not be the strong candidate Democrats need if they hope to make a strong challenge to Bob Goodlatte. Besides, a leftist candidate was on the 6th District ballot in 2010, but district voters rejected him by a mere 105,838 votes. Why should Dr. Schmookler fare any better?
That having been said, Dr. Schmookler might have an ace up his sleeve: the great Silent Majority.
Schmookler said his message comes from a deep place that will be a wild card in the 6th District political climate. He implored Democrats to help him by stirring up talk at water coolers and at church, by writing letters to newspapers and politicians, and by organizing groups to hear his message.
If in the euphoria of Hope and Change that was the 2008 General Election, 42 percent was the best President Obama could muster in the 6th District when college students and other first-time voters were coming out of the woodwork to vote for him, Dr. Schmookler is going to need more than a few outraged letters to the editor of The [Waynesboro] News Virginian to find enough votes to topple a popular incumbent like Rep. Goodlatte and, in the process, destroy the Death Star. (I guess there’s always “The Force,” right?)
There is one additional, unresolved question about Dr. Schmookler: if he is Luke Skywalker, does that make “Darth Cheney“…his father?
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A lifelong political junkie, Jason caught the political bug as a fifth grader after meeting George Allen in 1993. Since then he has studied political science at both the undergraduate and graduate level. When not perusing the blogs or volunteering for conservative Republicans, Jason enjoys cheering on his beloved Virginia Tech Hokies and spending time at his Bedford County home.
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14 Responses to "“Luke Skywalker” Hopeful to Challenge Bob Goodlatte in the 6th"
Not even the Force is strong enough to boost a Dem to victory in the 6th.
Jason,
FYI. The International Biographical Society is a scam that sells awards such as “Outstanding People of the Twentieth Century.” Their going rates for various awards run from $375 to $600. I suspect that much of the rest of “Dr.” Schmookler’s resume is just as phoney. Inflated and invented graduate degrees, for example, are far more common than you might imagine. I once had a resume come across my desk that claimed that the applicant had a Ph.D in Economics from an institution that had no graduate program in Economics. Another resume claimed an M.S. from “John” Hopkins University. You folks out in the 6th CD should have lots of fun exposing Luke.
So much for a “pattern of lies” and “pervasive deceit.”
This “Skywalker” uses angry rhetoric to paint a fearful picture of Republicans. We all know what Yoda said about anger leading to hate and hate leading to suffering.
Schmookler’s current path will only lead to the “Dark Side”.
All I can say is he had better be using Jedi Mind Tricks at the voting booth if he hopes to win.
“This is not the candidate you are looking for.”
6th is probably the most R district in the state. He could win, but I could win the lottery if I bought a ticket too.
SE-Actually your chance of winning the lottery is much better than guy’s chance to win the 6th. The lottery is random. The voting patterns of the thousands of Republicans who make up the majority in the 6th District are not.
Goodlatte: “Whose your daddy now, Luke?”
I would suggest that if HisRoc wants to refute my assertion that today’s Republican Party uses lies and deceptions –to an extent unprecedented in the history of major American political parties– his packaging his defense together with his false accusations and unsubstantiated suspicions is probably not the most credible strategy.
I paid nothing to the International Biographical Centre (not the International Biographical Society HisRoc comments on) for that honor, and have paid nothing to any of the other honorific biographical references in which I’ve been included.
As for my academic degrees, I can’t show you here online my Harvard diploma with some Latin words on it (like summa cum laude), but anyone who wants to check out the credibility of my resume vs. HisRoc’s suspicions can look at what is said about my books on Amazon, such as this one published by the University of California Press:
http://www.amazon.com/Parable-Tribes-Problem-Social-Evolution/dp/0791424200/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307809594&sr=8-1
In my campaign, as in my life generally, I am committed to speaking in a spirit of truthfulness. I am careful about what I say, and prepared to back up my assertions. That includes what I say about the pervasive dishonesty of the force that has taken over the Republican Party in our times.
This is not the Party of Barry Goldwater, with his integrity, nor of Ronald Reagan, with his fundamental human decency. This dangerous change in the Republican Party can be extensively documented.
I’ve been told that it is incautious of me to make any reference to something like Star Wars, and several people here –including the primary author– have confirmed that danger: there are plenty of people who will seize on the opportunity to engage in adolescent-level mockery without even mentioning, much less engaging, the serious point that I made with that minor reference.
My reference to that pop culture saga was to make the point that a powerful force can be defeated if one understands the route to the core of its power.
In the case of the force that has taken over the Republican Party, the “blueprint” showing the way into the core of power reveals this: In a democratic society like ours, based on “the consent of the governed,” the only way a force like this can gain power is to deceive a substantial number of people about its true nature and about what it is actually doing.
And thus the way to take away that power is to help people to become undeceived, to see that force for what it is.
Here we have a major political party that is consistently serving a tiny number of people –the dominant element in our society– at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the citizenry.
No wonder it depends upon lies to do its work. No one would want to give this kind of force power to shape our society’s destiny if they saw it clearly.
I very much doubt that the people participating here are actually being well served by the political force to which they give their support.
The Star Wars analogy may have been a mistake for me to use, since it opens the door to fun and games of the “does that make Darth Cheney your father?” sort. But I used it as a way to show that much can be accomplished with the right strategy– in this case the strategy of showing people the truth in order to displace the lies.
The question is whether those who have been deceived can open their eyes to see what is right in front of them.
Anyone interested in how I see the Star Wars analogy actually illuminating anything –as opposed to just scoring cheap points in the mockery game– can take a look at the brief essay I posted here:
http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=10166
“I paid nothing to the International Biographical Centre…”
Well, someone did, “doctor.” See these links:
http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/consumerprotection/scamnet/Scams/Melrose_Press_Ltd_tr.html
http://snailstales.blogspot.com/2005/08/open-letter-to-wise-guys-at.html
http://discoverybiographicalafrica.com/about.html
And, speaking of “doctor,” your bio claims that you have a Ph.D from UC, Berkeley. However, you appear on the alumni roles of the Pacific School of Religion, part of the Graduate Theological Union which offers access to UC, Berkeley libraries and limited class and lecture participation there. Tell us, what is the title of your doctoral dissertation and where is it filed?
Where are all those wonderful Democratic truth-tellers? All passive-aggressives, are they?
My friends, this guy wants a responsible Republican Party. He’d be a Republican if he could, like Obama – they’re Republicans masquerading as Democrats. You should really think about giving him your vote.
Professors … they’re like termites that have worked into the wordwork of our academic society …
The Ph. D. was granted jointly by the Graduate Theological Union and the University of California at Berkeley. The program was created to accommodate my writing of my original theory to explain why civilization has developed as it has. That work was so interdisciplinary that it would not have been possible to write it as a doctorate in any single academic discipline. (I had discovered such bureaucratic/academic rigidities as a graduate student at Yale in American Studies.) For my Ph. D. oral comprehensive examinations, my committee–from UC Berkeley, Stanford University, GTU, and a nearby think tank– were free to examine me in any of the approximately one dozen disciplines I was seeking to integrate into that work. I passed those exams “with distinction.”
Upon completion of my dissertation –which was 1600 pages in length– my committee arranged for me to present, in lieu of an oral defense of the dissertation, a public lecture in Berkeley, which I did in May, 1977.
That work became available in printed form through something at the University of Michigan.
More important, in 1980 I was given a grant by the Ford Foundation to transform that 1600-page dissertation into a book suitable for publication. In 1984, that re-cast manuscript was published by the University of California Press under the title, THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES: THE PROBLEM OF POWER IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION.
In 1985, for this book, I was awarded the Erik H. Erikson Prize by the International Society for Political Psychology.
THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES remains in print– in a second edition, published by SUNY Press in 1995. In an earlier comment on this thread, I provided a link to the place on Amazon where readers comment on that book.
Uh-huh. They had to create an entire program of study to accommodate your unique genius, UC, Berkeley made a special exception to not only allow more than one outside reader on your dissertation committee but also felt that it was necessary to award a doctorate jointly with a diploma mill, your dissertation was too good to be filed and had to be published as a book instead, and you can raise X-fighters out of the muck by closing your eyes and wiggling your finger.
At least one of the tribes of apocalypts are not receptive to your message, Dr. Schmookler.
The Democratic “middle-class” tribe has been too stupefied to foresee the outcome of the most recent economic contest. But weren’t you on the side of economic warfare during that contest? Or did you just not notice it going on?
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