I often kvetch about activists, and how ordinary people stay the hell away from them. I can't stand them either, but there is one stubborn problem with activists.

Just because you stay away from them does not mean they will stay away from you!

Activists are quite happy to have the playing field all to themselves, and the more ordinary people stay away, the better. Ignoring them can actually help ensure that they get their way, and then they get to rule. So, it is a big mistake to think that if you just leave them alone, they will leave you alone.

An editorial in the Sunday Detroit Free Press reminded me that most ordinary people in Michigan have no idea who is running for Secretary of State. A pity, really, as the Secretary of State is entrusted with the election machinery.

Even fewer have heard of something called the "Secretary of State Project." Nor would they want to, and I can't blame them. Who the hell would want to read about something as tedious-sounding as that? The Project run by and for left wing activists and it was started by George Soros. The goal (which typifies the Soros machine) is to put as many Secretaries of State as possible in the hands of solid left-wing activists.

History's most notorious Georgian-turned-Russian, the politically astute Joseph Stalin once remarked, "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

The lesson has not been lost on the increasingly notorious Hungarian-cum-American George Soros.

A group backed by Soros is gearing up to steal the 2012 election for President Obama and congressional Democrats by installing left-wing Democrats as secretaries of state across the nation. From such posts, secretaries of state can help tilt the electoral playing field.

This is, of course, the same Soros, the same hyperpolitical left-wing philanthropist who makes no secret of his intention to destroy capitalism. In an interview with Der Spiegel last year, Soros said European-style socialism "is exactly what we need now. I am against market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that government involvement is always bad has been very successful -- but also very harmful to our society."

The vehicle for this planned hijacking of democracy is a below-the-radar non-federal "527" group called the Secretary of State Project. The entity can accept unlimited financial contributions and doesn't have to disclose them publicly until well after the election.

Anyone who doubts in the least that the Soros Secretary of State project is throwing its considerable weight behind her need only go to the Project's web site. You will see activist Jocelyn Benson's picture at the top of the home page, with her name listed first in the donations box:

They are actively campaigning for her. To not see that, you would have to be wearing blinders.

Of you might be the Detroit Free Press, which proclaimed in Sunday's editorial that the allegation of Benson's support from Soros is "not supported by the evidence."

Since winning her party's nod, [Ruth Johnson] has repeatedly insinuated that her opponent is sponsored by billionaire activist George Soros, an allegation not supported by the evidence.

The word "insinuate" has a sinister ring to it, implying dishonesty.

As a Ruth Johnson supporter, I am quite familiar with what she has said about the Secretary of State Project. Far from insinuating anything, Johnson has raised very troubling questions which Benson has not answered:

LANSING, MICHIGAN - The Ruth Johnson campaign today called on her opponent, Jocelyn Benson, to fully disclose the relationship between her campaign and liberal out-of-state activists, like George Soros and his Secretary of State Project. These entities are funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into some states in an attempt to buy changes in election laws for partisan purposes that will result in voter fraud, undermining the integrity of our elections.

George Soros's Secretary of State Project has contributed thousands of dollars to Benson's campaign, and Benson has also accepted over $130,000 in out-of-state contributions to her campaign, including the Secretary of State Project. These groups require the candidates they fund to support changes to Michigan law, such as implementing same-day registration and eliminating photo identification. It has been shown in other states that same-day registration allows illegal aliens and criminals to vote in an attempt to influence an election result.

In particular, the Soros-backed Secretary of State Project demands that those it endorses "Specifically affirm that you support the following principals...photo ID laws must be opposed...Election Day Registration should be endorsed and actively supported."

"Voters are questioning the influence George Soros and liberal interest groups are having on Benson's campaign. These groups are attempting to literally buy the Secretary of State's office to implement procedures that open the election process to possible fraud, just to benefit partisan political goals," said Denise DeCook, spokesperson for the Johnson campaign.

Benson is a hard core left-wing activist posing as non-partisan. Even the Soros Project tries to represent itself that way. In terms of sheer audacity, it's amazing, and I think they're relying on the fact that non-activist voters don't have time to check these things.

Not that the Free Press doesn't know about the Soros connection; they just uncritically accept the way Benson reframes it:

In addition to her work for the DNC, Democratic campaigns and the Poverty Law Center, Benson's campaign is backed by a national network of progressive groups, including the Secretary of State Project (which is partially funded by liberal billionaire George Soros) and Democracy for America, former DNC Chairman Howard Dean's political action committee. Benson said she has never met Soros and hasn't sought national help for her campaign.

Another frequent target by the GOP candidates was George Soros, the billionaire investor who often backs liberal causes. Three of the four candidates referred to the Secretary of State Project, a non-profit group that is helping raise funds for liberal candidates for that office in various states, including Michigan. That project, which has received a grant from the Soros-backed Democracy Alliance, has endorsed Jocelyn Benson, a Wayne State University law professor and candidate for the Democratic nomination for secretary of state.

"Most of Benson's contributions," Sen. Cameron Brown told the audience, "come from out of state and from George Soros."

In an interview with the Michigan Messenger, Benson denied that.

"More than half of our contributions have come from inside the state of Michigan," noted Benson. "People in 50 of 83 counties in Michigan have donated money to our campaign -- 1,200 individuals in all, which is more than any of my Republican opponents."

As for the alleged ties to Soros, Benson said, "I've never met George Soros and I doubt he knows who I am. The Secretary of State project is a national PAC that has talked about our campaign, but he has never given me any money and I've never met him. I'm running because I've spent a career working to protect voting rights. No one handpicked me to run. The only people who I hope pick me to run are the voters."

Syracuse, NY - Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, the popular Syracuse eatery, may have been founded by bikers. But now, it has a big corporate backer.

Soros Strategic Partners LP, a private investment company launched by one of the world's wealthiest people, billionaire financier George Soros, owns 70 percent of the business, Dinosaur co-founder John Stage said today.

Of course not:

Stage declined to say how much Soros Strategic Partners paid for the shares. As for George Soros, "I've never met the man," Stage said.

Hell, Howard Hughes controlled a vast empire and very, very few people who worked for him (much less people whose companies he controlled) ever met him. As a matter of fact, his chief aide and surrogate Robert Maheu -- described in a NY Times obituary as the guy "who engineered the deals for the Hughes business empire that helped change the face of Las Vegas"... "never once met his boss in the decade and a half he worked for him."

The issue is not whether Benson has met Soros, but whether her campaign has substantially benefited from his money. It has, and it does.

I can't believe that the Free Press is allowing Benson to take the initiative and frame the issue that way.

And if she thinks Michiganders will fall for it, she must believe they're total rubes.

BTW, Benson's husband, Ryan Friedrichs, is a prominent left-wing "youth vote" expert, and has been described as being on the board of Progress Now and as heading an organization called State Voices. Progress Now is listed among the many organizations funded by Soros.

As to State Voices, the links connecting Ryan Friedrichs to that organization's leadership have largely disappeared. Does he no longer head State Voices? Who knows? What irritates me is that his former biographies seem to be disappearing from the Google cache. For example, last month a Rockwood Leadership Institute biography that was scrubbed from the site said this:

Ryan Friedrichs | Executive Director, State Voices
Ryan has worked to build diverse collaborations that empower historically underrepresented communities for the past thirteen years. Ryan is currently the Executive Director of State Voices, a national organization that links 550 state and community organizations through sixteen state networks, founded in 2004 as by the current Secretary of State of Minnesota, Mark Ritchie.

Ryan is a Michigan native and a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He began his social change work with the United Farm Workers, and has served as a director of the Youth Vote Coalition, Young Voter Alliance, Michigan Voice, and conducted and co-published the first randomized field study of cost effective partisan young voter engagement in 2002. He has worked as a teaching/research assistant or consultant with Skyline Public Works, HillPac, Atlas Project, Senator Al Franken, and Professor Marshall Ganz. Ryan lives and works in Detroit.

Or is it the connection to Ritchie? Why would these folks not want people to know that State Voices was founded by Mark Ritchie, the greatest Secretary of State the left owns, and the man who gave us the great Senator Al Franken? (And naturally, State Voices has been listed among the many organizations funded by Soros.)

And why does the "Center for Civic Participation" no longer want people to know this?

Ryan attended Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His master's thesis was a study for Michigan Democratic Party of cost effective young voter mobilization in Michigan's 2002 election.

At the Kennedy School Ryan also served as a research assistant to Al Franken and David King, and as a teaching assistant to Marshall Ganz.Ryan attended Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. His master's thesis was a study for Michigan Democratic Party of cost effective young voter mobilization in Michigan's 2002 election.

At the Kennedy School Ryan also served as a research assistant to Al Franken and David King, and as a teaching assistant to Marshall Ganz.

In terms of leftist achievements, such an accomplishment is impressive. I also find it very impressive that he managed to get academic credit -- his Harvard graduate degree, in fact -- by doing Michigan political campaign work. But alas! These days, his masters thesis seems of more interest to right wing bloggers than to the very people who benefited from his political work. Which isn't fair, if you think about it, because he spent a lot of time studying whether door hangers were more effective than personal contacts, and stuff like that, and his academic observations are interesting.

From his paper:

Mobilizing the Party Faithful: Results from a Statewide Turnout Experiment in Michigan

Recent large-scale field experiments of get out the vote (GOTV) drives have been non-partisan and may not accurately capture the effectiveness of partisan campaign outreach. In the 2002 Michigan gubernatorial election, a large field experiment across 14 state house districts evaluated the cost effectiveness of three mobilization technologies utilized by the Michigan Democratic Party's Youth Coordinated Campaign: door hangers, volunteer phone calls, and face-to-face visits. The results indicate that all three GOTV strategies possess similar cost-effectiveness.

The study is also quoted here, and the Democratic Party is thanked for funding it:

David W. Nickerson is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University. Ryan D. Friedrichs worked on these experiments as Masters in Public Policy Student at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. David C. King is Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. We thank the Michigan Democratic Party funding the experiments reported here. We gratefully acknowledge assistance from Don Green, Tom Patterson, Amanda Stitt and the many volunteers who were made available through Michigan's Youth Coordinated Campaign.

Just think. Maybe I could get academic credit from Harvard if I conduct "experiments" which benefit the Tea Party movement!

Why not? After all, the very partisan nature of the work is what makes it so academically valuable. No seriously:

The results presented in this paper are the first to use large-scale field experiments to study partisan voter mobilization. Despite the many virtues of the non-partisan experiments conducted by Gerber and Green, the results could not speak to the response from voters to partisan appeals. This paper addresses that gap and suggests that partisan face-to-face and phone voter mobilization drives do not behave differently from non-partisan efforts. The results from partisan campaigns are statistically indistinguishable from past non-partisan studies. Thus, it appears that the lessons learned from non-partisan studies can be applied to partisan settings.

The one major point of departure is that door hangers are found to be an effective means of boosting turnout. A boost in turnout of 1.3 percentage point is not enough to swing most elections, but could be a deciding factor in very close elections. At a cost of $29 a vote, door hangers are competitive with more personal tactics and can quickly blanket entire neighborhoods. Thus, we believe door hangers are useful arrows in a campaign's quiver.

Perhaps all Tea Party volunteers should be given academic credit at Harvard!

Of course, regardless of whether or not any of this runs afoul of the campaign finance laws, some Michigan voters (and perhaps even some of the more humorless political junkies) might consider the practice of earning a Masters at Harvard for Democrat-funded partisan campaigning to be a bit dishonest. But what do I know? I'd just like to share in some of that academic credit! Perhaps even for writing this blog post. Isn't it high time to make the case for a redistributionist view of peer review? (Seeing as the higher education bubble is due to burst, I'd better try to get my piece of the turf now....)

The Johnson campaign is asking about Friedrichs too:

The Johnson campaign released information that Ryan Friedrichs is the executive director of State Voices, a board member of Progress Michigan and a board member of Progress NOW Nationally. State Voices is a 501(c)(3) entity that educates voters on grassroots activism and voter engagement. Progress Michigan is also a 501(c)(3) organization that, according, to its mission statement, promotes "progressive ideas" in "a campaign that never stops", including a press release last week that reported on protesters of Johnson at the SOS statewide debate and carried significant portions of Jocelyn Benson's message.

"Jocelyn Benson needs to disclose what role she and her husband have in various political and issue related corporate entities which are involved in voter education and/or advocacy. Benson refuses to disclose what compensation she or her husband received from these entities and what level of involvement these organizations have in the SOS campaign. Voters need to know what influence these organizations have with the Benson campaign," said Ruth Johnson.

And while the same thing can't be be said for Al Franken, I'm just jealous that Friedrichs, his wife Jocelyn Benson, and Franken all have degrees from Harvard.

As to Benson's opponent, Ruth Johnson could barely afford a community college degree:

When she was 13, her father died. She and her siblings worked to help pay the bills. Johnson took a paper route.

She held a variety of jobs and traveled by motorcycle. When she finally got a car, she changed the oil. When her muffler broke, she fixed it.

Accepted to Michigan State but not able to afford it, Johnson instead went to Oakland Community College and then Oakland University.

"She never came to me and said, 'Mom, can I have some extra money because I want to go to college?'" said her mother, Virginia "Ginny" Johnson, 83. "She knew things were not easily done."

At 24, Johnson married Nanney, and they dabbled in flipping houses, and started and sold a print shop. She also taught school.

The whole thing reeks of class entitlement and class warfare -- something the Ivy-league egalitarians claim to be against, but which they are actually for.

Let me put it as simply as I can. I don't want Harvard leftists who seek to legally redefine voter fraud running the Secretary of State's office.

Don't worry. I am not going to bore readers with a long dissection of that atrocious excuse for legal scholarship (especially because Harvard won't give me academic credit for my dissection...)

But I can't think of a better reason to vote for Ruth Johnson.

A FINAL THOUGHT: This may sound like Tea Party extremism on my part, but I'll say it anyway.

A vote for Ruth Johnson is a vote against the Ruling Class.

(I say that as someone who is against class war, and opposed to classes.)

MORE: I realize this post is already too long, but speaking of the Tea Party movement, it's probably worth adding that the Freep editorial also condemns (suprise!) Ruth Johnson for courting Tea Party support:

...Johnson's road to her party's secretary of state nomination contrasts sharply with Benson's methodical approach.

Johnson ardently courted Tea Party support in a five-way GOP contest...

I don't go for Benson's, um, methodology.

UPDATE: Soros Donates $1 Million to Media Matters.

Does that mean they never met Soros too?