Stealth Candidate

Quick Takes

Matt Fong: Traditional Values Candidate?

Lou Sheldon's Stealth Moderate In Washington

So I was, like, walkin' downtown with these guys, OK? and this one dude, he goes, "Hey man you know that Matt Fong dude? I know sumpin' on him."

And I'm, like, "Yeah man, I been watchin' him, but he ain't sayin' anything you know where he's at, or nothin'. He one of them Moderates, know what I mean?"

And can you believe it, he actually goes to me, "No, man, he ain't. He's one of them Christian Coalition type dudes, I seen it in the paper."

And I go, "No man, you don't read no papers, you been rollin' and smokin' them papers you know what I mean?"

And he's, like "No man I seen it! He's one of them, man, I seen it in the San freakin' Francisco Examiner, too. It was, like, all over the place. I swear to you dude!"

And I'm like freaked, and he's going "Ha ha ha ha ha ..."

The above conversion is fictitious, but the subject and the news source are not.

"Reverend Lou and Matt have been friends for a long time," Examiner staff writer Lance Williams quotes Fong campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt as saying. "You know, Rev. Lou fights in the political process for his beliefs."

The Fong spokesman continues: " ... He fights on the merits of his ideas ... And those ideas, whether you agree or disagree with them, are an important part of the political process."

Uh huh, yes, they certainly are. In the middle of the investigations and hearings on the murder of Matt Shepard, 21-year old gay college student who was beaten to death in Laramie, and on the sniper death of Dr. Barnett Slepian, 51-year old target of anti-abortionists since the '80's, Lou Sheldon's views on gays and abortion are pivotally influential.

Sheldon has long been on record as equating abortion of any kind as murder. Sheldon also has long been on record as saying that under a Kingdom of God, gays would be executed.

Currently chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, Sheldon helps lead a tightly knit, well-organized and well-financed effort to take over political majorities on the local, state and federal level.

Under the Kingdom of God, separation of church and state would be just so much crap, and anybody with any inside audience with God already knows that.

California voters have still been struggling to determine the political identity of Fong, a self-styled moderate Republican running against well-known liberal Barbara Boxer for United States Senate.

Some people have been bothered that we apparently didn't know very many concretes about Matt Fong. As an Asian-American, would he be likely to be at least sympathetic to the struggles of minorities, gays, women? We just didn't know. There didn't seem to be any platform or track record.

It turns out, a person's identity means a lot to Matt. Orientation is everything. Least of all did we expect to hear from Fong campaign headquarters that he and "Rev. Lou" go back a long, long way as friends.

The Examiner expose was nominally the disclosure of a $50,000 campaign contribution from Fong campaign funds to the Traditional Values Coalition. This was the biggest contribution Fong has ever made. The biggest surprise to many, though, would not be the amount of money involved, nor even the recipient. Modest donations to political entities with which one may not agree is a very traditional way of buying allegiance. Fong and Sheldon have been buddy-buddy for a long time.

The Examiner article quotes Lou Sheldon writing in defense of Fong, who was criticized for having been endorsed by Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group which still believes in working within the party.

"Matt Fong is a devoted Christian who has been a strong proponent to Christian causes", wrote Sheldon in a letter to "Friends of Traditional Values."

Friends, indeed. If even half of the facts researched in the Examiner article are true, Fong is no moderate, and has been deceitful about his true colors as a religious right candidate for U.S. Senate. Fong is a Stealth Candidate.

So I'm like, "Well no s---, man, then, wow, if he gets elected he gonna kick ass and take names. He's like, you know, you don't get to be Lou Sheldon's man by being no wimp. Scary, dude!"

And he goes, "Yeah, I know. You just can't tell anything about them politicians any more, they'll do anything!"

And then he goes like, "Wow, you know what that means ..."

And I'm going "You gonna go out and roll another one before Big Time trouble hits, huh?"

And he's going like "No, stupid, it means we gotta go out and VOTE, dude!"

Source: San Francisco Examiner, Saturday, October 24, 1998

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