Ben Frasier: Vote for Me or 'Vote for the Other Party'

He’s run for office in almost every election cycle since 1972, and always on a platform that clashes so much with the Democratic Party that he’s developed a reputation of “Republican plant.”

And at a campaign address he made last night, I heard psuedo-Democrat Ben Frasier confirm that reputation with a verbal faux pas.

Speaking to 45 who attended the Summerville NAACP meeting at County Council Chambers, this 1^st District primary candidate asked attendees to “be sure to vote."

“If you don’t vote for me, then vote for the other party.”

Many attendees, some of whom are officers of the Dorchester County Democratic Party, shook their heads in disbelief.

When I questioned him immediately after the meeting, Frasier first denied making the comment.

“I said ‘vote for the other Democrat,’” he insisted.

When four other attendees then directly confirmed to Frasier they heard him say “vote for the other party,” his story slightly changed.

“I didn’t mean ‘other political party,’” he told me; “I meant that as ‘vote for Busch.’” (Frasier’s opponent in the March 19 Democratic primary is Elizabeth Colbert Busch.)

I’m not buying his last-minute defense, though.

Over the last 31 years, Frasier has run for U.S. Congress 19 times, consistenly using platforms that are the antithesis of Democratic principles: anti-labor, against a national healthcare plan, in favor of offshore drilling, and even calling for lower taxes on wealth.

In the process, he’s developed a reputation of being recruited by the Republican Party to interfere with black voters. After African-American Frasier loses a Democratic primary race, the premise infers, black voters will be less likely to participate in the General Election, and could even wind up feeling alienated from the Democratic Party.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, the state’s one African-American congressional representative (and who Frasier challenged twice, incidentally), has supported this same “Republican plant” theory, as he told national media after Frasier’s surprise primary win in 2010.

That same year Frasier told me personally that the GOP asked him to run (but on their ticket, he said).

When his first-time primary win in 2010 put him in the company of Alvin Greene (another mystery primary winner), active Democrats in the district were shocked.

After all, Frasier’s platform that year appeared identical to Republican candidate Tim Scott’s – anti-labor, against the Affordable Care Act, and in favor of the “Fair Tax” concept of that time (which would only have benefited persons who make over $240,000).

While he still denies his campaigns are organized to damage those of other Democratic candidates (“I’m not a plant,” he recently told Post & Courier’s Robert Behre), Frasier has openly admitted his stances are not in alignment with the Democratic Party.

In fact, “I think I’d be more welcome in the Republican Party,” he told the Horry Independent during his 2006 campaign.

And that’s one thing on which he and I (and many other voters I know) can completely agree. He’s no Democrat. We can’t let voters of any political persuasion fall for this ploy any longer.

To quote a Republican friend of mine, “we’ve ‘Ben’ there, done that” too many times, Ben Frasier. We’re not doing it again.