On PAW and their filibuster ad

Posting about Claude Allen's trial in the US Senate reminded me that I've been meaning to investigate the new filibuster ad from the People for the "American Way". The ad includes a testimonial from self-described Republican Ted Nonini.

It turns out that Captain Ed already did the hard work and has a post over at Captain's Quarters.

Ted Nonini, as it turns out, works as a Los Angeles firefighter --obviously a brave man -- but as a politician, he doesn't have much of a track record. A Googlesearch on Fireman Ted turns up 25 hits, most of which come from PFAW itself. Only one other link hints at anything political, a story from January 2004 where he defends
a pay increase for LA firefighters despite a budget deficit in LA. That article lists Ted as a director of UFLAC, the firefighters' union in LA; in fact, Ted sits on the executive board as treasurer.

And here's where the Republican designation makes a little less "common" sense. UFLAC is the local International Association of Fire Fighters union, and the IAFF endorseda political candidate in last year's presidential election. Want to guess who that was?

In fact, the IAFF endorsed John Kerry, and only after supposedly polling their membership across the country. Only they didn't
actually do that, according to Jack Dunphy at NRO, who wrote last summer about the controversy.

I also can't do any better than Captain's conclusion.

I suspect that Neas found the nearest thing to a Republican he could find to stand up in front of the cameras and mouth a script from Norman Lear. Unfortunately for PFAW and Ralph Neas, the best they can do is to get Ted Nonentity to front for their pathetic ad campaign. If nothing else, we can all get a laugh out of this absurdly earnest and richly ironic meltdown of PFAW's credibility.