Quick, Someone Get Me A Pulitzer!

We wrote in Staunch Republicans for Ted Kennedy about a news report in the Chicago Sun-Times by columnist Jennifer Hunter which was headlined, “GOP Lawyer Sold On Dems.” The article described a lunch held by a plaintiffs’ lawyers convention in Chicago, at which the five leading Democratic Presidential candidates appeared. The article led with quotes from “staunch Republican” Jim Ronca, who, despite his staunchness, was so deeply impressed with the Democratic candidates, and so annoyed with his own party, that he intends to support a Democrat for President next year. Even more newsworthy was Ronca’s assurance to Hunter that, “I’m not only going to vote Democratic, I’m going to financially support the Democrats.”
The defection of this “staunch Republican” was so significant in Hunter’s eyes that she devoted the first four paragraphs of her column to it. Only one problem, though: it turned out that Ronca wasn’t so staunch after all. In fact, as we said in our original post, he is a member of one of the world’s smallest clubs: Staunch Republicans for Ted Kennedy. Far from being a supporter of Republican candidates, the large majority of Ronca’s contributions over the years have gone to Democrats, including Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Bob Casey.
Ms. Hunter had obviously been had, and we thought the Sun-Times might run a correction. Instead, Hunter followed up with a column in which she complained about the fact that Republicans had sent her emails pointing our her error. We wrote about that column here.
Now Hunter has weighed in, hilariously, with another column on the subject, in which she quotes in full a letter she received from Jim Ronca. Ronca assures Ms. Hunter that he is indeed a registered Republican. He doesn’t try to validate his staunchness, however; he fails to deny that he has been contributing to Democratic campaigns since at least 1994, that his Democratic contributions far outnumber his Republican contributions, or that he has given money to the campaigns of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Bob Casey, among others. Q.E.D.
Ronca’s comments about the Republican Party also seem to call into question his staunchness as a supporter of the party of Lincoln. A sampling:

Even though I am a long-term Republican I am not a fool. Naturally I opposed candidates like George W. Bush and Rick Santorum who have vilified plaintiffs trial lawyers.
Further I could never support Bush and would support his opponents because of the violence he has done to the law itself, especially with that embarrassment of an attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.
This campaign against you and me is ridiculous and I think evidence of how the Republican Party works. They make an effort to pressure journalists to print what they want and avoid what the Republican Party does not like. No free thinking or free press is allowed. They smear everyone who opposes them from big fish like Joe Wilson to small fries like me.
Maybe we can get you some information so you can write a Pulitzer Prize-winning article on the Republican conservative party sneak attacks on free press and free speech.

Somehow, these just don’t sound like the words of a staunch Republican. Maybe a former Republican. Maybe a long-time Democrat who hasn’t gotten around to changing his registration and finds it politic as a trial lawyer to leaven his support for Democrats with an occasional contribution to a Republican. But a “staunch Republican”? Definitely not.
What is most hilarious about Hunter’s column is the conclusion of Ronca’s letter. He wants her to win a Pulitzer prize by “investigating” us!

I am going to have some investigation done into the source and funding [sic] for this blog and I will give it to you. Maybe we can get you some information so you can write a Pulitzer Prize-winning article on the Republican conservative party sneak attacks on free press and free speech.

This “investigation” and consequent prize-winning article are, of course, very different from the Republican Party’s effort to “smear everyone who opposes them.” Of course they are different: they’re done on behalf of Jennifer Hunter’s and Jim Ronca’s Democratic Party.
Still, I can’t wait for the investigation to begin. If Ronca and Hunter can uncover any “sources [of] funding” for this site, I’m going to put in for my third!
Oh, one more thing. How can it be that the Chicago Sun-Times keeps giving Hunter space to try to make up for her blunder in believing that Ronca was a staunch Republican, and that his conversion to the Democrats was of deep political significance? I think it’s because she is married to the publisher of the newspaper.
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