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JOHNSON: Despite the mudslinging, candidate still loves party

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 16, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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I figured her for a complete mess by now.

Even the day after she lost by a wide margin her race for the state legislature, supporters of her opponent were still blogging, calling her an "Islamist mole," a "Palestinian cockroach," and worse.

I have known Rima Sinclair for several years now, first through my work - she is a professional legal interpreter - and later simply as a friend.

It was often infuriating to read what was written of her during the Republican race for the House District 6 seat, newly vacated by the term-limited Speaker Andrew Romanoff.

Violating a personal rule against writing about any challenger for elected office, I wrote several months ago of Rima Sinclair and the hateful vitriol being heaped upon her. Some of it soon began heading my way.

She entered the restaurant shortly after noon Friday, a broad smile on her face. I wanted to ask her about her election wipe-out, about what she had learned.

"Oh, my," she said, still smiling. "As somebody once told me, in politics truth is irrelevant. It is all perception. That is a political lesson I really learned."

I did not bother to remind her of what I told her last March, when she told everyone at the Press Club she was running for the seat.

I didn't at the time even know her political affiliation. Republican? I remember repeating. You know, that is a heavily Democratic district, I said.

And I hadn't the heart to state the obvious: That she was Palestinian-American and Muslim, not exactly your typical Republican poster-child material.

"Not like this, no." Rima Sinclair, 48, later said, no longer smiling, when I asked if she ever anticipated the anti-Muslim, terrorist-in-Republican-garb nastiness that ultimately descended upon her. "At worst, I thought maybe the Democrats might do something . . ."

Instead, almost all of it came out of the camp and from supporters of the eventual Republican victor, blogger and Web developer Joshua Sharf, who had to petition his way onto the ballot after suffering a fit of pique that Rima Sinclair was there at all.

He was the first, in a blog post, to label her a "terror sympathizer." His supporters took it from there.

"What hurt the most?" Rima Sinclair repeated, as she picked at her lunch. "That my intentions were simply to serve my country and the party I've belonged to since the day I became a citizen, and that the leadership remained silent . . ."

She keeps all of it, the e-mail and letters she received during the campaign. Vicious attacks, each of them are, on her ethnic background and her faith.

"I knew there were bigots out there, but I did not realize that the decent and moderate members of my party would not speak out on my behalf."

The most frequent line of attack against her was the use of her maiden name: Barakat.

In all of the years I have known her, I never knew the woman's family name. In the race, not once did her opponent or his supporters mention her without it.

"It was to say that I'm running as Rima Sinclair only to hide my ethnicity, that I am doing a subtle jihad in America, trying to infiltrate the government," she said.

Yes, there were very dark days, she said. Her reputation was being shattered, she fretted, and anyone now could Google her name and believe she was out to destroy Western civilization.

Drop out of the race, more than one e-mail advised her, "or suffer possible scandal."

"There were days when I just stayed home, thinking about the threats," Rima Sinclair said. "It got so bad that people began advising me to get a concealed weapons permit, and lined up an instructor for me."

Did she?

"I have never even touched a gun," she said, laughing. "I talked to the police."

Remarkably, she insists she has no regrets about her first foray into politics, that she respects the will of voters.

"Maybe I just didn't do a hard enough job at campaigning," she said. "I can tell you, though, that mudslinging works."

She wanted to make clear that what happened was not the work of the entire Republican Party, only extremists within it. "In many ways, it is nothing more than a challenge to bring my party back to the center. I feel, I know, the vast majority of Republicans feel the same."

This led to two obvious questions.

"It crossed my mind," she said of any thought of abandoning the party. 'It shook my belief in the party, but I realized it is bigger than just a few extremists. I was not the first to be smeared."

Despite everything that happened, I asked, would she now work to get Joshua Sharf elected - if by some strange formulation he would even ask or want her to?

For the first time in a long time, she smiled again.

"If he apologized for everything, yes," she said.

"You see, I still love my party," Rima Sinclair said. "I love it for all the good, common-sense things it stands for, the reasons I joined it in the first place."

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2763.

Comments

  • August 16, 2008

    11:27 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    fatheromalley writes:

    Let's discuss "race and bigotry" again..hmmm what to do?

    We interned the Japanese.. oh bad America..
    A people that just underwent a vicious attack by one country, Japan. Who to trust in your struggle for survival?

    In a P.C. war the analysis of this would be obvious. Trust them completely.. let them "help" in the war effort, let them "swim" with the fishes and be among us, completely trusted.

    Man is an animal. He comes onto this earth unarmed but for his brain. His brain is for surviving.

    You are given a choice, do you trust a Muslim at face value with no record of them protesting the atrocities of Jihad?

    In a time of survival you may sit back in an Ivory tower and discuss bigotry in politics and how people "fall prey" to it.

    The uselessness of this argument is evident when facing survival.
    Many people take 9/11 more seriously than you. Journalism evidently dictates a different approach than surviving.

    We will know you by your "limp" Bill..

    You ask why the Republican Party did not come to her aid?
    Why?

    Was she known for writing editorials for any of our local rags speaking out against Jihad?

    Did she organize other Muslims to exert political pressure to hunt down these "pretenders" of their faith and prosecute them?

    Many Americans inside still say to themselves, "Earn it, trust is not given".

    If they carried that attitude more in their political philosophy bigotry needn't be endlessly "discussed and exposed" in the media. The Rocky would experience a sharper increase in advertising.

    What one labels as "bigotry" another is surviving the best way they know how.

    Who then is the "blame"? An "entitled" Muslim?

    Try www.fatheromalley.com for some very interesting videos and answers.. What?! "The Audacity of Offering Answers", whom, sounds like a good book title.. let's see, "My father was a meter reader for the local utility Potomac Electric Power Company. He was a typical white man. He belonged to the Republcan Party.. you know typically white..

    Yes. Let's again discuss race, bigotry in America..
    Love to you Bill,

  • August 17, 2008

    5:03 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    raoul writes:

    uh father

    your persuasive response to bill likely falls on deaf ears. bill and his supporters only respect well-reasoned analysis when it supports their illogical and emotion-driven agendas.