Just when you thought those wily Democrats had pulled off every last dirty trick, demagogued or impugned every single opposition group, and lied every damnable lie, up pop the Massachusetts Undercover Democrats to lower the bar further still. With some spiffy reporting from Michael Graham, the Boston Herald unmasks a pair of incumbent Democrat candidates for state office who have been sending out campaign material suggesting that they are fresh faces from a party to be named later.

Using mailers provided by SEIU (who else?), Karen Spilka and Geraldo Alicea, both incumbents, suggest that they are new office seekers. No word yet on how many other Massachusetts Democrats are employing the same misleading tactics. Spilka's mailer, for instance, states that

As our next state senator, Karen Spilka will protect and create good jobs, etc. etc.

Is it possible to be both the current senator and the next senator? Apparently incumbent Democrat Senator Spilka thinks so. When asked about this clearly deceptive campaign practice, Spilka's designated spinner demurred:

We're running as if we're running for the first time...We don't want to coast in on incumbency. We want to get out there and show people Karen's record.

I suppose something could be further from the truth. I just can't think of what that might be right now. The last thing any Democrat, especially the incumbent ones, want is for the voting public to be aware of their party affiliation and voting records.

It's unlikely that the thugs at SEIU created this subterfuge in a vacuum. Please examine the campaign literature of a Democrat near you for similar tactics. The considerably smaller pool of incumbent Democrats in the 2012 elections will make our monitoring much easier next time around.

Ralph Alter is a frequent contributor to American Thinker.