As a politician who has gone from Republican to Independent toReform Party to Democrat, congressional candidate and perpetualoffice-seeker Shawn O’Hara may have an identity crisis.

But he doesn’t mind telling anyone the blunt truth about what hebelieves, no matter who he is in a given election year. There wouldhave been no Iraq War had O’Hara been president in 2003, butapparently Saddam Hussein would have still been toast.

“I advocate political assassination,” O’Hara said Wednesday duringa campaign stop in Brookhaven. “Look at all the billions of dollarswe’re wasting in Iraq when we didn’t even have the authority to bethere.”

O’Hara, a Hattiesburg politician who has run for almost everyavailable office in the state in recent years, will appear as oneof only three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for theThird Congressional District on primary ballots for the June 1election. He is running against Pickens’ Joel Gill, who tried forthe office in 2008, and Brandon’s James D. Jackson.

The winner of the Democratic primary will go on to face RepublicanRep. Gregg Harper, America First Party candidate Doyle Trent andReform Party candidate Tracella Lou O’Hara – Shawn O’Hara’s sister- in the Nov. 2 general election.

Mississippi political talkers expect Harper to cruise to victoryand a second term in November.

Regardless of Harper’s momentum, O’Hara is giving it a go, andhe’ll probably do so again in 2012 if not sooner. Despite theassociation of federal-level Democrats to leftist policies, theplatform O’Hara is running on this year is mostly conservative andlooks like a page right out of the Republican playbook.

O’Hara claims his top five priorities as lowering gasoline pricesand building more refineries while increasing the use ofalternative fuels, cutting foreign aid, reducing the trade deficitwith China, reigning in unregistered sex offenders and reducing thesize of the U.S. government.