http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/you_cant_make_up_republican_candidates_like_these_20100812/You Can’t Make Up Republican Candidates Like These
Posted on Aug 12, 2010
By Eugene Robinson
The Republican Party’s candidate for governor of Colorado believes that bicycle paths are “part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty.” The party’s Senate candidate in Nevada wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security—and has called for the United States to withdraw from the U.N., though not because of the bicycle conspiracy. And the GOP’s Senate candidate in Connecticut once climbed into a professional wrestling ring and kicked a man in the crotch.
I could go on, but you get the point. Democrats may be facing a tough fight this fall, but Republicans are giving them plenty of material to work with.
The big political story of the year may turn out to be the consequences of the GOP’s foray into extremism and wackiness. It could be that the party acculturates its not-ready-for-prime-time candidates, harnesses the energy of the tea party movement, and sweeps to a grand old victory. There is also the distinct possibility that the acute philosophical split within the party—basically, a clash between bedrock conservatism and utter nonsense—will hand victories to Democrats that they didn’t anticipate and frankly might not deserve.snip//
Not all of the GOP’s internal issues involve the tea party. In Connecticut, Linda McMahon won the party’s Senate nomination through one of the traditional routes: She bought it by spending part of her personal fortune, which comes from the WWE pro-wrestling empire. The problem is, ahem, the nature of the WWE wrestling empire—and the fact that McMahon occasionally appeared as a character in the ring.
“Today the party of Bob Dole, Jack Kemp and Dick Lugar nominated a candidate who kicks men in the crotch, thinks of scenes of necrophilia as ‘entertainment’ and runs an operation where women are forced to bark like dogs,” a Democratic Party spokesman wrote, in what promises to be just an opening salvo. Then again, association with pro wrestling may not be a deal-breaker at the polls. Just ask Jesse “The Body” Ventura, former governor of Minnesota.
Democrats would be foolish to take a single contest for granted, but Republicans would be equally foolish to assume that some kind of sweeping win in November is guaranteed. The GOP already knows what the Democrats’ campaign themes will be—but has no idea what some of its own candidates will say or do next.
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