The Republicans continue to nominate lunatics and scoundrels, many of whom will probably become members of Congress next year because people just don’t care enough to prevent it. One of my favorites is going to face Alan Grayson. Daniel Webster won the GOP nomination in Florida’s Eight District. He’s a supporter of covenant marriage and has introduced bills in the Florida legislature to ban divorce. Another fruitcake is Allen West, who embraces birtherism and won the nomination in Florida’s 22nd District.
Another surprise came out of Oklahoma’s Fifth District, where a Christian summer camp director won the runoff against the RNCC’s favored candidate. The Republicans are going to continue to scratch their heads over this one. They were mystified when Lankford came in first during the main election.
Then there’s Jesse Kelly in Arizona’s 8th District, who is disappointed that Sarah Palin endorsed a rival and thinks she has totally destroyed her image, but would vote for her in the 2012 primaries anyway.
Kelly is a tea party favorite — he claims an endorsement from Rep. Michele Bachmann, a leading tea party voice who is also a Palin ally. He has no prior political experience and left school to enlist in the Marine Corps before he finished his college degree. At 29, he’s one of the youngest candidates this cycle.
Back in Florida, the Republicans nominated Rick Scott to be their gubernatorial candidate even though his health care company committed the largest Medicare fraud on record.
And let’s not forget the nominee from Florida’s 25th District, David Rivera:
Democrats have a fairly short list of House seats that they are confident could go from Red to Blue this November. But they believe the race in Miami’s 25th district is starting to look like a prime target since the Republicans’ likely nominee, state Rep. David Rivera, is mired in controversy.
Trouble for Rivera began earlier this week when the Miami CBS affiliate and the Miami Herald uncovered possible allegations of domestic violence from the 1990’s and a police report from 2002 showing that Rivera was involved in a traffic accident where he ran into a truck full of his campaign opponent’s fliers, allegedly to prevent the driver from getting to the post office in time to mail them.
This isn’t even a comprehensive list. Marco Rubio is a crook. John McCain is washed up. And there are more loonies who have tonight won the right to carry the GOP banner in November.
But, we could continue to circle the wagons and fire inward.
