A few weeks ago there was an accidental contest on Twitter in which various American expats living in Germany were trying to outdo each other in what could only be describe as a contest one doesn’t actually want to win:
The Batshit-Crazy Home State Politician Contest.
I thought, at the time, that I didn’t have a dog in this hunt, but it has been pointed to me that perhaps I actually do have some unreasonable politicians who qualify for this contest.
For the record, I vote in Monroe County Indiana, and I am limited to voting for US Congress and US Senate. This is the home state I vote in. I can also claim Colorado as my other home state as that is the state I grew up in and voted in for six years. For good measure, although I never voted there, I also claim Wyoming as a home state for this contest. These are, also, the three states that I claim in my history when people ask me that question, “where are you from?”
I suppose the contest is really limited to those currently in office—for if it weren’t, I would have two fantastic contestants from Indiana and Colorado: John Hostettler and Marilyn Musgrave, respectively.
John Hostettler (Republican, naturally) was my first Hoosier Congressman and I remember in my first few weeks in Bloomington watching a thing on the Bloomington Public Access Channel where he disparaged the existence of Judicial Review—that horrid process by which unelected judges might declare laws passed by Congress as unconstitutional. He was, I kid you not, opposed to this, thinking it was, basically, unconstitutional, or ought to be. He was eventually voted out of office in 2008, but he left an odd mark: he voted against George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq in 2002 because, “it does not pose an imminent threat that justifies a pre-emptive military strike at this time.”
Marilyn Musgrave (Republican, naturally) is the ex-Congressman contestant from Colorado. Not only did this Batshit-Crazy politician propose the “Federal Marriage Amendment” twice, she’s also pro-life, pro-intervention into Terri Schiavo, and opposed to emergency contraception. Finally, she was classless. She neither congratulated the winner, nor conceded defeat in 2008.
However, these two clowns are out of office so I’m not really sure I can count them in the Batshit-Crazy Home State Politician Contest.
So, in the current delegations, I actually don’t have a really have a good candidate. Perhaps the best is Indiana’s Dan Burton, who served on the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, who once proclaimed that the US military “should place an aircraft carrier off the coast of Bolivia and crop dust the coca fields.” Never mind that Bolivia is landlocked. He also spent a lot of time playing golf instead of working in Washington. Although, given that he’s a Republican, that’s probably not a bad thing.
However my hopes for the future lie in Colorado where there are two outstanding candidates for the Batshit-Crazy Home State Politician Contest: Ken Buck and Dan Maes. Both Republicans. Both Batshit-Crazy. Both, fortunately for the world, unlikely to win election. I hardly know where to begin.
On the one hand there’s Ken Buck, Senate Candidate, who this past Sunday announced that homosexuality is like alcoholism. He’s a teabagger, which qualifies him as a weirdo already. He also opposes abortion.
On the other hand, there’s Dan Maes running for Governor. Most fascinating about this guy is that he truly believes that bike sharing is part of a plot that will, ultimately, subsume American sovereignty to United Nations.
I guess these are, for the moment, rather weak entries into the contest, but I have a hidden trump card from Wyoming.
Although the jury’s out on whether he’s Batshit-Crazy or just plain evil.
I wish the former but I suspect he’s the latter.
He’s also not currently in office.
Crud.
Basil Marceaux.com. Take that.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/341482/july-28-2010/republican-gubernatorial-primary-battle-watch–010—tennessee
See, I can’t compete on elected officials, but appointees and activists I have in spades:
Andrew Shirvell
Phyllis Schlafly
John Ashcroft
Fred Phelps
Although, Adam, with kooky Ken Buck and Darth Cheney, you are a formidable competitor.
Too bad I don’t live abroad. My entry would have been John Boehner. I lived in his district when he first went to Congress. His stationary had this on it: “Say Bay-Ner.” Yes, because otherwise he would have been a Boner. {SNORT}
If I were an ex-pat I’d nominate Meg Whitman. The ex-CEO of eBay, now running for governor of California. Meg is 5-points down in the polls after spending $140-million dollars of her own money in an effort to prove that it is possible to click “Buy it now” for a political office.
Strangely she is down in the polls even though she has outspent her Democratic opponent 14 to 1.
Funny you should post this just as I’ve repatriated to the nation gone batshit insane. After listening to most of this nonsense (my home state of Wisconsin’s at risk of losing Feingold as a Senator because — gasp — he agreed with the healthcare bill and liked the idea of building a railline between the state’s 2 biggest cities), I think I’m going to have to stay registered to vote in WI until after Nov 2.
On a side note, the politician whose politics most impacted my life — WI’s former governor Tommy Thompson who instituted welfare-to-work and denied my single mom welfare so I never saw her while growing up — just sat in front of me on a flight from Wi to Cali. He was preparing to give a speech in Cali to healthcare professionals documenting how the health care bill will negatively impact them. I wanted to slap him but instead I let my daughter spill drinks all over him.
Voting against the war in Iraq was the only thing Hostettler did right. For Bat-shit crazy remember when he boarded a plain in Louisville with a loaded pistol? He said it was to protect himself from his southern Indiana constituents. That seems crazy until you realize the rednecks of Indiana often sic their pit bulls on census workers and politicians. A politician was bitten this week and the owner of the dog was worried because his dog hadn’t had his rabies shot.
Jul – Basil Marceaux.com is awesome! I bet his website is BasilMarceaux.com.com
Sarah – ooh, the activist standpoint….
MT – what an odd thing to actually print on the stationary.
Cynical Queer – Meg Whitman may be strange but she’s not Batshit Crazy. B1-Bob was Batshit Crazy.
Courtney – Feingold’s awesome! I’m glad you’re voting for him. Quite frankly I don’t get a lot of the animosity toward Democrats this year. Doesn’t anybody remember what it was like under W?
Ted – I should have remember the gun at the airport incident. He was such a naïve idiot. I can’t believe he actually ran for senate.