Strange but true: Midterm review
It's official, the votes are in and the 2010 midterms have made a compelling case to be considered one of the more outlandish and bizarre election seasons in
recent memory.
Beginning with the obvious: The Delaware Witch Trials saw Republican candidate, Christine O'Donnell, respond to comments she made on Bill Maher's show – probably one of the last places you want to drop the Ball – with one of the seasons best campaign ads where she reassured voters with the now infamous lines, "I am not a witch."
While the amount of time and money invested in these commercials, aimed at convincing the American people witches don't actually exist is laughable, O'Donnell didn't manage to cause quite the hysteria that the run of Jimmy McMillan and everyone's new favorite political party, "The Rent is Too Damn High Party."
Perhaps it was McMillan's facial hair, which puts Tom Selleck's moustache to shame, or his progressive standpoint on marriage between man and shoe. Or maybe it was the rent-related, hip-hop album McMillan released – now available on iTunes. Whatever it was, it made Jimmy McMillan a bigger internet sensation than Keyboard Cat, and while he didn't win the election, he certainly won some hearts along the way.
As wild as it is, McMillan's beard seems fairly tame compared to how Rand Paul's campaign turned out. Paul's first eyebrow-raising moment came when his opponent, Jack Conway, ran an ad accusing Paul of being part of a secret society that forced a woman to worship the all-powerful and malevolent deity known as, "Aqua Buddha."
Yet as bizarre as Paul's Sunday nights sound, his shining moment really came on the campaign trail when one of his supporters, Tim Profitt, was compelled to force a female protestor to the ground and stomp on her head because he feared for Paul's safety. Later, in an interview Profitt took the crazy up another couple notches, stating that he wanted an apology from the woman he steamrolled because he could have potentially injured his bad back.
Also from the depths of the Deep South, comes perhaps the best Cinderella story of 2010. Alvin Greene won the South Carolina Democratic primary with a campaign that he ran out of his father's house, hardly speaking and only spending $10,000. Oh, he also endorsed a rap video entitled, "Alvin Greene is On the Scene," and had a few obscenity charges levied against him as well.
However Greene's primary win, as baffling as it may have been, wasn't the strangest victory this election season. That award goes to Jenny Oropeza, who won her California Senate race despite the fact that she was dead. In fact, this election season a total of four candidates who died during the campaign process won their respective races.
Conversely a strategy that didn't work, has never worked, and will never work, was the approach Rich Iott took. Iott decided it was a good idea to not only pose for pictures dressed in full Nazi regalia, but then also to defend his actions, as well as the SS itself, on Anderson Cooper stating, "They were doing what they thought was right for their country. And they were going out and fighting what they thought was a bigger, you know, a bigger evil." I guess he was speaking about the threat of a non-aggressive Jewish population, or the world powers-namely the US and UK that united to fight against the Nazis. Whatever the case, it is no mystery why Iott did not win.
Not to be outdone in the defense of idiocy, Nevada Tea Party challenger, Sharron Angle, who when asked why her commercials seemed to always include Hispanics engaging in illegal activity, responded with, "You know, I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me." Apparently Angle felt the best way to crack down on illegal immigrants was by stopping people randomly because she isn't actually able to discern ethnic differences.
Better yet was her response for justifying this disability. Angle stated that our country was a melting pot of ethnicities and that she was evidence of that because she's been called the first Asian legislator in the Nevada State Assembly, even though she has never been called that by anyone but herself.
But by far the winner of the title of craziest of crazies in the campaign race goes to
Basil Marceaux, a Tennessee Republican hopeful, whose political platform included requiring everyone to carry a gun, pardoning the crimes of anyone who voted for him and also banning American flags.
It's safe to say the moral of this story is to go out and vote! Seriously the fact that some of these people could potentially be elected to office is a scary and resounding reminder of the importance of voter participation.