Follow us on Twitter @PolliticsToday for more insight, commentary and updates concerning this blog or “LIKE” us on Facebook. Seriously, do those things.
When looking at any potential pickups the Democratic Party could have in 2014, only two states come to mind; Kentucky and Georgia. Kentucky, because of the failed leadership of and extensive corporate donations to Mitch McConnell and Georgia, because well, the options just are far too toxic.
We are on the cusp of something very interesting in the Peach State. The Republican primary for the possibility to replace Saxby Chambliss is one that looks like an evil episode of The Brady Bunch. If you could categorize every negative trait that the Republican Party has picked up in the last four years (birther, Akinists, anti-Planned Parenthood, anti-evolutio, Herman Cain); they would all be well-represented in this primary.
If you could possibly describe the potential race here it would be that it’s a cavalcade of crazy. Of course, as of this writing, we only have one announced candidate in the race but the assumption is that there will be a couple more entries in this race to the right. Let’s just say that Newt Gingrich would be the RINO in this race if it goes the way it is anticipated.
Paul Broun
The first officially announced candidate in the race is Rep. Paul Broun. Broun is a handful to say the least, as his special brand of zealotry covers a wider scope than your average Congressperson.
Broun recently made headlines for his stance on evolution in which he said:
All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.
:rubs temples:. Did you catch all of that? The Big Bang Theory (though no proof if he was talking about the sitcom), embryology and evolution were all lies straight from Hell. Hell, with a capital H. It’s almost hard to type a witty rebuttal or rebuking of Broun because the bar is set too high from his nonsense.
Really, straight from the pit of Hell? If it makes any of you feel better (it won’t), Broun serves on the House Committee of SCIENCE, Space and Technology. Pit of Hell guy serves on a committee that has to deal with science!
If that was Broun’s only divorce from reality, I would maybe cut him some slack and just advance onto the next candidate but no, Broun is much more divorce than that.
On if Barack Obama is a citizen:
I don’t know.
If Barack Obama is Christian:
I don’t know that.
What does Broun actually know?
I know he is a socialist. You look at his own writings. He said when he was in college he leaned to Marxist tendencies and is linked to Marxist professors. He joined Marxists clubs. And look at who he’s put in his administration, they’re devout socialists.”
“America has to stand up and decide if we want to be a socialist nation or if we’re going to be a free nation.
So we have someone who seems relatively sympathetic to the birther cause, someone who is unsure if the devout Obama is a Christian but the only thing he clearly knows is that Obama is a socialist. It makes you forget the pit of Hell, doesn’t it?
This charming man is one of the frontrunners for the nomination, but he would have to be the one candidate who a Democrat would have a chance at beating right?
Well let’s see.
Phil Gingrey
The next candidate most likely to announce their run for Senate is Rep. Phil Gingrey. Now, Gingrey is not as bombastic in many issues as Broun is but to say that he doesn’t have his own bloc of zany conservatism to himself would be a gross understatement.
Remember Todd Akin? Well how could you forget considering he might be the most infamous candidate of the 2012 cycle with his comments on rape and ovulation.
But the worst thing about people like Akin are not necessarily the individuals but about the so-called “legitimate” allies who empower them to make statements such as that.
Enter Phil Gingrey, a former gynecologist, who claimed that not only was Akin “partly right” but offered his own brand of pseudo-science to innocent bystanders.
But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that…
I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he?
Uhhh, no he was not right at all; Akin’s answer wasn’t even worthy of partial credit. Remember, Gingrey was a doctor and he actually talked to patients which is safe to assume that he had to have talked to a patient that received some sort of trauma. Isn’t it a terrifying to think that Phil Gingrey was a doctor and others like him are still practicing?
Also much like Broun, Gingrey is on a committee too as he is Co-Chair of the Medical and Dental Doctors in Congress Caucus which does exist. But, to his credit, Gingrey walked back his comments to a degree by stating:
Gingrey said he has had conversations with James Breeden, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “We went over articles and more recent journals,” the congressman said.
Whereas Todd said the panic would cause a body to shut down and prevent ovulation, more recent data suggests just the opposite is probably true.
So you learn.
“More recent journals?”, so I guess he was using the old journals that were written when Earth was created 9,000 years ago, right?
A showdown between Broun and Gingrey would be amazing within itself but guess what? There are actually more members of Congress who represent Georgia that are detached from facts.
Jack Kingston
If you are a viewer of the HBO show Real Time With Bill Maher then the name Jack Kingston should be reasonably familiar to you. Kingston, though he appears to have some sort of rapport with a liberal, atheist comedian is far from either of those two things as evident as when he denied evolution.
I believe I came from God, not from a monkey. If it happened over millions and millions of years, there should be lots of fossil evidence.
Uhh, really? Has religious conservatism turned so far to to the right wing that they are in the business of fossil conspiracies? It truly makes you wonder, and I have no problem with religion, how science gets so easily dismissed. Faith is obviously a big part of denying any scientific breakthrough but shouldn’t it lead to debate as opposed to blindly dismissing and blatantly ignoring any fact?
Tom Price
Rep. Tom Price made waves shortly after the 2012 elections by stating that he wished to make a run for the Republican Party Conference Chair, a position in which the establishment was grooming for Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. McMorris Rodgers easily won but Price, who is the person the GOP establishment picked to represent the Tea Party in party leadership, was named vice chairman of the House Budget Committee shortly thereafter.
But Price seems to be still ambitious about a promotion and has been huddling up with NRSC members about a bid.
Besides being a thorn in the establishment’s side, Tom Price has gotten in his fair share of hot water over economic issues such as the sequester.
For his credit, somehow, Price is considered the “normal” one of these.
But there is someone else thinking of running that you might recognize.
Karen Handel
Karen Handel doesn’t necessarily need an introduction but you probably should get a reminder just in case you forced it out of your memory. Handel, the Georgia’s former Secretary of State, in 2010 was named “Vice President of Public Policy” at the Susan G. Komen institute. Basically she could be considered “chief lobbyist” for the institute that specializes in finding a cure for breast cancer.
Fast forward to last year when Handel announced that Komen would sever ties with Planned Parenthood. The media firestorm became so intense, as many correctly speculated that it had to do with Handel’s own political future, that she was forced to resign a few months later.
Now she wants to run for Senate.
The Others
Now, the Georgia Republican Party is awesome if you are a progressive blogger that gets a morbid enjoyment out of the conservative wing trying to out-conservative each other.
But let’s not forget the other notable heavyweights of the party. There is Herman Cain, whose vanity campaign actually gained some traction until the Republican Party realized that supporting someone who had that many sexual harassment claims against him wasn’t the grandest idea. Then there is Newt Gingrich, whose delusions of grandeur can only be surpassed by the failure of his Presidential campaign. Lest us not end without forgetting of Erick Erickson, the conservative radio host who on occasion floats his name for office when people start forgetting about him.
