Tennessee Dems Nominate Insane No-Name Conspiracy Monster for Senate, But At Least He's Not Harold Ford

It appears that whatever crew of shady state ballot-fucking political operatives have finally released their 2012-edition Alvin Greene Candidate. This time it's in Tennessee, and his name is Mark Clayton. He will carry the Democratic party banner in this fall's matchup against Sen. Bob Corker, because his name was listed first on the primary ballot and Tennessee Democrats have lost the will to live. His platform veers a touch typical cookie-cutter Democratic fare: It's basically Paultardism garnished with even more virulent homophobia and concerns about a Schwarzenegger-led restoration of Nazism. You can extrapolate pretty easily from here -- what, say, does he think about the Google? Correct, reader! He does in fact think that the Google, in collaboration with China, is out to get him. And so on. We apologize to Alvin Greene for making the comparison.

A bit more, from Tim Murphy at Mother Jones :

Mark Clayton believes the federal government is building a massive, four-football-field wide superhighway from Mexico City to Toronto as part of a secret plot to establish a new North American Union that will bring an end to America as we know it. On Thursday, he became the Tennessee Democrats' nominee for US Senate.

Clayton, an anti-gay marriage activist and flooring installer with a penchant for fringe conspiracy theories, finished on top of a crowded primary field in the race to take on GOP Sen. Bob Corker this fall. He earned 26 percent of the vote despite raising no money and listing the wrong opponent on his campaign website. The site still reads, "DEDICATED TO THE DEFEAT OF NEO-CONSERVATIVE LAMAR ALEXANDER," whom Clayton tried to challenge in 2008. (That year, he didn't earn the Democratic nomination.) [...]

Clayton has another intriguing theory. This one involves a former governor of California: "Schwarzenegger, born in Austria, wants to amend the Constitution so that he can become president and fulfill Hitler's superman scenario."

The Schwarzenegger theory seems pretty out-there now, but in ~2005 it was a well-respected member of the "shit you can't believe they're earnestly debating on cable news every night" club of narratives.

Hopefully this is the last time we write about Mark Clayton, the Democratic Senate nominee in Tennessee. At least for a couple of years. We all know he'll eventually wind up a regular in the guest chair onMorning Joe, playing the ol' "Even the liberal Democrat Mark Clayton..." role.

[ Mother Jones ]