Crazy Rightwing 2014 Fringe Candidates Already Dropping Like Flies

So here we are, not quite to the end of the first month of Election Year 2014, and already some of the fine crop of fringe candidates have been felled or gravely sent to the Mockatorium by their own stoopid mouths. Let's take a quick look at some of the folks who have either dropped out or made themselves even more unelectable than they were before they gave folks a chance to get to know them better.

First up, a round of na-na-na-na, hey-hey, goodbye to Dick Black, the repugnant rapethink man from Virginia who coined the term "baby pesticide" for emergency contraception -- the only positive contribution of his short run for Congress. Which he brought to a halt on Wednesday after the world heard a little more about his innovative thoughts on how maybe marital rape isn't really much of a crime, really, because you bought the cow and can milk her whenever you want or something because there she is in a nightie. Black will remain in the state Senate, so Virginia can continue to benefit from his commitment to serving the public by saying the dumbest stuff imaginable. Mostly about women, but also about everything.

Just how dumb? Well, there's the marital rape stuff, and the excuse-making for military rapists, and the suggestion that school shootings wouldn't happen if kids called teachers "ma'am" and "sir." And then there was the time he decided to make the case for smut filters on public library computers by inviting a TV reporter "to film him using a library terminal to watch violent rape porn -- prompting the only complaints Loudoun County librarians had ever received about a library patron viewing pornography." So Virginia gets to keep him.

Our next two fringe candidates haven't yet dropped out of their races, but they have managed to say stuff that was so outrageous that their local GOP organizations have urged them to please, please, just go away. We told you way back on Tuesday about the first, Florida's Joshua Black, who picked MLK Day to pass along a fellow patriot's call for Barack Obama to be hanged for doing Treason on America. But not in a lynch-y kind of way, only after a proper trial, so it's all nice and legal. Despite calls for him to drop out of the race, Joshua Black refused, though he did resign his membership in the Pinellas County Republican Party. He also received a visit from the U.S. Secret Service. Nonetheless, he continues to insist that he merely wants "to see all elected officials face the standard that everyone else face." But he's staying in the race and insisting that Republicans who have criticized him are hypocrites, because liberals carried protest signs calling for G.W. Bush to die. We are betting that none of those people were running for Congress, but excellent point, dude.

And finally, a fringe candidate whose initial screwup we somehow missed, but, yep, it's awful too! How about Illinois congressional hopeful Susanne Atanus (whose last name comprises a preposition, an indefinite article, and a pronoun -- oh, you thought we were going to say it includes the word "anus"?)? She is refusing (steadfastly, maybe, or stubbornly -- refusals are always one of those) to drop her campaign after the Illinois GOP disowned her for comments she made Wednesday to a Chicago newspaper about how God created terrible weather, autism, and senile dementia -- which she says didn't even exist "sixteen years ago" -- in response to sinful American behavior:

“God is angry,” she told the [Chicago Daily] Herald. “We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions. Same-sex activity is going to increase AIDS. If it’s in our military it will weaken our military. We need to respect God.”

For some reason, this didn't go over so well with The Internet, and local GOP officials were quick to declare her anathema, almost as if they were Andrew Cuomo:  

“Her candidacy is neither supported nor endorsed by the leaders of our party, and she should withdraw from the race immediately,” state party chair Jack Dorgan said in the statement, with Chicago chair Adam Robinson adding that “Atanus is not in any way affiliated with any of our efforts in the Chicago GOP, nor have we ever supported, endorsed, or assisted her in any way at any time.”

That's some distancing! Nonetheless, Atanus intends to walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though her dreams be tossed and blown. But unless you see a second pair of footprints in the sand, she's pretty much alone on this one.

[ Mother Jones / WTSP-10 / RawStory ]

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