This Nice Nebraska Tea Party Fella Is Your New Ted Cruz, America

Don’t throw out those tricorn hats quite yet, people. The Tea Party is on the comeback trail. This is good news for America, as our strategic snark reserve might otherwise have fallen to historic lows this campaign cycle.

In what is either a sign of a conservative wave this fall or an indication that Republican voters in Nebraska have chocolate pudding where their brain stems should be, Tea Party favorite Ben Sasse won Tuesday’s primary for the GOP nomination for Senate. He now moves on to the general election, where he will be favored over the Democratic nominee David Domina. Sanity, running as an independent, is polling a distant third.

We have met Ben Sasse before, back when he announced he wants to move the U.S. Capitol to Nebraska so all those decadent politicians can spend their time around decent, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth, churchgoing, god-fearing people. People like Ben Sasse, with his Nebraska upbringing and his Ivy League degrees from Harvard and Yale and his years spent in Washington working in the Dubya administration. You know, the common clay.

Sasse is also responsible for that creepy ad up at the top of the page, in which his not-at-all-coached daughters tell us how much their daddy “despises” Obamacare but is so big-hearted he makes the family pray for the opposing candidates every morning at breakfast. Mighty white of him! We suggest those two girls throw a temper tantrum if their daddy ever suggests they spend the winter in a snowbound Colorado hotel.

Some other things to know about Ben Sasse: he loves the Constitution, particularly that clause about providing for “the national defence.” The clause immediately after that one, about promoting “the general Welfare”? Eh, we think not so much, based on his position that Obamacare is of the devil and should be repealed, and also his apparent consternation that spending on health entitlement programs outstripped spending on national defense in 2012. Apparently Ben Sasse thinks more of you can go without healthcare in exchange for another aircraft carrier or three.

Also, Ben Sasse thinks that Obamacare is somehow forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions. Because Ben Sasse has never heard of the Hyde Amendment, which predates Obamacare and was in no way infringed on by the Affordable Care Act’s passage. He thinks that employers should not have to provide health insurance that covers contraception, as if what one half of the electorate does with its ladyparts is an employer’s business.

Ben Sasse has been endorsed by Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, all of whom actually came to Nebraska for a rally (the biggest rally North Platte had seen since Reagan came to town in 1987). The fact he won endorsements from that triumvirate of shitheads should be reason enough to cast Ben Sasse out of decent society forever.

Basically, Ben Sasse is a mealy-mouthed Tea Party jackhole, grifting the rubes out of their hard-earned cash so he can go to Washington, eat in better restaurants than he finds in Omaha, and spend six years governing by temper tantrum. We can’t wait.

[ Sasse for Nebraska ]