Troll, thy name is ex-Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Idiocracy). If this guy thinks he has a prayer of challenging Senator Mark Kirk in 2016, we should all want some of what he's smoking.
Controversial former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) is talking up a Tea Party challenge to Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).
“I am very seriously considering challenging him in a primary,” Walsh told The Hill on Thursday. “Mark Kirk has got to be challenged.”
The one-term lawmaker isn’t backing off his inflammatory comments that made him a conservative star, though, as he weighs a quixotic comeback bid.
Walsh was elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave and become one of the movement’s loudest voices during his single stint in Congress before losing to Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) in 2012. Duckworth is now weighing a general election challenge to Kirk.Walsh has since built a local following in the Chicago area with his conservative talk show — and if anything has upped the controversy level with a string of racially charged comments in the past few years.
Yes, well. It's one thing to build up a wingnut radio following saying stupid things. It's entirely another to run for office. There are still voters in Illinois who don't take kindly to deadbeat dads, candidates who think anal feeding is the work of heroes, or who think it's awesome to make racial slurs simply because they can.
The former congressman defended his habit of making inflammatory comments to The Hill.
“Independents and even moderates in this state have gotten to a point where they really like and respect the fact that a politician says it like it is. All these things that Joe Walsh says that are controversial, privately and even publicly a lot of voters like what I like to say,” Walsh said.
“When I say things like ‘Democrats purposely have made blacks dependent on government,’ a lot of blacks think that's true, even a lot of African Americans in Illinois I've talked to resent the fact that Democrats have taken them for granted,” he continued.
Do we really have to point out that this is a one-term Congressman who couldn't hold onto his seat long enough to do anything but get attention for his truthy rants like this one?
Yes, I'm sure the state of Illinois would certainly elect a Senator who treated voters like dirt. Not.
[h/t Steve M.]
