[oldembed width="420" height="245" src="https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640" flashvars="launch=50712682^0^573669&width=420&height=245" fid="2"]
Gosh, the Republican Party is succeeding so much with their "rebranding effort" that they can't seem to find anyone to run against Ed Markey for John Kerry's Senate seat. Well, I take that back. There's this guy, the Blowhard named Dr. Keith Ablow, who makes a career out of offering bogus, junk-filled Freudian analyses on Fox News.
You might remember him from other posts here on C&L, like the one where he offers ridiculous explanations for President Obama's normal, even mainstream policy choices by suggesting the president is working out his frustrations at being abandoned by his father. Or this one, where he profiled Media Matters' David Brock, calling him a self-hating narcissist. There's this one, too, where he calls for Vice President Biden to be examined for dementia. Or, you might make a judgment just on the basis of one single fact:
He actually co-wrote a self-help book with Glenn Beck.
Yes, this is the guy who has expressed an interest in running for John Kerry's seat.
But wait! There's more!
In Georgia, Rep. Paul Broun is widely expected to announce his candidacy to replace Senator Saxby Chambliss. Yes, THAT Paul Broun. The one who laughed off a constituent's comment about who would shoot the president. The same Paul Broun who boycotted and trolled the president's State of the Union address in 2011 after saying he wouldn't attend because President Obama would "spew venom," who compared progressives to Al Qaeda, who wanted to lower, not raise the debt ceiling in 2011, who wanted a "Year of the Bible" in order to school the nation on President Obama's sins, and the very same one who gets star billing on Jon Perr's Republican Confederacy of Dunces.
Listen to Paul Broun for ten minutes or so and the only point of confusion will be whether he is a Bircher or a Klansman. It's possible he's both. Yes, he is preparing to run for Saxby Chambliss' Senate seat.
In Iowa, wingnut Steve King is gearing up for a run at Tom Harkin's Senate seat. Yes, once again, THAT Steve King. The same guy who thinks workers are commodities, who empathized with the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS office, who considered the Hate Crimes Act a "pedophile protection act", who had no problem with the idea of a revolution similar to the one in Czechoslovakia in 1989 here in the United States, and who defends his racist remarks by admitting he just wants to see "if the pot comes to a boil."
Yes, these three are leading off the parade of wingnuts for open Senate seats in 2014. They do seem to have one thing in common: they're all spewing the Birch Society nonsense theories and mixing it with some serious race-baiting and hate.
On the wingnut but not a complete hater side, Geraldo Rivera is snuffling around a run for the Senate in New Jersey. Gee, Rivera and The Wingnuts would make for some interesting times on the Senate floor, but the country would be a shambles by the closing act.
However, Rachel Maddow has one thing wrong in her report above, where she maintains that Karl Rove wants to push these people out. As Jed Lewison points out, the Rove organization poured $400,000 into Steve King's race against Christie Vilsack in 2012 and bragged about it, not that they had much to brag about overall in 2012. Rove doesn't reject these candidates; he embraces them.
It looks like Eric Cantor and the TeaBirchers just got a fresh supply of lipstick, and they're smearing it all over that same old pig.
