Dangerous Douchebags

Campaign Advertising: Where Truth Goes To Die. This has always been the case across the political spectrum, but it's especially prevalent these days among Republicans trying to curry favor from the TEA Partiers:

Steve Stivers is again running against Mary Jo Kilroy for a seat in Congress. A Stivers flyer stuck in my door informed me that Kilroy still "isn't listening to us." This is a big theme with the far right: "They don't get it. They aren't listening." This refrain confuses listening with agreeing. We're listening. We hear you just fine. It's just that we think you're full of shit and we disagree with all your crackpot ideas. The flyer goes on to tell me that Stivers is "our only hope to stop the radicals in Washington" (radicals?), that he'll work to stop Nancy Pelosi (oh, that radical 70-year old grandmother), and to stop "job-killing" measures like health care mandates and environmental legislation, and he'll cut taxes, repeal taxes, and vote no to taxes. So I guess he wants us to be uninsured, sick, with an underfunded government, but somehow we'll all be magically working and polluting our way to prosperity. Sounds like a plan, Steve-O!

Then we have the Jon Husted TV ad in his campaign to be be Ohio Secretary of State. He's currently a State Congressman and Speaker of the Ohio House. His original TV spot was a meaningless puke-up of boilerplate buzzwords: He's a "Conservative family man" (good job on the sperm donation, Stud!) and a "fighter" (everybody's a fighter) who "took on Liberal ACORN for election fraud." (Timeout. Husted is himself the very embodiment of election fraud. He represents Ohio's 6th District, where a vacant house in Kettering serves as his "residence". Meanwhile, he and his wife and kids live most conveniently in Upper Arlington.) He worked to "preserve Statehouse prayer because our rights are God-given." (Our rights are what? Well then, fuck the Constitution and the Amendments and the Ohio Revised Code. Who needs 'em? We can just check with God. Got his phone number?) If elected, Jon-Boy will also "stop immoral government debt to protect our children's liberty." (Wow! Where to begin? I don't think the Secretary of State has much influence on debt levels. Debt is not a person or a belief, it's a noun, a condition. As such, it's neither moral nor immoral. And what the hell does it have to with our children's liberty? Is debt going to throw our kids in jail? A big load of B.S. in one short sentence!) These days, Husted's ad has been trimmed to just the last part about debt and liberty. Amazingly, this is not enough for the TEA Partiers. In the more-conservative-than-thou contest, the TEA Baggers actually prefer some unknown named Sandra O'Brien.

And the most dangerous douchebag of the bunch and the country's craziest football coach? It's Dave Daubenmire! Years ago, it was my misfortune to attend Otterbein College at the same time as Daubenmire. He was a self-important little pissant then, and has gotten nothing but worse ever since. He's now a full-blown religious zealot running on the TEA Party ticket for U.S. Congress in Ohio's 18th District. Do a web search on him, and you'll find a whole bunch of crazy-scary shit. He first gained notoriety as the football coach at London High (where he ran the wing-nut formation!). He required that his players kneel and pray before, during and after all practices and games. As a public school, London told him to quit this shit. He refused and was fired in 1999. He's now coaching at the private Fairfield Christian Academy where he can preach and pray and proselytize with wild-eyed abandon. He's been a staunch defender of Marysville teacher John Freshwater's right to burn crosses into the arms of his students. Little Dave's "Man Of God" persona did not prevent his son from being arrested and charged with possession of child pornography a while ago. Little Dave's websites have articles and links with titles like Hollywood's War On God and Have You Received God's Mercy?, together with his political rant which is always cast in religious terms. Daubie The Dipshit is running as a TEA Partier because the Republicans are far too liberal for his tastes and we don't have an American Christian Taliban . . . yet. Happily, he has no money and a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected.