Who really is the nuttiest of them all?
I sent that Tyson/Cain link to a friend, and he laughed and told me “The scariest thing is he isn’t the craziest one running.” That made me wonder- which candidate really is the most batshit crazy? I think Cain is crazy, but part of me thinks he is just having fun and setting himself up for the wingnut gravy train.
But Bachmann and Perry- I think those two really do believe their own bullshit. I’m going to have to go with Bachmann for nuttiest in a head to head match-up with Perry. It isn’t just what she says, it’s the eyes for me.
What do you think?
NCSteve
Bachmann. Not even close.
And the sweatiest movie ever made is still “Cool Hand Luke.”
Shinobi
Rachel Maddow did a great bit a few days ago exposing Cain’s campaign as performance art. That might actually be true.
The rest just scare me.
dmsilev
No love for Rick Santorum?
Arguably, though, the craziest one is Jon Huntsman, who apparently thought that being a vaguely moderate governor who served in the Obama administration was the right background for running for the GOP nomination.
trollhattan
Dem Crazy Eyes don’t lie–it’s Michele by a furlong. Ron Paul also, too, for believing 100% of his shit.
Chris T.
@dmsilev: Huntsman is not, and never was, running for 2012 in the first place.
cleek
don’t count out Santorum. he’s not only a true believer but seems genuinely hurt that people don’t understand how right he is. Bachmann seems like she’s running a bit of a con, to me.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
What, no raving nutter props for the ADHD American electorate, who are seriously considering handing over the keys to the global economy and the world’s largest nuclear arsenal to one of these folks?
Who’s the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?
Hunter Gathers
Ron Paul hands down. Downright fucking insane. And don’t give me any of the ‘Well, he’s right about the drug war and makes sense when he talks about foreign policy’ shit either. He’s fucking nuts, and you know it.
schrodinger's cat
@trollhattan: I have to agree
Michele Bachmann is the winner, followed by Paul, Cain is more hucksterish than crazy.
jl
Each one of the GOP candidates is nuttiest in his or her own unique and special way.
eric
Romney, easily. He clearly denies the existence of the google and video tape. How else can you explain his INSANE flip-flop-flippy-floppy-flipper-flopper performances.
PeakVT
1) Bachmann 2) Santorum 3) Paul 4) Cain 5-7) Perry, Gingrich, Romney 8) Huntsman.
Chyron HR
Michele
VICTORYWOLVERINESBachmann.tom
Bachmann and Gingrich, though I’d give the crazy prize to the latter because I believe Bachman actually believes the BS she spews. Perry is just setting himself up for a decade of book and small time (but 5-figure) speaking gigs, he like Cain are in it for the money and career boost.
Quaker in a Basement
@Hunter Gathers: I second!
Anne Laurie
See, Cole, this is where you let yourself be distracted by the optics. Sure, Bachmann looks like the looniest of the batch, if you’re not paying attention to what’s coming out of Santorum’s pie hole, and you’re willing to dismiss Ron Paul’s Robber-Baron-Talibangelical mashup as a form of senile dementia. But if the base definition of “nutty” is “removed from the normal social conventions”, then Willard Romney is head, shoulders, and spineless above all other contenders. He’s a sociopath, and therefore dangerous to the rest of us, not just to himself and his misguided followers.
J. Michael Neal
@jl:
You sound like you’re trying to prop up the self-esteem of kindergartners.
Which I guess is exactly what you’re doing.
cathyx
We need to define what the characteristics of crazy are.
PeakVT
There are some additional nutters here who have declared but nobody cares about.
daveNYC
Bachmann is easily the nuttiest of the bunch. Her and Ron are the true believers, but at least with Paul you might have a chance of discussing policy, Michele is just plain loco and spouts random word salad with a fine topping of some random talking point.
Jay in Oregon
As long as Michele Bachmann is in contention, no other candidate comes close.
She freaked out about a woman approaching her in a public bathroom because she thought she was going to be assaulted or lesbo-raped or something.
mick
bachmann has religious mania psychosis. this syndrome exists in my family. these people are scary because if you are not in their flavor of crazy christ cult, you are nothing to them but fair game.
don’t go into business with them, don’t loan them money, never turn your back on the cultists.
Bill E Pilgrim
That’s like asking me to choose among Happy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Sleepy, Bashful, Hopeless, Shameful, Brainless, Dribbly, and Doc.
Can’t be done. They all bring something unique to the spectacle.
And now we even have Snow White and her seven sisters, in the wings.
piratedan
Bachmann reminds me of the Greg Stilson character from King’s The Dead Zone, ruthless, no doubts in her own mind about the righteousness of her message and what needs to be done. I think she truly believes that she is God’s appointed messenger in order to bring America back into the light of the Glory of the Lord. Frankly, she scares the shit outta me.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@jl:
The GOP is the Lake Wobegon of nuttiness, where every child is above average.
JGabriel
How sad is it that a black Pizza CEO running for the Republican Presidential nomination isn’t even the 4th craziest motherfucker in the primary much less the craziest?
I’m assuming we can all agree that Bachmann, Santorum, Paul, and Perry are crazier than Cain.
.
Rosalita
Post another vote for Bachmann for being crazier than the proverbial shithouse rat.
Gex
I think the gay guy running for the nomination is the craziest. The insanity of him in that party and that party’s voters voting for him is staggering.
bemused
@Jay in Oregon:
There was also the time she was crouching behind some shrubs spying on a GLBT rally at the MN Capitol.
Bachmann, Santorum, Paul are all true believer nutjobs. I can’t decide which is the nuttiest. Bachmann’s zoned out eyes are disturbing. Ron Paul would probably be the most dangerous.The other two seem more susceptible to the lure of fame and money to me.
FlipYrWhig
Perry ain’t crazy. He’s just dim.
Zifnab
@Hunter Gathers:
Ron Paul isn’t nuts. He’s simply incorrect.
The guy is a classic small government conservative, and if you aren’t going to change his mind you can at least have a conversation with him. The rest of the candidates are so deeply unashamed bigots and liars that you have to assume anything they say is either totally dishonest or totally insane.
I gave up on Ron Paul back in 2008, but he’s still the cream of the GOP crop shy of Buddy Romer.
pragmatism
bachmann but sharrrrrron angle would be tied with her if she were running.
The Dangerman
I think one has to differentiate between those that are dumber than a box of rocks and those that are truly off their fucking rocker.
By that measure, I’m calling the #1 Crazy Fucker to be Ron Paul. Bachmann isn’t crazy, she’s just apparently donated her brain to science before she was done with it. Paul, on the other hand, thinks that running for President while calling for ending all aid to Israel is a workable position. That’s not ignorant, as it makes SOME sense given his positions on Foreign aid, but it’s fucking over the edge crazy.
gbear
@jl: Yes, they’re all spaishall.
cathyx
Just because you don’t have the same opinion on a subject doesn’t make the other person crazy. There has to be more to it.
Chuck Butcher
I’m going to beg the question with the excuse that it all depends on the measurement factors. If you start from there it pretty much comes out they’re all batshit…
Judas Escargot
@mick:
“If you’re doing business with a religious SOB, get it in writing.” (William S. Burroughs).
moonmullins
How it could be anyone other than Gold Standard, the federal highway system is tyranny, anti-birth control Ron Paul? Bachmann and Perry at least have real political networks, but the Paulites are more like Larouche followers. They don’t have political beliefs so much as a cult of personality built around paranoid conspiracy theories. I would say second place goes to Newt. You have to be crazy to think of him as an intellectual, and he seems to be the only person that crazy.
Certified Mutant Enemy
I don’t think Gingrich gets nearly enough credit in the crazy department.
catclub
@mick: “don’t loan them money,”
Isn’t the trick to loan them money so they will not repay you and also avoid you?
J. Michael Neal
@Gex:
Which one?
4jkb4ia
Bachmann because she has been known to actually make things up to support her craziness and Santorum has not. But between the two of them it is a close question.
(As in make things up that can be verified by a fact checker as NOT TRUE rather than make things up in the ordinary bigot sense.)
Certified Mutant Enemy
@dmsilev:
If Huntsman wanted to demonstrate his sanity, he’d leave the Republican party…
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Hunter Gathers:
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.
Gex
@J. Michael Neal: Fred Karger. The don’t let him play in the reindeer games.
My Truth Hurts
There is an argument to be made that it’s Gingrich for even trying because his chances evaporated back in the 1990’s; but really he’s not an insane person doing the same thing over and over and expecting a new result, he is a cynical war monger promoting his own agenda, or book, or tv appearances, or black market organ dealings or whatever the fuck it is that makes him money nowadays. In short Newt is running to be Newt and any attention thrown his way is good.
Cain is just an asshole boss prick type. That guy you used to work for back then at that shitty job. Remember that guy? What a fucking dick he was. I wonder what he’s up to lately? Probably still just being a dick.
Paul is, of course, the insane guy doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result. However, his insanity doesn’t have that Jesusy flavor that really turns my stomach. Just the insufferable righteousness.
The Texan is simply an entitled jock frat douche who will say whatever he has to say to keep the good times going. He really is like Bush but dumber. That is not hyperbole.
Mittens is a sociopath who probably strangled animals as a child, but this does not make one necessarily too crazy for politics. Often it’s a plus, but it’s highlighted by the other, passionately insane candidates they have right now. In Emotional vs Robot, Emotional wins.
The choice is Bachmann. She is the true believer that people mistake Perry or Paul to be. Like many true believers she is fanatical and impervious to empiricism. She also has an aura that says she WILL go as far as she has to, to prove herself and her god right. Farther than any of the others. That is the fucking nuttiest to me.
J. Michael Neal
@Certified Mutant Enemy: I think Huntsman may still be in Obama’s employ. Have you seen the shots he’s taking at Mitt?
Martin
Paul. Bachmann is stupid and can’t differentiate between the Bible and reality, but Paul’s ‘border fence will prevent citizens from taking their gold out of the country when FEMA comes’ is flat-out bonkers. It’s not just factually wrong, but wrapped up in multiple conspiracy theories at the same time. There’s really nothing out there, particularly aired in a debate, that can top it.
Yeah, Bachmann sees soçialism behind every tree and thinks a vaccine can make one of your chromosomes vanish, but there’s a sane electoral calculus behind those claims so it’s hard to tell how much of them she believes and how much is just her pandering to a demographic.
Paul’s conspiracy theories have no electoral calculus behind them. They’re not going to get him votes or donors. So he’s got to believe that shit, and it’s not something that he can point to a Bible or a broad if wildly misplaced political school of thought to back him up – it’s just pure whackadoodle that he and maybe a few militias believe in.
scav
Gotta go with Z) all of the above. For there are many axes of measurement in the multiverse, many rooms in my father’s house and a hell of a lot of rings at this circus.
geg6
@Anne Laurie:
This.
Though I have some sympathy for those who would say Huntsman. The guy worked for the Kenyan Mooslim usurper and thinks he should be the GOP nominee? Seriously?
And bullshit on the idea that he isn’t running for 2012 but really for 2016. What gives him or anyone else the idea that the GOP will suddenly become the party of Rockefeller again in four years?
singfoom
Bachman has the market cornered on batshit.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/16/246618/bachmann-craziest-quotes/
So, I judge her as the actual crazy one based on the things coming out of her mouth and her crazy eyes.
J. Michael Neal
@Gex: Hmmn. Now walking the fine line of explaining my joke without looking like that’s what I’m doing . . .
Oh, I thought you meant one of the gay guys that would be on stage tonight.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Seriously, can anyone provide a good explanation for the Bachmann “crazy eyes” phenomenon? Dry-eye problems? Makeup allergy? Sheer craziness?
gf120581
Bachmann’s got to be the craziest, no question. She’s got that empty vacant stare of a true fanatic. Plus, she’s the only candidate who I truly think is listening to voices in her head.
Paul is probably craziest besides her. People need to remember that Paul has a long, long history of saying weird, offensive or just plain insane things.
Santorum is probably number three. He’s got the self-righteous sanctimonious jackass preaching to everyone else persona to a T.
Cain and Gingrich are just grifters.
Romney is a empty void who believes in nothing.
Huntsman is the one sane man in the madhouse who keeps looking around and going, “Who locked me in with the inmates?”
Perry is the trickiest. I don’t consider him crazy, just stupid. He’s like a dumber version of Bush, a vacuous dunce with a “big business is always right” ethos.
kindness
Bachmann. Lord knows.
Certified Mutant Enemy
Huntsman could conceivably have a future as a moderate Democrat. He’s no worse than many Blue Dogs…
dollared
I’m kind of perplexed at the people calling Ron Paul crazy. He’s logically consistent, he’s got a particular point of view, he’s pretty connected to reality, and he’s fairly honest.
For example he knows the US would have depressions every 30 years if we didn’t have the Fed, and he knows people would die in the streets without Medicare and Social Security. He’s just OK about those outcomes. That does not make him crazy, just mildly sociopathic.
And on Israel and the military industrial complex, he’s not only not crazy, he more correct than any frontline Democrat (remember, Bernie is independent).
So what makes him crazy?
(and put me down for Bachman in positions 1-3 on the crazy list. She simply is not connected in any way to reality)
Violet
It’s a trick question. They’re all batshit crazy in their own special ways. It’s day to day as to which one draws the Show Me Your Crazy! short straw. Cain’s had a run of those lately.
Martin
@gf120581: The problem I have with calling Bachmann and Santorum crazy is that they’re only crazy because they’re fundies – and there’s fucking millions of fundies in the country. I can’t just write off maybe 15% of the nation, and a majority of a few states as being insane. Nor can I write off a candidate for being insane when there’s clearly 15% of the nation and a majority of a few states that are going to vote primarily along those lines. That is, to a certain degree the voters define the candidates, so you have to always figure there’s going to be a Bachmann/Santorum or two among the crowd simply to capture those electoral votes, even if they’re totally grifting that population.
I guess what I’m getting at, is that it’s impossible to differentiate Bachmann/Santorum from Cain/Gingrich. Both pairings are grifting, but they’re grifting different parts of the electorate.
J. Michael Neal
@kindness:
He would, wouldn’t He?
Turgidson
Bachmann and Santorum finish in a dead heat, I think. Those two inhabit a reality that bears absolutely zero resemblance to today’s planet earth, and their views are just so unhinged that you really do wonder why the medical/psychological profession allows them to ever leave a padded cell without close supervision.
Ron Paul is a few length behind them. His brand of crazy is a little less flamboyant, but nearly as nutty and potentially even more destructive to our way of life.
Perry is pretty crazy, but I don’t get quite the same warped true believer vibe from him. He’s more of a run of the mill corrupt right-winger whose professed core convictions are about an inch deep and exist mostly for political expediency. Newt – same thing in an angrier, fatter, more self-deludedly arrogant package.
Cain is pretty wacky, but I am firmly in the camp that he’s running just for shits and giggles and doesn’t actually want to be president or think he’s going to win. He has your usual blend of horrible ideas and ignorance, but he’s not certifiably insane like the crazies at the top.
Huntsman is not particularly crazy, although the fact that he even bothered to run this time suggests a bit of detachment from reality. It was probably just a move to build his 2016 portfolio though. And it won’t work.
Oh and Romney. Anne Laurie’s argument that he’s the craziest of all is somewhat persuasive. But I see him as sort of a modern Nixon, but not as effective or willing to work for it as Tricky Dick – just willing to rub whatever elbows necessary to get where he wants to go and ideological untethered. That makes him pretty crazy, but not in the same league as Michelle my Belle or frothy mix or crazy ol’ uncle Ron.
cursorial
Too close to call, but I have to give them credit. Until a few weeks ago, I’d have said it was mathematically impossible to produce a GOP candidate field where adding Sarah Palin to the mix might decrease the average level of crazy.
Violet
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Hyperthyroid/Graves disease
Satanicpanic
I just saw his “Warren is a sochulist” clip, I’m going with Ron Paul.
moonmullins
@Zifnab: How do you think Ron Paul is a small government conservative? His positions certainly don’t seem very libertarian to me: he supports closing down the border, even though the pro-liberty position would be that free movement of labor is equally important to the free movement of capital. He opposes abortion to the point that he believes in the humanity of cells and thus outlawing hormonal birth control. He even supports the police state as soon as you start putting the emphasis on “state.” He doesn’t seem particularly small government or libertarian to me, and it always drives me nuts when apologists act like he is. Ron Paul’s views have more in common with the US Constitution party: unreconstructed bigotry. When you defend Ron Paul as being principled, the only principles he seems to operate off of are misogyny and racism.
waratah
I thought Huntsman was sane until I watched some of one debate and then decided he was as crazy as the the others.
I think we are just looking for one of them to be sane but I really do not think so.
cyntax
While I agree that Bachmann takes the race by way more than a nose, I think if we’re taking drunk Rick Perry, then he’s placing a very close second.
Certified Mutant Enemy
So what makes him crazy?
That he thinks he can be President.
Woody
“Crazy” is a pretty wide valley for these Wagon Trains.
Excellent deconstruction by My Truth Hurts at #45 – although ‘Cynical’ best describes Newt – kicked out by his own party! – but somehow still gets coin by repeating the same old huckster b.s. on the teevee even though he’s almost comically wrong on everything (this also goes for the sociopathic Villager media, who recognize a fellow grifter). You can’t get big charge accounts at Tiffany’s by merely being crazy!
CaptainFwiffo
I tend to think Bachmann, but I wonder if it’s sexist of me to think so. She looks fucking crazy, which enhances her baseline crazyness, but a man can more easily get away with looking weird or crazy.
I mean, Ron Paul is pretty fucking crazy, even though he pulls off the “broken clock is right twice a day” thing. Bachmann manages to be more wrong than the average broken clock.
Cain also looks the part, with the straight-up strangeness of the slow-grin, but he’s not wild-eyed like Bachmann. And his old-man crazy is so much more familiar, he’s like your wacky old neighbor or uncle or something.
Perry, on the issues, is pretty similar to Bachmann, but somehow he doesn’t have the same looney-bin vibe.
(Newt, on the other hand, is not crazy at all. He’s just a con man.)
kindness
@mick: Wow. Christmas must be a blast at your family get togethers.
@J. Michael Neal: is the FSM a he? I thought it was just plain delicious.
AdamK
They’re all nuts, but all but one are at least human beings. If you dissected Romney’s brain you’d find its parts all scrambled around. The Silver Spoon Sociopath has never had an ordinary human emotion in his life.
Ruckus
How do you measure who is the craziest in the asylum?
1. How far away from reality their world is?
2. How long it would take to bring them back from #1? And is it even possible?
3. What and how much medication they need to be on to sound sane?
4. Could they be permanently cured of their insanity? Or need permanent medication?
5. Why do you care which one is the most insane? They all met the minimum level.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I can’t swear that this is the same thing but not that long ago I came to learn that certain types of traditional women use their eyes in this very peculiar way, opening them hugely wide, as a form of seduction or flirtation basically.
I had never really experienced this before, since the people I knew growing up, and well into adulthood, didn’t tend to be this, er, traditional type. Flirtation involved asking you for guitar lessons or moving closer to you around the campfire, or something.
Anyway in the case of one person I finally just asked about the eye thing and she said oh yes, and that that’s exactly what it’s all about, it’s very conscious.
When I see Bachmann doing that, that’s what I see. It’s training, or habit, she thinks it’s going to win people over.
schrodinger's cat
In a country that produces more Nobel Prize winners in the sciences than any other how can these dim bulbs/crazy people be the contenders for a major party’s presidential nomination. It boggles the mind.
MinnBob
As a (mostly) life-long Minnesotan, I rushed to the comments prepared to argue, passionately if necessary, for our beloved Michele. Thankfully – though I haven’t tabulated the responses – it seems the Sage of Stillwater has carried the day on her own, um, merits.
I was a bit disappointed to see no references to her being ‘attacked’ by lesbians in a ladies’ room, but it’s easy to overlook an item or two in the cornucopia of crazy she’s provided us over the years. Minnesotans being kind and generous (as we keep telling ourselves over and over), we are gratified that the rest of the nation – indeed, the world! – has been able to attempt to solve “the puzzle that you figure out when I give a speech”.
Liberty for lightbulbs!
Hunter Gathers
@dollared
This.
No one from the government is ever going to come to your house with a gun a demand that you pay your taxes. Ever. Anyone who thinks that is fucking insane.
(had to edit that evil s-word)
sukabi
@Violet: nope, they don’t bulge like Barbara Bush’s, and she actually does have Graves… plus, as unpalatable as Bar was, her bug eyed look wasn’t wild-eyed crazy… Bachmann’s got that nailed.
Bill E Pilgrim
@schrodinger’s cat: In boggling the mind observations, Dan Perkins is one step ahead, as usual.
gelfling545
Cain never really thought he’d be the nominee, so he’s not crazy, just a lot of other unflattering things.
Huntsman is crazy for thinking he might have a chance while not holding crazy positions. Maybe unrealistic is a better descriptor.
Gingrich is crazy in a lot of ways that don’t involve running for president but as for his candidacy, it’s just easier than honest work.
Paul – as mentioned above same thing over & over & expecting different results so moderately crazy.
Perry just knows what side his bread is buttered on & plays to the audience so degree of insanity hard to determine.
Santorum is pretty darn crazy & seems to exist entirely in the last century especially as regards religion but I think that the winner has to be Bachmann due to the fact that she seems to actually believe she is making sense on any level which is demonstrably untrue.
Hoodie
I’ve always thought Huntsman was the most profoundly crazy. He’s like the guy at the asylum who sits at the card table smoking a cigarette talking about how crazy everyone around him is, which is confirmed by the other inmates dancing around the room with imaginary rabbits and pissing in the flowerpots. Eventually you say, yeah, they’re obviously crazy, but why the fuck are you here, seeing as you’re not one of the attendants?
Caerhays
1.
I thought that Bachmann was nuts the first time I saw her. At the time I didn’t know who she was. After first coming to congress she was in a crowd with GW Bush, was dazzled by him, and rubbed herself up against him. She had the craziest expression I’ve ever seen on an adult (?) woman. A mindless, unseemly public display at an official function.
2.
Has anyone else noticed that in every. single. picture. of Perry, he looks like he’s straining in the bathroom. I mean, every. single. photo. See for yourself. That’s an expression I’ve never seen on any other adult (?) male.
The things that they say match their physical package.
PeakVT
@CaptainFwiffo: I don’t know about that. I think people are harder on men that really do have a screw loose. At the same time I think they’re harder on women who are sociopathic than men of the same sort. That’s why we see Bachmann and Palin on the national stage and not Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Fundies are not necessarily sane. In fact in my mind fundies/cultists sort of meet one the points of being insane. That is, unable to live in the world around them, thus having to create an alternate reality. That doesn’t mean they can not survive in spite of their substitute reality, it means they have to rationalize the parts of the real world around them and try to change everyone else’s reality. That’s insanity.
Gex
@J. Michael Neal: I didn’t pick up on that at all. That’s pretty funny. Obviously Bachmann is the closest to being the gay guy simply because she’s married to one.
dollared
@Hunter Gathers: I don’t find that crazy. You could privatize everything. You and I might see that as really stupid, but Ron Paul doesn’t. You and I might find the consequences of failure unacceptable, but Ron Paul doesn’t.
And he generally is not denialist about it. Bottom line, he just thinks the human life span in the US should be, on average, shorter and more miserable. He doesn’t try to hide that. He is, simply and unapologetically, Scrooge.
Compare that to Bachmann. She thinks she’s Joan of Arc. That’s batshit crazy.
Gex
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Metastasized fundamentalism.
birthmarker
Bachmann, because she’s been at it a long time. Really a true believer. (Read her Wiki entry.)
I thought the signing of the marriage pledge showed that she will jump on anything that contains a couple of buzzwords. The vaccine incident confirmed that.
moonmullins
@dollared: What about the Ron Paul that thinks the UN is going to force us all into an American Union and that the NAFTA superhighway is going to lead to concentration camps in the US and so we should use Gold as a medium of exchange and store of value even though its less stable than US currency because of its morally purifying properties? All Republicans want to privatize most or all public services whether they say it or not. Ron Paul has other beliefs that make him insane.
dollared
@moonmullins: Well, you got me there. But is that less crazy than Hillary’s support for the Iraq War, a manufacturing-free America, Wall Street deregulation and a doubling of the defense budget in peacetime?
Or better yet – please point me to anything Michelle Bachmann has said or done that makes sense…
Anne Laurie
@Gex:
Naaah. This guy?
IIRC, there was a post about him on the Esquire blog back in 2010 — which I may have linked here — and it’s pretty clear Karger is treating his campaign as an item on his personal bucket list. He gets an asterisk in the history books, he spends a year or so travelling around the country schmoozing with like-minded souls, and maybe he inspires one or two poor closeted souls among his Republicans to feel a little better about themselves. He’s just a variation on your grampa who retired after 45 years behind a desk, bought a second-hand RV, and proclaimed his intention of attending a nationally-sanctioned bowling event in every state of the continental US, or dropping his bass boat in every body of water ever highlighted on a sports-fishing cable show. Now, Buddy Roemer — that man has to be a little loopy, looking for Republican votes in this misfortunate era…
Ruckus
@Hoodie:
This
Appears sane, really isn’t.
Hunter Gathers
@dollared: You don’t think that the concept of someone from the government showing up at your house with a gun demanding tax dollars is fucking crazy? What fucking dimension are you from? How about this doozy from yesterday (via TPM):
________________________________________________________________
Nothing crazy about that statement. Nothing at all. He’s a fucking batshit crazy loon.
Death Panel Truck
@Hunter Gathers:
This.
Stoic
Aren’t Perry and Bachman former Democrats? Or should I say, former Democratic opportunists? Have all the traditional Republicans become “centrist” Democrats? And, Jane, how do I get off this crazy thing?!!
An inquiring mind wants to know.
moonmullins
@dollared: wuts a peacetime? Michelle Bachmann doesn’t understand them, but she generally tries to parrot popular right wing talking points and garbles them. Paul is so paranoid hes basically a militiaman terrorist who stumbled into congress.
Martin
@Ruckus:
No it’s not, because every human is guilty of that. We all have our alternate realities that serve as good enough approximations and shorthands to the real thing to keep us going. We all think our spouses and kids and parents are great, above average people, which is impossible. We all have our superstitions and magical thinking.
Common sense tells us the earth is flat. You don’t even question that when you drive your car. For every mile you drive you go ‘down’ 8 inches. If you’ve got a 30 mile commute to work, you end 20 feet below where you started in a cartesian plane. That just freaks people the fuck out though. It’s too hard to hold that reality in the front of your head and get through each day, and who cares? It’s not useful information. Just pretend the world is flat and get on with stuff. That’s really not much different than pretending that God is looking over you while you do something frightening.
The only difference with the fundies is that their alternate reality is codified in a book and strongly reinforced by the group. That might make it more pernicious because the rest of us keep running around reminding them that lots of people get through life without that particular alternate reality (thereby undermining its value), but we’re all living in our own mental video game and getting by more-or-less just fine. I’m not going to characterize them as insane simply because they’ve got better organizational skills than the atheists, etc.
birthmarker
The difference in Bachmann and Paul to me is that Paul has never been a serious contender. Mechelle had a bit of a heyday.
I wonder how the MSM would react if Bachmann were actually elected?
dollared
@Hunter Gathers: I hate to break this to you, but if you don’t pay your taxes, people with guns do come to your door, arrest you, and put you in jail. Ever hear of Leona Helmsley? Al Capone?
Again, Paul is logically consistent here. He thinks the power of the state to tax and imprison is the single largest infringement of individual liberty. Again, I disagree, but he is pointing out something that is factually true.
As for the executive orders, I said the same thing about Bush’s signing statements.
I think your best arguments for Paul insanity are the NAFTA Superhighway shit, and his clearly contrary to fact readings of the Constitution.
Anne Laurie
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Good point — Nancy Reagan was famous for this (even Ronny’s partisans said the adoring wide-eyed gaze was her best “acting” talent). And most political wives are weighed, by traditionalists, at how well they can backlight attention to their hubbies by directing this Gaze at him (again, Nancy was the top American performer of our lifetime, but Jackie Kennedy was notoriously gifted as well).
Bachmann’s problem (among many) may be that she’s mistaking the submissive I-look-adoringly-at-you gaze favored by traditional female spouses-of-winners for the My-steely-glare-dominates-your-ape-mind gaze of traditional male political winners.
schrodinger's cat
@Martin: Plus we only understand less than 5% of the Universe that we inhabit.
PhoenixRising
@birthmarker:
Pretty sure they’d react the same as the rest of us literate folks: A run on suitcases, and ancestry data potentially allowing entry to any other country.
trollhattan
O/T Ugh, Limbaugh goes full Malkin and attacks Sharon Bialek’s 13 YO son.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201111090004
Turgidson
@birthmarker:
They’d treat her as a very serious thinker, of course, and breathlessly blame the reflexively partisan Democrats for voting against or, gasp, filibustering whatever culture war lunacy her administration would demand they take up as legislation. Ditto Pres. Bachmann’s push to raise taxes on poor people to 80%, dropping them to negative 10% for millionaires, defunding…well, everything that isn’t in the Bible, and a preemptive war on Iran, except that she couldn’t find it on a map and we bombed Vienna instead. All the Democrats’ fault. Particularly Obama’s.
cckids
@trollhattan: Ron Paul gets my vote as well. You listen to him talking, and he seems intelligent, has a few positions that are thought-out, then WHAM! Out of left field comes–the gold standard–border fence is for keeping us IN–never ever ever go outside our country–AAAGGH nonsense that he completely goes for. And you realize just how nuts he is. The facade is impressive, though.
Canuckistani Tom
I think they’re all living in that grey area where crazy meets evil meets stupid.
Hoodie
@Martin: True to point, but you’re kind of slipping into a crude relativism. The reality of fundies is not codified in a book. Rather, the fundies are trying to conform their conception of reality to a book that has already been written, a book that is really fucking old and not very well grounded in their current circumstance. This problem is exacerbated by a culture that holds that the same book must be literally interpreted. The more prescriptive part of that book, the Old Testament, is pertinent to an agrarian society over 2000 years ago and/or to a bunch of 15th century monks’ interpretation thereof, and really doesn’t provide a very coherent framework for dealing with the 21st century. The new testament is more abstract and thus less limited, but you notice that it doesn’t provide much of a prescription for daily judgment on things like, what do you do about birth control pills or RU-486.
sublime33
Isn’t this question like asking which porn star has the loosest morals?
Amir Khalid
@Hoodie:
This might make Jon Huntsman the Republican presidential candidate most oblivious to his own craziness, but that’s not necessarily the same thing as him being the craziest.
For what it’s worth, wrong =/= crazy. Likewise, ignorant =/= crazy. So I doubt that any of this lot is actually, to use the psychiatric terminology, nuts. Part of their being wrong is that they’re all either terrified of Teabaggers, or themselves Teabaggers. I’d say the one who most resembles the popular idea of a crazy person is Michele Bachmann, and the one who most reminds me of Randle Patrick McMurphy is Herman Cain.
dollared
@Hoodie: This. Fundies are crazy. Period. Their numbers do not make them sane. More importantly, a real measure of their craziness is the fact that they are heretics even by the norms of Christianity – Catholic, Presbyterian, even Baptist. In the long history of the Catholic Church, they learned to look out for the Millenial Crazies, the people who quiver with the craving to be the Only Saved People When the Holocaust Arrives. The fundies are today’s version of those crazies, and it is their ego-driven desire to be The Only Pure Ones that defines both their group and their crazy.
Remember, 500 years after Galileo, you have to be a bit of a denier to be a deist. But even to strongly religious Christians the fundies are crazy. We should be clear to ourselves that they are nuts.
HyperIon
@dollared wrote:
Um, isn’t sociopathic another word for crazy?
Aren’t all sociopaths crazy?
dollared
@HyperIon: Not all. Some are CEOs, some are politicians, some are captains of the cheerleading team, some were hired for the Bush Justice Department, some are awaiting trial at the Hague, some are ministers.
birthmarker
@Turgidson: I think they might get to that point after a 7-10 day cooling off period. At first I think they would be stunned at what fresh hell they have brought down upon the nation through their neglect of duty. I envision them gaping into the camera like deer into headlights.
dollared
@Hoodie: And the fundies ignore the part where the New Testament says that the Old Testament no longer is the law.
boss bitch
Bachmann. She really believes what she says, even her own lies and she has imaginary conversations with Obama.
Hungry Joe
It’s kind of like “What’s the best band of all time?” Unless you eliminate the Beatles from contention, there’s nothing to talk about. In the case of Crazy, that would be Bachmann.
NOW we can have a discussion. Perry is just good-ol’-fashioned stupid, as in, STUPID, which sometimes presents as crazy. Same with Santorum; the guy is box-o’-rocks dumb, and it’s hard to get your mind around someone being so dim having gotten so far, so you fish around for another explanation, e.g., he’s nuts. Nah — just nutty as all get-out. Paul’s also nutty, but smarter and a little tetched, as we used to say way back when. Gingrich is a nasty, self-aggrandizing, poison toad, but mostly sane. Huntsman … I pass; don’t have a read. Cain’s just a con man. Which leaves Romney. The guy’s a true sociopath, and not even a very good one — he seems incapable of having an ordinary interaction with another human being. AND he put the dog on the roof of the car.
Conclusion: Romney. Certified batshit.
Ruckus
@Martin:
You are correct that we all live in a world that is defined by our experiences and perceptions. The difference is that our experiences allow us to live without trying to force the majority to live in ways that do not aline with the accepted reality.
I may not have put enough emphasis behind the part that they have to use whatever means they can find to force if necessary that you accept and live by their alternate reality. An example would be as you mention, religion. Billions of people believe in some form of religion, yet do not expect or demand everyone else to live by those beliefs. Fundies/cultists do. And that is what makes them, if you will, less than sane. They can not accept the reality that most people do. Yes, we are not in lockstep in what our reality is, but the differences are minor and we accept them. Insane people can not accept the world is not what most of us see/feel/hear but is only what they believe. Another point as an example, global warming. Science is pretty clear that it is happening, why it is happening, what we need to do about it. It is provable, repeatedly by pretty much any actual researching of the facts. And yet it is denied by people who don’t “believe it”. No amount of facts and proof will dissuade them. That is a level of insanity.
ruemara
No matter what you all have to say, there really is only one true lunatic sociopath. The Republican voter. I know this was covered at 7, but seriously, these are the candidates they’ve picked, the distilled essence-if you will-of true conservativeism. Delusional, sociopathic, psychopathic, paranoid, violent, it’s a mandatory list of characteristics.
A Ghost To Most
@moonmullins:
This. Paul is a virulent racist (see his mid-90s newsletters for details). Everything he believes and does seems to flow from his racism.
Bachmann is batshit-looney; Santorum is a sanctimonious scold, but otherwise an empty suit. Cain is selling books, the Newt is buying jewelry. Perry is W on oxy. Huntsman must be looking at 2016. Not even Mitt knows what Mitt believes; his pollsters will let him know before he speaks again.
4jkb4ia
@Hoodie:
That’s a very narrow definition of fundamentalist. Just because you may not believe in evolution does not mean that you think that the Bible has only one level.
TenguPhule
On the other hand, we’d have a lot fewer tax cheats this way.