By about halfway through this video, I kept watching just to see if this guy would have enough breath to finish his walk. (Here’s the site of his better-financed opponent, for South Dakota race watchers.) That video has nothing on the kinds of stuff posted at Pro Publica’s Tumblr site collecting odd political statements, outbursts and pictures. Here’s a sample:
rlrr
Maybe Joe Pitts will warn us about the Soviets and their allies in East Germany…
Schlemizel
HEY! Nothing wrong with the twits tweet, if this were 2002 or there abouts.
rlrr
Joe Pitts wants to send a letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail. Is he too late for the 4:30 autogyro?
Viva BrisVegas
I say put Arafat and Sharon back in charge of the peace process. Dead or comatose they’re still more likely to produce a result than what they have now.
Bulworth
I think I see Rep. Pitts now, standing on the House floor calling for an attack on Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Iraq has wmd’s, you know, and Saddam kills his own people. We’ll be liberators.
Dork
I bet if you posted this tweet on Redstate, 27% or so would agree with it wholeheartedly. Probably would be able to convince the SoS of AZ to open an investigation.
maya
Yeah, but there’s only ONE GOP approved statement to make about all that: Obummer thinks there’s 57 states. Har de har har har!!!
Punchy
OT:
Did you know when it comes to birthers, both sides do it!
This meme is approaching ridiculous levels.
Dave S.
I know Jeff Barth through his brother, who is a good friend of mine. He’s really smart and down to earth, and funny to boot. (“I’ve ridden ostriches, I’ve done a lot of stuff” kills me every time.) What you see in that video is the real deal (someone less comfortable in his own skin, and perhaps with better funding, would have edited out the labored breathing) and SD and the country could use him in the House.
Jeff Spender
I like the one from the head of PPP, who said, “The first thing you learn as a pollster is that people are stupid.”
Word.
Jeff Spender
@Punchy:
I saw that and literally went into a rage.
It’s a very poorly written article (perhaps on a 6th grade reading level), and it lacks any kind of historical context. They don’t mention that the political realignment of Democrats and Republicans…
You know what? Fuck it.
We live in a world where reality is dictated by what produces the juiciest gossip and is the easiest to read for people who are barely literate.
JimF
I like this add, if I was in SD I’d vote for him.
MikeJ
@Jeff Spender:
One of my favorite scenes from the West Wing:
Forum Transmitted Disease
As an American voter, I don’t need facts, I need statements that comport fully with my biases, delivered in an authoritative tone of voice. That voice needs to remind me of my dad. Gotta feel it in my gut, right next to my Egg McMuffin.
SatanicPanic
@Jeff Spender: It’s from the Yahoo contributor network, which appears to be their effort to outsource their opinion page . Those articles always suck.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
The best part of the ad is when he picks up the civilianized M-16, blasts off a couple of rounds in one direction, then the dead, rubber chicken falls to the ground behind him.
Of course the firebaggers would then think he’d be soft of gun control legislation and thus, not a pure enough Dem forgetting the fact that he’s running in SOUTH FUCKING DAKOTA!!
I always need to remind myself of that whenever I think of not voting for moderate Republican Claire McCaskill here in Misery come November.
fuzz
If you’re a glass half full kinda guy at least you could look at the fact that Pitts wants there to be a peace process at all. As far as I can tell the GOP line on the Palestinian issue is to basically let Israel do whatever it wants. Granted he wants people who are long dead or unconscious to take the lead (but really how much worse could they be than Abbas and Netanyahu), but it’s actually a more nuanced view than Mitt Romney or Rudy or Newt or any number of other GOPers with the exception of Ron Paul.
Snarki, child of Loki
Well, Pitts fits in well with the teatard mentality: a permanent vegitative state, if you discount the twitching and occasional high-pitched screams.
Roger Moore
@Punchy:
Do you really think that’s intended as a “both sides do it” thing or a “watch out Republicans, birtherism is a loser” thing? Because it sure looks more like a warning to the Republicans that they need to pick a better controversy to me.
cmorenc
I LOVE THIS ECCENTRIC AD! Jeff Barth’s won my vote for Congress, that is if he doesn’t keel over from a heart attack before he can take the oath of office. Um…one other problem, I’m not in his district or even his state, so guess I’m not much help to Jeff Barth after all.
When he shot the rifle talking about his military service, did you notice the yellow duckie falling “dead” out of the sky behind him? I thought the female mannequin was a nice art deco kind of touch.
Stuck in the Funhouse
This ain’t exactly a political oddity, from Politico wizards.. More like their usual swill.
Seems wingnuts and Politico are crying foul cause Obama smoking pot was not on the front page of the New Commie Times, where it should have been. Nevermind that it is old news, nor how the wingers howled when anyone mentioned George Bush coked up with the blow in his youth.
But what they are really pissed at is revelations exposed that the Romney’s are rich and Ann Romney rides horses. Twoof has a lamestream libtard bias, so it seems.
What evil bias, those pointy heads telling telling their readers the Romney’s are rich. The shame. But it does provide a looking glass into this election over disparity of wealth distribution in this country, after 30 years of trickle down economics from the wingers. And the revelation and visual aid incarnate, that republicans have nominated the poster boy for that chasm of economic injustice. Nobody forced them to be that stupid, but let’s talk about Obama the pothead kid, but not about Romney assaulting another kid in HS and cutting his hair by force. Nor that Ann Romney rides fancy horses. WATB morons.
And Imagine that, the gall, the press scaring up stories . The nerve of liberal bias, doing that, from newspapers and teevee, no less. Have they no shame? hahahaha,
Welcome To the Funhouse. Now excuse me, for to ride my Shetland pony in to town. Giddeeup.
chrome agnomen
the league of nations needs to look into this!
SiubhanDuinne
I think this is a terrific ad — it’s real, it’s witty, and I like Jeff Barth’s values. I think I’ll send him a little campaign contribution.
Villago Delenda Est
The people of South Dakota could do a lot worse than Jeff Barth. They could have Joe Pitts, for example.
JR
I watched the Barth ad just to see the part when he’d stare into the camera, toss a stone into a pond, and walk away.
feebog
Loved the Ad. Like some of you, I wondered if he was going to make the full 5 minutes without keeling over. Also, too, a shirt that did not emphasize the pot belly would be nice.
Marc McKenzie
@Jeff Spender:
I’m afraid to say it, Jeff….but you’re right on this one.
jehrler
@JR:
Wrong reference.
This is an amazing home made homage to the Johnny Walker single take ad you can find on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSIp76CvUI
El Cid
The “peace process” would be no more moribund if in the hands of the dead and the comatose, so, why not?
eric
@feebog: that was a shirt that did not emphasize it ;)
taylormattd
omg, that tweet is amazing.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Is the guy in the video on his way to take a dump?
Jager
I grew up in the northern portion of Dakota Territory and believe me, Barth looks exactly like a majority of men over 40 in that exotic locale. Hell, he looks like every guy I graduated from high school with looks today. Seems to me, he’d do better if his shirt had been one size smaller.
His message is on the money.
j
That was THE BEST political ad I have ever seen! I wonder how many times he had to pace off that walk in order to get all the props staged at exactly the right place? (The rubber chicken is always a nice touch.) And the David Bromberg soundtrack was awesome (Yankee’s Revenge”)
amorphous
@Schlemizel: Post haste!
Bostondreams
I really like this guy. Wish I could vote for him!
Raka
Perhaps Rep. Pitts is trying to argue that the only hope for peace between Israel and Palestine is for a zombie apocalypse to unite them against the horde.
Right of Return of the Living Dead?
Andree-Anne Desmedt
Ariel Sharon has been in a vegetative state in a hospital for years, and Arafat is long dead. Uh?
Mr. Pitts needs to brush up on his history.
j
@Andree-Anne Desmedt: To be fair, his office said that a staffer pulled an old response form letter out of a computer file and sent it out to a constituent as a reply to a question. It wasn’t until that citizen made it public that Rep. Pitts figured out that maybe someone should go through all the form letters and see how current they are.
So in other words, he and his staff are lazy.
opie jeanne
We own a little cabin in the mountains in Southern California, and we’re staying in it right now for a couple of weeks so we’ve noticed all of the political signs along the roads. This is the 59th Assembly District (the newly formed 33rd), and there are 8 candidates running as Republicans, one Democrat, and one Independent. The field is such a mess that the Republican Party won’t endorse any of the 8.
The Democrat is very well-qualified, and there is one Republican who is equally qualified and seems to be a decent choice as well. Both have substantial experience working with government agencies.
The incumbent’s, Tim Donnelly’s, background is dwarfed by theirs: he runs a small business and he doesn’t like paying taxes. He doesn’t like the new Rural Fire Tax for properties reliant on CalFire in case of wildfire, he wants a prisoner exchange with Mexico “to save money”. He lists himself as “Patriot, not a Politician” and as a founder of the Minuteman Party in California. He has no military background, but both the Republican and the Democrat I mentioned spent time in the military; I think that’s interesting.
There are also signs for Gregg Imus, running for California’s 8th Congressional District. His claim to qualifications are that he is a custom home builder and doesn’t like taxes or regulation. He managed Donnelly’s campaign in 2010. He co-founded the Minuteman Civil Defense Corp. of California with Donnelly, and the two names of the organization seem interchangeable. Both he and the incumbent assemblyman are Tea Partiers.
Imus’s slogan is “VICTORY OR DEATH!” which brings to mind some unpleasant imaginings, but Imus seems not to have served in the military either.
I like it here but sometimes I wonder about my neighbors.
Oh heck, I wonder about them all the time. CalTrans put in a much-needed signal on HWY 18 and the locals were so incensed that it’s probably the reason Donnelly managed to get elected.