THE GOP IS STUCK WITHOUT CREDIBLE CANDIDATES-- RESORTS TO RUNNING CERTIFIABLY INSANE PEOPLE IN MONTANA & NEW JERSEY

Max Baucus, DLC

Earlier today, we pointed to South Dakota as a red state the Republicans are giving up on for the 2008 Senate race, leaving Tim Johnson, once considered to be vulnerable, without a credible opponent. They're not even running candidates in Arkansas against any of the congressional incumbents (a senator and 3 House members). And in New York, anyone with enough of their own money to self-finance gets the GOP slot. They have all third and fourth tier candidates in districts they were bragging they planned on "taking back" just a few months ago.

But few of their loser candidates are as weird as Shay Garnett one of the half dozen or so Republicans seeking to challenge Max Baucus in Montana. The 34 year old truck driver decided to enter the race because he just hates Baucus. Baucus is a DLC shill and I'm no fan either-- but Garnett has a whole other perspective. He mailed in his $1,693 candidate fee on Saturday.

“It seems like every time (Baucus) opens his mouth, he just really rubs me the wrong way,” said Shay Joshua Garnett, who’s never run for political office. “In our system, we can either accept other people’s candidates or provide our own.

“I guess this is my version of providing my own candidate.”

Garnett said he doesn’t plan to raise campaign funds or do much campaigning, beyond giving a few media interviews and showing up where he’s invited to speak.

“If there is no demand (for my campaign), I won’t do anything,” he said n although Garnett does have a 14-point list of principles he says are signs of an effective leader and someone who can provide “lasting, positive results in the world.”

The list includes items such as “giving energy to the needs of others’ lives” and “having no privacy n every action scrutinized.”

Neither the state GOP nor the Inside the Beltway Republican Establishment was able to recruit a serious challenger and the others who are running-- Kirk Bushman, a facility designer from Billings; Butte attorney Bob Kelleher; state Rep. Michael Lange of Billings, a refinery worker and pipefitter; St. Regis truck driver and rancher Anton Pearson; and Patty Lovaas of Missoula, a certified political accountant-- are all considered hopeless; no one thinks Baucus, who is a huge corporate whore and has taken in over $9 million in legalized bribes for the race, has much to worry about. And there is no populist Democrat challenging him in the primary either.

The Republicans fared no better in trying to find someone to run against Frank Lautenberg in New Jersey. Everyone they approached begged off and them someone remembered they had a far right dentist and he agreed. Currently, Joey Pennacchio, the dentist, is in a heated battle with the Libertarian candidate, Murray Sabrin. 17 years ago the dentist was running fro some other position and he proposed rounding up the homeless and warehousing them on military bases. Yesterday, the Libertarian "branded that an 'un-American' plan to 'round up' people and demanded that Pennacchio, now a state senator, abandon his bid for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination they both are seeking." The dentist called the Libertarian "a fringe candidate." Today's Newark Star-Ledger seems bemused by the ravings and ranting by the two crazies running for the honor of being buried by Lautenberg.

Thus did the rhetoric ratchet up in the race to determine which Republican will run against Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) in the fall.

Sabrin called a news conference on the steps of the Statehouse in Trenton to distribute a 94-page manifesto that Pennacchio had sent in 1991 to Garabed "Chuck" Haytaian, a Warren County Republican who was then the Assembly Minority Leader.

"I find some very disturbing, hurtful and repugnant ideas," Sabrin said. He cited a proposal for "solving the homeless problem" that included this passage:

"Taking these people and separating them into various military camps would be a first step in the mainstreaming of our homeless back into society. These camps should never be considered a permanent solution to our homeless problems."

It went on to say those who are homeless because of economic problems should be separated from those who need counseling for alcoholism or drug dependency.

"It makes me very nervous," said Sabrin, whose parents survived the Holocaust. He likened the proposal to the segregation of Japanese-Americans in camps during World War II, an act for which the U.S. government later apologized.

"For anyone to round up a group of people and put them in military camps, I find repugnant," Sabrin said. "I'm asking Sen. Pennacchio to drop out of the race and resign his Senate seat."

The dentist was filling a molar and couldn't do an interview but he did say that the homeless "could come and go as they please" and that "no child should ever go without a warm bed." Hopefully he isn't Mark Foley's dentist.

But, speaking about "fringe candidates," the dentist knows more about that than most. His 94-page treatise, The Nationalist Agenda lambasted both the GOP and the Democrats and was a whacky blueprint for some crazy right wing third party, the Nationalist Party.


UPDATE: DID YOU KNOW THEY HAVE KOOKS IN IDAHO TOO?

Nick Langewis reports that one of the wingnuts seeking to replace disgraced toilet trawler Larry Craig has changed his name-- legally-- to "Pro-Life"-- from his old name, Marvin Pro-Life Richardson, which was apparently too confusing for his supporters.