One of the most entertaining races in the entire country this cycle has to be the Klein-West battle in Florida's 22nd. The fun is provided almost entirely by over-the-top Allen West, the manifestation of machismo and everything the pistol-hugging wingnut fringe wants a Congressman to be. West is one of the best fundraisers in the country, drawing money from wackos in every corner of the country.
He is a man with no mental filter. Rather, he speaks from his gut, the same gut that encouraged him to fire bullets off near an Iraqi police officer's head when he suspected collaboration with the enemy. And increasingly, he speaks only with those whose guts shout the same zany things that he does.
Read this interview with
Renew America by conservative writer Joe Simpson. In it, West ups the looney-tunes quotient by tying every issue under the sun to some socialist-terrorist plot. And you thought the Reds and the Islamic extremists didn't get along. My favorite part is where he suggests Mexican immigrants are secretly Muslim terrorists. From the interview:
---
The number one language being learned by terrorists right now is Spanish, and we are finding prayer rugs and translation books all along the border.
---
But there are far more important parts of this interview, most notably the place in which West promises criminal investigation of the White House. What for, you may ask? But that presumes you believe it as anything less than criminal for leaders to implement policies with which you disagree. Apparently, West does not feel the same way. When asked what would warrant a criminal investigation, here is West's reply:
---
There is so much. We have seen stimulus monies earmarked for blue states, TARP monies showing up in foreign bank accounts, the administration providing taxpayer dollars to support a Soros-owned oil exploration company drilling off the Brazilian coast while Obama shuts down drilling in the Gulf... it boggles the mind.
I would support investigations into the many unconstitutional Czars this administration has appointed aimed at revealing the kinds of activities they have engaged in. I would support investigations into this administration's interactions with Wall Street cronies, unions, ACORN and the SEIU.
---
Of course, West wants his supporters to know he is crazy. So are they. He just doesn't want anyone else to figure it out, and thus has stopped speaking with anybody who is not Fruit Loops. When you read the full interview with Simpson, the writer makes clear he is a card-carrying member of the bonkers right. That's fine, of course. Simpson isn't running for Congress, and I appreciate what he does for everybody by putting the words of politicians in full public view for broad scrutiny.
But West now will only talk with people like Simpson, writers who believe "this administration is engaged in a war with the American people." When David Weigel at
Slate sought to write up a piece on this race, he learned West has stopped returning calls. Klein would speak to him, but West was AWOL. Now, West may not like Weigel's slant on things, of course, but he is also directing sheer vitriol at the mainstream reporters covering this race.
After the Palm Beast Post
endorsed his Republican primary opponent, something obviously done more to protest West's extremism than to boost David Brady's tiny standing in polls, he told writers at the Post-run
Post on Politics that he had "every intention of making the Palm Beach Post pay" for the insult.
More widely known, West in late August went after a tracker for filming his speeches, something West likened to "
Gestapo-type intimidation." That attack has created some consequence in a heavily-Jewish district, especially since the tracker was the grandson of Holocaust survivors. But my problem isn't with the ethnically-tinged hyperbole, which is standard West fare at this point. It is that West lives and dies by his Internet stardom.
That tracker was gonna put words from a speech on YouTube. Indeed, that is where they ended up.
But maybe that's not fair. That link is to a campaign YouTube channel. It isn't like
5,230 other YouTube clips, mostly by third-parties swiping video from speeches or Fox News appearances, aren't already online. And it isn't like the man's entire political career isn't based entirely on tea party activists sending these clips to friends around the country and encouraging them to chip money into West's coffers.
Except it is. West is a financially successful candidate because his hateful rhetoric plays well as long as fervent right-wingers are the only ones who hear it. Unfortunately, wackos in Oregon don't vote in Florida. West needs to win over old Jewish grandmas to win a seat in Congress.
That's not going to happen. Not as long as the mild-mannered voters in Ron Klein's district get to hear what Wild West has to say whenever his belly breathes fire in front of a camera, whomever might be filming.
