From a story in today's Washington Post:
"Until a few weeks ago, Michael Anthony Peroutka belonged to the League of the South, an Alabama-based group that decries the presence in this country of 'hordes of non-white immigrants' and wants the South to secede from the union and return to its 'Anglo-Celtic' roots.
"He is also the Republican candidate for a seat on the Anne Arundel County Council, facing an inexperienced and little-known Democratic challenger and widely believed to have a good chance of winning the GOP-leaning 5th District on November 4."
Disturbing. And what are the lessons of Michael Peroutka's success?
1. That everywhere you turn in the Republican Party, there lurk racist, anti-Semitic, climate-change-and-evolution-denying misogynists at every level. Yes, this is a mere seat in county government. But it's a short leap from this guy to the likes of Steve King and Louie Gohmert.
2. That the silence of the national party establishment on candidates like this is deafening. While it's true that Maryland GOP candidates have disavowed this nut, where are the voices of the so-called Republican leaders a few miles away in DC? We know: They're still petrified of the party's whackjob-teabag base, and have decided to coddle rather than denounce them.
3. That Peroutka's nomination and expected victory stand in stark contrast to Rancid Pieface's "autopsy" — the much-ignored document that the GOP produced after its whupping in 2012. Its wish list of appealing to nonwhites, women and gays is, in light of the Peroutkas of the world, a farce.
4. That it's proof why everyone with the last name of Bush is comfortable endorsing teabag nutjob Paul LePage in Maine.
In light of all this, we cats would like to say something to Americans going to the polls in 10 days. If you're tempted to mark your ballot for candidates with an "R" next to their names, please remember: Unless you're a white guy with a Klan hood in the basement closet, or a zillion dollars in the bank, Republicans don't like you. Not one bit.
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