On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Rex Duncan, a former member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. It wasn’t enough for us that Duncan was hard to the right on abortion rights, and gun rights, or that he supported strict Voter ID laws to combat the statistically non-existent problem of in-person voter fraud that bothered us. It wasn’t even the fact that Duncan sponsored bills to nullify federal law, whether it was the Affordable Care Act, or firearms laws. It wasn’t even that he voted to make English the official language of Oklahoma, and that given precedent, that’s patently unconstitutional. No, it was more of the fact that he was the sponsor of HJR 1056, Oklahoma’s attempt to place a ban upon Sharia Law or International Law in Courts that really struck us as being silly. Even more so when he accused the African-American judge who overturned it of “going out of her way to side with minorities and make up a reason for it”. Duncan left the Oklahoma state legislature in 2010 and has yet to make good on a promise to return to politics that we know of.
On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Glen Bradley, a former one-term member of the North Carolina House of Representatives who after cutting his teeth in North Carolina politics by working on the 2008 Ron Paul campaign for president (which will explain a lot of where Bradley got his ideas), got elected in (what else?) the Tea Party Wave of 2010, quickly becoming allies with CSGOPOTD alumni Larry Pittman, and the two frequently began to back the ideas of the other. Glen Bradley would come up with ideas like having North Carolina develop its own currency and co-sponsored North Carolina's attempt to nullify the Affordable Care Act. By September of 2011, Bradley was already getting a reputation for being "out there", like when he gave a speech warning that gay marriage will increase the divorce rate and perpetuate the cycle of poverty. In 2012, things got more interesting regarding Glen Bradley. He set himself up to run for the upper chamber, and his campaign website listed him as a "founding member of the Oath Keepers", and Stuart Rhodes, the leader of the anti-government group, came to Raleigh, North Carolina to meet with Bradley, publicly, to talk about his desire to nullify the National Defense Authorization Act. Bradley's increasing paranoia started to become a distraction to even the simplest legislation on the floor of the North Carolina House before much longer. In June 2012, a simple discussion over extending the local Food Advisory Council's mandate for another three years was enough to get Bradley to start rambling about the United Nations' Agenda 21 Treaty being behind the move, and that any talk of "sustainability" was actually coded talk to help "lull the public into complacency". Bradley's attempt to make the jump to the North Carolina State Senate saw him get crushed in the GOP Primary for that seat, finishing third with 13.8% of the vote. He since has also failed to get elected to the Vice-Chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, he has mercifully faded from relevance.
On this date in 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled John Bradford, a former two-term member of the Kansas House of Representatives from 2013-2017 after winning office in 2012 by less than 200 votes. For a term, Bradford was reasonably unassuming in that role. And then he got a bit of notoriety for having a less than politically-savvy response to an e-mail from a constituent who was upset that Kansas Republicans were going to pass a bill that might force the ride service Uber to leave Kansas, and her blind husband used it frequently. You see, Bradford decided to answer, simply, "I received your email. I don't need it, so I am sending it back to you." A few months later, John Bradford was speaking before a group of school students touring the state capitol, where, unprompted, he went on a rant against gays and lesbians, and lamenting the "gay disease". It was shortly after John Bradford lost his seat in the 2016 elections that he took solace in the fact that President Obama was leaving office, taking to Facebook to celebrate by sharing racist memes about it that managed to feature both a caricature of the president, and or whatever reason, some offensive jokes about Mexicans. That's especially sad, because Bradford once voted to punish a colleague who called them racist for voting for policies that were, y'know, racist. Considering that during his time in office, he voted to ban all D&E abortions, voted for "religious freedom" laws to allow for the discrimination of LGBTQ citizens, and once sponsored legislation to attempt to nullify federal firearm laws, we're rather tickled to learn that he is now out of office.
On this date in 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” first profiled the former U.S. Congressman from Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, Rod Blum, who was first elected in 2014 with only 51% of the vote, and in 2016, getting what might possibly be Blum’s high water mark when he got 53% against Democrat Monica Vernon. That seemed like it might be the best he would ever manage, because he’s in what’s decidedly swing-territory, and is currently catching hell from every direction from his constituents, whenever he’s tasked with actually facing them down in public. The two biggest gaffes from Rod Blum came in May of 2017, while many members of the GOP were turning tail and running from town halls, Blum was still trying to meet the voters from his district face to face, and suffice to say, he did not come off as a savvy veteran politician. The first came in a local news interview where Blum responded to a perfectly reasonable question about if he would accept donations from outside his district by flipping out, unhooking his mike, and storming away in front of a group of schoolchildren. Only days later, Blum hosted a town hall and his constituents had a lot of thoughts about the GOP’s attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And, this time, he cracked not under the pressure from one journalist, but a jeering, booing crowd. His performance was not much better, as he opted to draw the line at the way women can get an insurance plan that covers maternity leave. Quote: “Get rid of some of these crazy regulations that Obamacare puts in, such as a 62-year-old male having to have pregnancy insurance.” Now, Blum’s voting record was obviously along party lines, and he was thought as one of the most vulnerable members of the GOP House caucus in the 2018 elections including how in December of 2017, a poll of Iowa’s 1st showed that a generic Democrat would beat a generic Republican there by a whopping 18 points. Then, in March of 2018, the Des Moines Register published a story revealing that he failed to disclose he was the director of an internet company and that same company posts testimonials… from his own chief of staff. And worse yet, Blum’s firm, Tin Moon, was offering to change FDA warnings to obscure the dangers the products for sale might have for the public. Rod Blum left office under a cloud of ethics violations that make his return to Washington, D.C. any time soon highly unlikely. We will set aside his profile at this time and profile a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 846-40, since this was established in July 2014.)