Meet the Strangest Candidates of 2018

Whether or not a party has success in a particular election often depends on the individual candidate.  Picking the wrong candidate can often come as a death blow to a party seeking to maintain or take control of a particular political office.  The Republicans learned this the hard way when in 2012, when they picked a series of ultimately ineffective candidates who made major gaffes on the campaign trail cost them two easily winnable Senate seats.    

2018 has attracted quite an interesting cast of characters as well.  The candidates listed below have either a bizarre personal background, exhibited very strange behavior on the campaign trail or have starred in very controversial ads. 

Nathan Larson: One of the most important races this year will take place in Virginia’s 10^th Congressional District.  The district, currently represented by second-term Republican Barbara Comstock, has historically voted Republican, but it ended up supporting Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election.  While the political class likes to point to the large number of college-educated people who have migrated to Northern Virginia as the reason why this district has trended blue, that only tells part of the story. Loudoun County, located entirely in the 10^th District, has seen an explosion in the foreign-born population in the past couple of decades. 

Quite a few Democrats have lined up to take on Comstock, who has no relationship to the engineer of the Comstock Laws, which banned contraception.  The list of Democratic hopefuls does not include Jill McCabe, wife of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whom Attorney General Jeff Sessions dismissed earlier this year at the recommendation of the Inspector General at the Department of Justice.  Mrs. McCabe had tried to run for the State Senate in Virginia in 2015 and Hillary Clinton tried to help her, donating hundreds of thousands to her campaign as her husband investigated her for her mishandling of classified e-mails during her tenure as Secretary of State.    

An independent candidate, Nathan Larson, has also filed to run for Comstock’s seat despite the fact that he does not even live in the district.  Larson spent sixteen months in prison for threatening to kill former President Obama.  He has also announced his support for incest and pedophilia; expressing his desire to have sex with his young daughter.  Fortunately, the little girl lives in her maternal grandparents more than a thousand miles away in Colorado.  He also bragged about raping his late wife, who committed suicide. Larson had previously tried to run for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.  Not surprisingly, that did not go well.  Larson has received the necessary number of signatures to gain ballot access but he will not appear on tomorrow’s primary ballot; he will appear on the general election ballot.  

Even though Larson has no chance of winning the general election, he surely deserves a spot on the “Strangest Candidates of 2018” list. 

Dan Helmer: Speaking of Virginia’s 10^th District, one of the Democrats who hopes to take on Comstock, has released an ad that will hopefully have the unintended consequence of higher Republican turnout on Election Day should he manage to win the Primary tomorrow.  Narrating the ad, Helmer declares “After 9/11, the greatest threat to our democracy lived in a cave.  Today, he lives in the White House.”

Deputy White House Spokesman Raj Shah and Comstock quickly condemned the ad, with Shah describing it as “nothing short of reprehensible” and Comstock “outrageous and offensive thing to say, and beyond the pale.” 

Helmer had previously released an ad dubbed by Stephen Colbert, who most certainly wants Comstock to lose, as the “Worst Campaign Ad of the 2018 Midterms.”  The ad, intended to spoof the 1986 action movie “Top Gun,” features Helmer in a bar singing a parody of the song “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” titled “You’ve Lost That Centrist Feeling”, slamming Comstock for voting to defund Planned Parenthood and “right wing appealing.”  Colbert could not even bring himself to air the entire ad, arguing that Helmer’s off-key singing will lead to a Comstock victory in November.  

Unfortunately for him, Helmer’s gender puts him at a huge disadvantage. The left and the media, both hell-bent on destroying President Trump, would prefer it if a female candidate wins the Democratic Primary so they can continue touting the “pink wave” that they hope will accompany the “blue wave” that would sweep the Democrats into office.  Using the left’s own standards against them, running a male candidate who enjoys going too hard after Comstock will make them look misogynistic.  Helmer’s heart surely must have broken the second he found out that the Soros Fund Management had directed all of his money toward Alison Friedman, one of Helmer’s Democratic Primary opponents.  Only one candidate will emerge victorious in tomorrow’s primary, and Helmer hopes that his comparison of President Trump to Osama Bin Laden will help put him over the top.

 

Richard Madaleno: Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan finds himself one of the most popular governors in the country despite the fact that his state routinely winds up as one of the Democrats’ top five states in Presidential elections.  According to The Morning Consult, Hogan boasts a 68 percent approval rating in a state where nearly the same proportion of residents voted against President Trump.  In spite of his popularity, he has attracted quite a few Democratic challengers who hope to prevent Hogan from becoming the first Republican governor of Maryland elected to a second term in office in more than half a century.   

Before State Senator Richard Madaleno has a chance to face off against Hogan, he will first have to sail to the front of the pack in the very crowded Democratic primary.  He apparently thinks that playing the identity politics game will help him do that.  He released an ad that ends with him kissing his husband.  Keep in mind that most straight politicians would not even kiss their significant other during a campaign ad.  Madaleno apparently thought that his same-sex kiss would trigger President Trump.  While President Trump told Sean Hannity that he believes in traditional marriage, he has not made rolling back the politically correct Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision a top priority.  Then again, most Congressional Republicans have basically waved the white flag on the issue as well. 

Madaleno’s move smells of desperation. According to the average of seven polls compiled by Real Clear Politics, the State Senator finishes in a distant third behind the two frontrunners in the Democratic Primary; failing to crack 10 percent in any of the polls taken.  A poll from The University of Maryland and The Washington Post shows that Madaleno would lose to Hogan by 10 points in the general election.  The Primary will take place on June 26, at which time the success or failure of Madaleno’s identity politics ploy will materialize.

Dana Nessel: Speaking of identity politics, a candidate hoping to become Attorney General of Michigan played the gender card to the extreme.  In an ad released shortly after sexual misconduct allegations first surfaced against longtime Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Nessel asked “Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting?  Is it the candidate who doesn’t have a penis?  I’d say so.”  She then went on to mention how many people look at the roster of Democratic candidates for statewide office and ask “can we afford to have a female Governor, a female Attorney General, and a female Secretary of State?” She responded by asking “Can we afford not to?”

While you can probably trust a woman not to show you her penis in a professional setting (considering the fact that she doesn’t have one), that doesn’t mean a woman can’t act inappropriately at the workplace or completely ignore claims of sexual misconduct against members of their staff.  Andrea Ramsey, a Democratic candidate for Kansas’s 3^rd Congressional District, had to drop out of the race after a decade-old allegation of sexual harassment surfaced against her. Connecticut Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty also decided not to run for re-election after she failed to respond appropriately to abuse claims against an ex-staffer. While Nessel did pledge to not sexually harass her staff and did a brief run down of her history as an SJW lawyer, it’s clear she has concluded that dabbling in identity politics will help her capture the Democratic nomination for Michigan Attorney General.  The Primary will take place on August 7, when it will become perfectly clear whether or not her tactics paid off.  

Dennis Hof: In the only state with legal prostitution and brothels, brothel owner Dennis Hof has decided to run against incumbent State Assemblyman James Oscarson in the Republican Primary, which will take place tomorrow.  Hof, who owns half a dozen brothels including the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Moundhouse, has not surprisingly become an outspoken critic of proposed ballot measures that would ban brothels in certain Nevada counties. Hof enjoys the limelight much more than many of his fellow brothel owners across the state; starring in the HBO reality series “Cathouse” and authoring a book called “The Art of the Pimp.”     

Lee Whitnum: At a Connecticut gubernatorial debate, minor Democratic candidate Lee Whitnum caused quite a scene.  Whitnum did not receive an invitation to the debate but that did not stop her from showing up anyway.  The police actually had to drag Whitnum off the debate stage after she refused to leave.  Most of the Chief Elders in the State’s Democratic Party have rallied around Ned Lamont, who defeated incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman in the Democratic Primary back in 2006.  Lieberman successfully ran for re-election as an Independent before retiring in 2012.  Lamont or whoever ends up as the Democratic nominee will most definitely have to distance themselves from outgoing Governor Dan Malloy, who recently became the least popular governor in the United States.

While many may find campaign season stressful, this list of the strangest candidates of 2018 will hopefully provide some much needed comic relief as the high-stakes midterm elections continues to get closer.