QOTD — Who Was the Worst Candidate of 2012?
Chris Cilizza of WaPo put together his list and awarded the Worst Candidate in the World (actually, they call it the Fixy) to one of the GOP’s professional whakos — Rick Perry.
Remember back to the late summer of 2011. Perry entered the race with what looked like a straight path to frontrunner status. He was a conservative’s conservative with a proven record of doing what he said in Texas. He was a fundraising powerhouse. He had a charisma that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney lacked. It was all there for the taking.
Until, it became clear that the idea of Rick Perry running for president was very different than the reality of Rick Perry running for president. While Perry began strong with a much-touted appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, that single event wound up being the best moment of a campaign whose trajectory was almost entirely downward.
Perry *was* pretty bad, but for my money the worst of them was Herman Cain. A chief executive of one of the worst pizza companies on the planet whose appeal to the wingnuts he was courting was that he could sing gospel music and he was a black man repeating conservative gospel. Gospel nicely represented by that 999 plan — not tethered to either reality or math, it was hugely popular among the GOP base without a good acquaintance with either. Never mind that the man didn’t know a thing about governing, foreign affairs, laws, the Constitution. For a hot minute, the GOP thought they found their blackface to save them.
So what do you think? Who was the Worst Candidate in the World in 2012? Be sure to tell us why in the comments.
Tags: Qotd
That Cain, Perry, Gingrich and Bachmann were actually considered viable candidates is an indictment of the Republican Party.
Tim Pawlenty was the Fred Thompson of the cycle. Everyone thought he was a contender, then nothing happened… NOTHING. At least the kooks are entertaining.
I’m only going with Delaware.
This is no contest: Alex Pires.
He really didn’t need to spend all that money to let everyone in on the secret that he’s an asshole.
But he did.
Eric Bodenweiser
Check and mate. Eric Bodenweiser cannot be bested as the worst candidate.
Favorite story of the election season. While driving to a UD football game we came up on Alex Pires and some volunteers holding signs and waving.
Mr. V (who doesn’t follow local politics that closely): “Who’s that crazy homeless looking guy?”
On the other hand, if Pires stood next to Tom Carper she could say “Who are those crazy homeless looking guys? ” I’m pretty sure I saw Carper in Ken Burns’s Dust Bowl documentary the other night.
What about Karen Weldin Stewart? Let’s not pretend she’s legitimate now as she’d like everyone to believe.
Even though she’s slightly better looking than Pires, she’s still all empty-headed form and no substance whatsoever. Lucky for us we get to put up with her for another for years if she doesn’t get put behind bars before that. Thanks for nothing, Harris McDowell and Messrs. Gallagher and Spivack!
I was going to suggest KWS, but she won. So you can’t really say that she was the worst candidate. She might be the worst Insurance Commissioner ever, but that is a different discussion.
Just because she won doesn’t mean that she wasn’t a bad candidate.
Why is the troll from Florida still pretending she’s a Delawarean….much less a member of the Delaware bar?
And we have to tell you that you are on the wrong blog to be calling anyone a troll, right?
I know it is kind of an easy one, but why not Mitt? Conventional wisdom (and historical models) showed a very vulnerable president Obama. All Romney had to do was NOT SUCK and boy did he mess that up. He failed to see that his base would have voted for him regardless, he failed to understand that everything you say is recorded, he failed to build a ground-game, he failed come off (who knows if he even tried) as anything other than an aloof ass-hat. One could argue that at least Cain, Perry, Bachmann…. even Gingrich in a weird mental-ju-jitzu kind of way… were at least genuine to their own horrible ideology…. but MItt…. his campaign even admitted they planned on “shaking the etch-a-sketch” and changing all their positions. He is the worst.
Also…. why not pile on the loser…. He’s got a lifetime lack of humility to make up for, and I’ve got gumment provided gifts to spend.
Watch out Nancy you might get indicted as a co-conspirator. WTF are you talking about anyway with this constant “troll” crap of yours.
Go easy on Nancy. Now that Paul Clark is out of office she’s sort of at loose ends. Trying to defend Stewart and Gordon is all she has left.
Fuck you, Geezer. 🙂 Try reading my blog for once if you think I have nothing going on and nothing else to do. Why don’t you try speaking to me that way when I phone in to your radio show? Rhetorical question because you know you are too much of a chicken shit to do that….go ahead, be as big mouthed a-hole to me on the air as you are here under your anony handle.
The troll isn’t anyone you should particularly be supporting. She is hopefully soon to get her very public comeuppance in a Delaware court of law. We’ll see. If it happens, and I hope it does, Cassandra will choke on some of her spittle as well.
And of course we have Nancy nursing her usual revenge fantasies. If you got something, then bring it. If not, STFU.
Grow some thicker skin, girl. You have plenty of crap to dump on everyone else while you’re palling around with the two best examples of lousy government in the state.
I don’t know what else you’re doing, but you have plenty of time to spread your BS about KWS and Tom Gordon on here, so you can’t be that busy.
Your obsession with how I act outside the blog shows how weak your arguments are. You’re just dying to pull a Gordon and trash me personally, because you can’t defend the craphounds you champion.
The feeling in your first sentence is mutual.
Well, I just called Geezy at work and he told me not to call him on the air anymore…since I can’t take the heat.
That I and my ‘friends’ were responsible for him not being able to use his real name on this blog and that I was responsible for the destruction of Common Cause. All stupid lies as far as my having a part in any of that. And then he hung up on me. Nice.
WOW. Two sides to every story doesn’t make one of them right.
i would LOVE to hear these exchanges on the radio. Much better than the crap i hear on Sirius XM Patriot. poppcorn worthy.
I also didnt know geezer had a radio show.
It is not mine to bring, unfortunately, Cassandra. This is part of my lobbying for the person who can to go ahead and spend the money and take troll lady on in. Shutting up now.
I said if you don’t like the way I treat you, don’t call. It’s pretty odd that you want me to rip you, but if that’s what you want, just try floating the BS with me elsewhere the way you sling it here.
I’m not the issue. Karen Welding Stewart and Tom Gordon are the issues. You like them. That’s something you’ll have to live with.
And I remember you and Liz destroying Common Cause. Pretend it’s not true all you want. Just because you fell out with her afterwards doesn’t mean you weren’t in league with her at the time.
By the way, I hung up on you as I would hang up on any abusive caller.
I like em too, no trouble living with it;). Geez you at least give reasons. On the other hand surviving a primary against a vindictive charlatan, rudder guy in the world and one person that debated issues followed up by getting the same 60% plus that the rest of the ticket achieved does not a bad candidate make. Though I give her R opponent props for running as an evangelical iin Sussex and an Obama Dem in Wilmington;) as to your show I can say this 93.3 😉
Cassandra, when are you going to finally ditch Nancy? You’re always threatening but you never follow through even though she keeps giving you more reasons every time she shows up here. Her vulgar attitude is as bad for this blog as the trash she’s championing is for Delaware.
And while you’re at it, ditch equally disgusting and deluded JPConnor, too. I can’t believe these cretins are even allowed out in public.
@JP: Got to agree that she’s not a bad candidate. She has won twice now. My main objection is that she didn’t put up much of a fight when BC/BS came up with its latest privatization plan.
Did you mean “rudest” guy in the world? I thought he was more the angriest guy, and I couldn’t figure out who or what he was running for or against.
I wouldn’t expect you to have a problem with the folks I named, because you have not spent the better part of the last decade arguing for good government. Nancy has. It’s a perfectly legitimate argument that Tom Gordon is a highly skilled administrator and will run the county better than anyone else could. It’s quite another argument to pretend that he ran the county any differently than Paul Clark did when it came to rewarding friends and punishing enemies, or that he’s shown any sign of recognizing the error of his former ways.
@Geezer: No, KWS is not a bad candidate, just a bad IC. She does campaign well with anyone who digs her smarmy “charm”. That’s all she knows how to do. She won the first time because she made herself a figment of her own imagination and looked like a good choice. She rode in on Obama’s coat tails in 2008 and again in 2012, both times with straight ticket voting by people who neither know nor care what an IC is or does. So JP crowing about her winning with 60% being some kind of achievement is hardly accurate. The 32% she got in the primary despite the fact McDowell rigged it for her is more reflective of her appeal to voters, i.e. barely existent and lousy for an incumbent. But in her mind it’s a “mandate”. Right. I doubt she even knows what the word means.
Angry fits, auto correct gets me all the time. We disagree on BCBS, I genuinely like both Tom and Karen as human beings which puts me well into pariah territory here. NW and me3 can fight their own battles both have excoriated me and I really don’t give a rats ass what either of them think. BTW it’s not that I don’t like talk radio I just like rock and roll better.
what station is geezer on? c’mon oyu tell me your radio show, i’ll tell ya mine.
I don’t know Karen, but Tom can certainly be a charming, charismatic guy. I haven’t talked to him in several years now, and I hope that he and his family have gotten past all the tragedy in their lives — and you know as well as I that the court case isn’t even in the top 3.
Some people tell me he’s better now that he’s away from former bad influences, but I know too many undeserving targets of Gordonbery to join the praise about him being a great guy just yet. Like most in his line of work (or at least most who are good at) he’s a great guy provided you don’t have something he wants and you don’t cross him.
@SB: For legal reasons I can say nothing online about my offline work, which means I can neither confirm nor deny anything. Ask El Som about it.
wait seriously? all the “vote against Gordon no matter what” bluster evaporated that quickly? The guy doesnt deserve public office. Im sure lots of crooked politicians are capable of making people think they are nice guys.
I guess all eventually bend the knee.
Speaking of radio. I often enjoy listening to WDEL in the mornings around 9 AM. They have a decent programming at that time.
Yeah, I’d say superlative programming. And even better than that when I’m on…
Worst Candidate: How about Lincoln Willis! This guy thought he could win a re-election and started harping about that he wanted to run for a state-wide office for the GOP. Last time I checked, you worry about your seat before seeking higher office. Thank you Trey Paradee for ended that discussion. Well deserved too for Paradee’s win!
Eric Bodenweiser: The GOP dropped the ball in not doing their homework on background checks on their candidates. According to sources the Delaware Attorney General’s office (along few other law enforcement agencies) are going to make a big example out this guy. The best is yet to come for Bodenweiser and stay tuned the news media is going to probably turn this story into a big event.
Meetoo- Last time, I checked Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart won her election with a 61.1 % (according to the Department of Elections results). A bad candidate does not win by that margin. Not mention winning New Castle County and Kent County voters and lost by narrow 1,000 votes in Sussex County. Here is a little food for thought Lt. Governor Matt Denn lost in Sussex County too (around by a margin of 2,000 votes to Sher Valenzuela). Lt. Governor Matt Denn won almost exactly the same RDs and lost the same RDs as Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart.
http://elections.delaware.gov/results/html/stwoff_kns.shtml
So if you are saying KWS is a bad candidate, then you must not like Matt Denn either. That’s the front runner for Governor in 2016. Words to the wise, be thankful for the Democrats won on Election Day in Delaware. Enjoy your Thanksgiving Holiday! : )
SED, nice crunching…. my point is love her or hate her she is a Winner:)
KWS AGAIN in ’16 just to piss you all off!
That’s a good reason to run. Better in many respects to her current motivation: to serve as a lap dog to the insurance industry.
for all you politicos – have a Happy Thanksgiving
“all the “vote against Gordon no matter what” bluster evaporated that quickly?”
I never said vote against him no matter what. I’ve always said he’s capable of being a nice guy, and that he was probably the best CE in the relatively short history of the office.
I don’t trust him because in the past he put up no boundary between his official business and his personal life, and I see no sign that he understands what he did wrong. Other people’s mileage obviously varies.
Jason the facts do not support your assertion but don’t let that get in the way of self righteous hate:)