Oh boy, the wingnut is strong in these folks. Dave Weigel reports that Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), (in)famous for his birther bill requiring documentation that a candidate for President was born in the U.S., has picked up four more co-sponsors, all Republicans (of course). They are:
John R. Carter (TX-31)
John Culberson (TX-07)
Randy Neugebauer (TX-19)
John Campbell (CA-48)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (VA-06) had already signed on last month. More after the fold….
Posey says those Congressmen came to him to co-sponsor the bill, that it wasn’t him begging them to do so. And then he launched into an invective against Rachel Maddow.
You may recall that [Stephen] Colbert used the “F” word to describe on national TV a relationship my grandmother, bless her heart, deceased grandmother, must have had with an alligator to come up with the likes of me. [Keith] Olbermann named me the Worst Person in the World and angry woman Rachel Maddow has just trashed me on every show, and asked me to come on her show. You know, I won’t do it cause she’s got a lousy, low rated show, and I don’t want to give her the ratings, quite frankly. I’d love to go on and debate her and set the record straight.
Just so y’all remember, here‘s what Colbert had to say about Bill Posey.
And when Posey got upset at Colbert for doing so, he just brought upon more pain to himself with Colbert’s response.
Now, most of these people sit in VERY Republican districts where you probably have a significant chunk of the population that actually believe Obama was not really born here. Per SSP’s presidential vote by CD, a whopping 72% of Neugebauer’s district voted for McCain, making it the 9th MOST Republican district in the country, in terms of the vote share Obama got. So forget about defeating Neugebauer at the polls with his co-sponsorship, he might gain support from his constituents for doing this. Sad, but true.
And Goodlatte (57%), Carter (58%), and Culberson (58%) also come from districts McCain easily won by double digits. But Bill Posey himself may be in for a world of hurt, and should be. McCain only beat Obama 51%-48% in Posey’s own FL-15 district. Posey himself won 53%-42% over underfunded Democrat Dr. Stephen Blythe, outspending him by over an 8:1 margin. With 48% of the district voting for Obama, I’m sure we could get enough of them upset at Posey for pulling this kind of shit to get them to the polls. (Anyone know if Blythe wants to run again, or if there’s another Democrat waiting in the wings?)
What’s more, out here in California, Obama narrowly won Campbell’s district, 49.47% to 48.72%. (Campbell himself easily won against Democrat Steve Young the last three elections.) Irvine City Councilwoman Beth Krom has announced she’s running against Campbell, as Young is moving over to try his hand at winning the state assembly seat.
Ridicule is well deserved for these Republicans, for now. But if we want to send a message, the best way would be kicking the vulnerable ones out of Congress at the ballot box in 2010. Wanna repudiate the birthers? Send Posey and Campbell packing next year.