Bradley Byrne, a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor of Alabama, has indignantly denied an attack ad’s assertion that he believes the theory of evolution.
Byrne replied:
As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God. As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school text books. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state.
And lest you think Republican insanity is limited to the South, consider the platform recently adopted overwhelmingly at the Maine Republican party convention. According to the Maine Politics blog:
The official platform for the Republican Party of Maine is now a mix of right-wing fringe policies, libertarian buzzwords and outright conspiracy theories.
The document calls for the elimination of the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve, demands an investigation of “collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth,” suggests the adoption of “Austrian Economics,” declares that “‘Freedom of Religion’ does not mean ‘freedom from religion'” (which I guess makes atheism illegal), insists that “healthcare is not a right,” calls for the abrogation of the “UN Treaty on Rights of the Child” and the “Law Of The Sea Treaty” and declares that we must resist “efforts to create a one world government.”
It also contains favorable mentions of both the Tea Party and Ron Paul. You can read the whole thing here (pdf).
And a Republican convention in Utah declined to renominate Senator Robert Bennett, one of the most conservative members of Congress– apparently due to his lack of ideological purity. He had the temerity to support President Bush’s 2008 bank bailout (as distasteful as it was, I’d hate to think what would have happened to the economy without it) and to work with a Democratic senator on a health care reform bill.
The GOP fruitcakes and ideological purists of today remind me of the Republicans when they nominated Barry Goldwater for president in 1964 or the Democrats when they nominated George McGovern in 1972. They should take heed, but probably won’t.
