"Outraged? I'm Barely Surprised"

Every now and again I like to imagine what a Republican candidate could say that would render them persona non grata amongst their fellows. Other than, y'know, agreeing with Obama or being mean to Israel, obviously.

If, like me, you'd been thinking that maybe arguing miscegenation would be much easier to stop if inclusion didn't mean white people kept meeting all those sexy black kids in school would be beyond the pail, then you lose! If you thought that claiming too many "free-thinking Jews" are deleterious to an optimal society would be too much, then you lose! If you thought demanding parents ensure their children know what the "appropriate ethnic boundaries" are when socialising or getting married, then it sucks to be you!

And if you think that arguing all three things simultaneously in the same 2001 article would surely sink someone's career for life, then you just haven't really been paying attention.

I wasn't particularly surprised to discover this guy has been endorsed by the statewide Republicans - and all the shock I did feel came from the fact the state in question is New York. The best possible spin on this I can think of is that maybe the state GOP was legally required to endorse him since he won the primary last time around - though that jibes with what I know about how these things generally work. Perhaps they're trying to keep quiet about all this. The NYSRP website literally doesn't mention Russell at all, other than his self-penned bio, but he's not the only candidate for which that is true. I'm not sure "Let's just accept that we have to endorse the foaming bigot and hope no-one notices" really lets anyone off the hook in any case.

You know what, though? Sooner or later you start to get inured to this sort of thing. Not the comments themselves, so much, but the fact they keep popping up but so many people seem to find them not worthy of comment. All I've had in my head since I read those three articles is a CJ press briefing:



I'm not saying the Republican Party is going around beating women to death, obviously. But it's pretty bad, it's getting worse, and I don't know how much longer we're supposed to pretend to be surprised by this stuff.

(PS: If all that is too heavy for you, try this West Wing spoof instead: "Toby" is absolutely brilliant).