It's not as easy as you think. The secret to getting a bona fide, right wing lying, bigoted nut to represent you in your Congressional District is: you have got to have a really, really shitty local newspapers.
I mean really shitty; so shitty you wouldn't wipe your ass with them. I'm sorry if this lead is a bit more "graphic" than what you're used to, but as disgusting as it may be, this article you're about to read is of ten times more value to you than anything produced by my local newspaper dailies.
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I live in the Sixth Congressional District of Minnesota. It was redistricted some years back in a way that favored Republican candidates. Much of it is still farms/agricultural--but it borders on the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area and includes bedroom communities that will go either Democrat or Republican these days.
We are represented by an up-and-coming conservative lunatic in Congress. I am talking about Rep. Michele Bachmann, Republican. She became my state senator back in 2000. Riding a wave of homophobic evangelical outrage, she led thousands to the state capitol in St. Paul for televised rallies against the very possibility of gay marriage in are state. By high profile exploitation of worst sort of pseudo-Christian bigotry, she leap-frogged from "unknown," over the heads of far senior GOP leaders, and landed on the GOP nomination for Congress in 2006.
And she won. Backed by a local James Dobson sponsored "get out the vote drive", incessant puffing by local "Christian" radio, and wing-nut anti-public school groups--she won, by a respectable margin. A freshman GOP congressman, elected to Congress in the year of the Dem tsunami.
How could this be, if she really is an out-and-out nut, as I claim she is?
Here is a candidate who claims that Jesus Christ himself sends her visions, telling her to run for office, who her future husband would be. Here is a candidate who tells outright lies about gay Americans; how they are trying to get America's children. Here is a candidate who would teach creationism in the public school science curriculum, who says that evolution is "just a theory," in a state famous for some of the best public school systems in the nation. Here is a candidate who composed a right wing extremist screed about how the federal government--run by Bush and the Republican Congress at the time--was plotting the overthrow of American representative government and the free enterprise system. And distributed it publicly! And signed it, as Minnesota State Senator.
She was a newcomer in the face of a national Democratic tide that was felt here in Minnesota. The Minnesota state legislature went "blue" the same year that Bachmann came into Congress. The political trend was against right wing extremists like Bachmann.
So how could she win? EASILY, if you've got big local dailies like ours.
Look at yesterday's front page from the Pioneer Press, the biggest local daily in St. Paul. The main reason that Bachmann wasn't drummed out of the Republican field as a NUT, from the "get-go" was news coverage like this:
Look at those stories. On top: Adrian Peterson of the Vikings sets a new all-time rushing record in the NFL. Well--that belongs on top, new NFL record, it's the Vikes, it's a family newspaper. We'll give them that one. But how about the rest of this "front page news?"
Look at the space they gave two guys who want to help to put a civil war cannon in front of the old courthouse in Stillwater, Minnesota. What--you don't give a shit about an old Civil War cannon in front the old courthouse in Stillwater, Minnesota? NEITHER DOES ANYONE! Neither does anyone in St. Paul, Minnesota. Neither do I! And I LIVE in Stillwater, Minnesota. But that's what the editors of the St. Paul newspaper go with.
Next "big story": a woman left some money to her church, but her family wants the money instead of the church. What is that doing on the front fucking page? Does it affect your life? Does it affect mine? It was revealed on Sunday that Fred Thompson's campaign adviser is a former cocaine dealer--"Oh, no, we're gonna go with the headline on the contested will out in Bumfucke, Minnesota; put the Thompson cocaine dealing thing on page three."
Last big headline: the Coen brothers are working on a new film, some of which will be filmed in Minnesota. ("Like "Fargo!" Stop the fuckin' presses! Remake the front page! The story about Musharraf making himself dictator of Pakistan, clamping down on the press and arresting his opposition--take it out! Screw that item about the Turkish army crossing the border into Iraq, move it back! Elections coming up for the local Minnesota school levies? What, they're tomorrow? Shoot. Put that one down at the bottom, next to the blurb about teenage girls joining the new Jesus group. Too bad, it's less space for the civil war cannon story. And oh, yeah, here's a story about how Iran is years away from having a nuclear weapon, so a pre-emptive strike isn't necessary--put that at the bottom of the page, nobody gives a shit about that. Use the same type size we use for fortune cookies. The story about the two guys who want the civil war cannon on the old courthouse lawn somewhere out in the sticks--*that's* where we want the news emphasis.")
News coverage like that, ladies and gentlemen, on a regular basis--year after year: that's how I got a stealth evangelical bigot (who thinks we have to keep the nuclear option "on the table" in our dealings with Iran) representing ME in Congress.