About a week ago, a tea party activist who was just elected to the Michigan GOP central committee said that it would be cool if singer Kid Rock, a vocal Trump supporter, ran against Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. This was enough to generate plenty of “Kid Rock for Senate!” articles, even though there’s no word that either Kid Rock (real name Robert Ritchie) or more senior Republicans were at all thinking about this. But one other loudmouthed Trump-loving musician, Ted Nugent, actually is expressing interest in a Senate bid.
Nugent recently posted on Facebook that if the local GOP didn’t get its act together, “I will come charging in as the ultimate we the pissed off people Mr. Fix It constitutional fire breathing candidate from hell!" When asked if he was serious, Nugent said, "I'm always very interested in making my country and the great state of Michigan great again." Nugent is currently a Texas resident, but the “Motor City Madman” was born in Michigan.
Two years ago, the idea of Nugent, who has a long history of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, and Islamophobic comments, running for the Senate would seem like a stunt but … well, Donald Trump won Michigan, and he’s sitting in the White House now. But Trump’s victory in the Wolverine State was narrow, and if the GOP faces the usual midterm doldrums that the party in power usually faces, the 2018 electorate probably won’t be keen to back someone like Trump. It’s also very unlikely that Nugent, who called for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to “be tried for treason and hung,” will have any crossover support. But then again, Nugent making it to the Senate would only be, at most, the second-most sadly absurd thing to happen in American politics over the last few years.