Yes, I know; we should stop calling them teabaggers or Tea Party candidates or whatever, and call them what they are: Republicans.
Which is kind of the point of this diary.
Back in 2008, when John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate, and we started to learn what a scary-ass blithering idiot she was, most Democrats were cheering at the choice, since it was bound to make it that much easier for Barack Obama to not only win, but win by a wide margin.
And yes, that's exactly what happened; the general consensus is that if McCain had picked, say, Tim Pawlenty or Mitt Romney instead, Obama still probably would have won, but by a much smaller amount.
HOWEVER, things could have just as easily gone another way. Consider this: Yes, 70 million people voted for Obama, but 60 MILLION STILL VOTED FOR McCAIN, even when it was clear that a) he had lost his marbles and b) his running mate wasn't qualified to work the checkout lane at K-mart, much less a nation of 300 million people.
Now, consider this frightening alternative scenario: A week or so before the 2008 election, what if something unfortunate had happened to Obama? I'm not necessarily talking about the unmentionable "A-word" here (although that was, and remains, a serious concern); it could have been something absurdly mundane like him slipping in the shower and cracking his head on the floor, or whatever. Freak accidents happen, and they don't care who they happen to.
So. As a result, several million Obama supporters who were excited by him and only him (no offense, Sen. Biden) don't bother getting out the vote, or voting themselves. Whammo: John McCain wins after all.
McCain, 72 and suffering from recurring cancer and numerous other medical ailments, is so stunned by the thought that he's actually now responsible for running the f*cking country, keels over from a heart attack between November and January.
Voila: Meet President Mooseburger.
Now, my point here isn't merely to beat up on Sarah Palin again. Yes, it was a farfetched scenario...but so was the fact that this nutjob moron was able to make it from runner-up beauty pageant contestant to Governor of Alaska to Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate all in the space of, what, 18 months??
The point is that while we're all cheering about how laughable GOP candidates like Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle are, at the end of the day, some of them could actually have a shot at winning in November. Ron Paul, for example.
And if that happens, in some ways it's even more frightening than having Bush/Cheney in the White House was. They may have been evil and incompetent, but they weren't (for the most part) quite simply insane, and while Bush may have been an idiot, Cheney and the rest of the gang were, for the most part, fairly intelligent people.
This time around we're looking at the prospect of a bunch of candidates who are, to varying degrees, evil, incompetent, stupid and batshit crazy.
And if enough of them manage to actually win? Welcome to the future.
In other words: Assume nothing, work as hard as hell to prevent this from happening, and GOTV, dammit!