Miss April (shown next to Assemblywoman Michele Fiore)
If Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann met at a convention in Vegas and hatched a plan to meld their political DNA into a terrifying and hilarious hybrid, you'd wind up with Michele Fiore, a Republican assemblywoman from Nevada who loves guns and crazy in equal amounts. Fiore had
reportedly been considering a bid for the open 3rd Congressional District, and late last week,
she filed a "statement of organization" with the FEC to prepare for a possible bid. However, would-be candidates often fail to follow through after submitting this sort of paperwork, and ace Silver State reporter Jon Ralston
is quite convinced that Fiore will "chicken out."
That would be both too bad and probably good news for Democrats at the same time. Fiore's the kind of candidate who makes the entire Republican Party look awful: She's on record wanting to castrate pimps and believes that cancer victims can "flush" tumors out of their bodies with the magic of baking soda. Most recently, unveiled a "pin-up" wall calendar that features a dozen photos of her prancing around with assault weapons. (It's not the first time that Fiore, a wannabe actress, has circulated racy pics of herself online.)
But while she'd make a great (i.e., disastrous) standard-bearer for the GOP, there are already too many lunatics running in this district, including well-known perennial candidate Danny Tarkanian and former conservative think-tank head Andy Matthews. Democrats really need Tark (who at least is good at raising money) to beat state Senate President Michael Roberson in the primary, but a Fiore entry would make that task much tougher. Roberson is the strong favorite to begin with, and Democratic recruiting here has come up double-zero so far, so a split in the nutbar vote is not what Team Blue needs.