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10 Wingnuttiest Governors

A forwarder of sleazy emails, a co-sponsor of the Birther Bill, the woman who signed Arizona’s immigration measure into law—John Avlon, author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America ranks the candidates highest on our Wingnuts Index.

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Ed Andrieski / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 90

He's called President Obama "...the greatest threat to the United States today, the greatest threat to our liberty, the greatest threat to the Constitution of the United States, the greatest threat to our way of life; everything we believe in"—and called for his impeachment. He's called Miami "a third-world country," called Justice Sotomayor "racist," and called La Raza "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses." He's called for a civic literacy text for voting and voted against the Voting Rights Act in Congress. He supports a federal amendment to the Constitution to ban gay marriage and looks to the overturning of Roe v. Wade as "the greatest day in this country's history." And he's called for "taking out" Mecca or Medina in the event of a terrorist attack, spurring the Bush administration's State Department to call his comments "just absolutely crazy." And I haven't even gotten to immigration, where Tancredo has established himself as the foremost far-right anti-illegal immigrant activist/demagogue who has recently served in the U.S. Congress. Presumably these positions are assets for his supporters, but if Tom Tancredo were to be elected governor of Colorado, it would be a disaster for the great state.

Ed Andrieski / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 75

One day we'll look back on the Howard Beale-inspired candidacy of Carl Paladino with wonder and ask ourselves how such a car-crash of a candidate won the nomination of the once-proud New York State GOP. Paladino's Tea Party-inspired quest for office suffered a steady stream of self-inflicted scandals and distractions. It began with barrage of sleazy emails sent by Paladino before the campaign—they managed to offend large swaths of New York State's population—women, African Americans, Obama supporters, and horses. The Buffalo News discovered that this self-styled scourge of big government is one of its biggest beneficiaries: He is the state government's largest landlord in Western New York. Paladino is slated to earn $10.1 million from 37 government leases this year, and he holds $85.3 million in state contracts, causing columnist Rod Watson to call Paladino "the biggest proponent of government involvement in the private economy since Karl Marx." Then he threatened to "take out" New York Post reporter Fred Dicker in a screaming match in Albany. Then he told a Brooklyn synagogue that he didn't want children "brainwashed into thinking homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option—it isn't." And sometime after that, amid a collapse in the polls, New Yorkers stopped caring and started to ask why this happened to the Empire State.

Kathy Kmonicek / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 60

This far-left former Black Panther New York City Council member is running for governor on a third-party ticket. He's not a serious candidate in terms of winning, but he is a serious Wingnut, summarizing the stereotypes of the extreme left. He does not salute the American flag and considers the Pledge of Allegiance a "lie." He supports slave reparations, non-citizen voting, and amnesty for all illegal immigrants. He's argued for the release of convicted cop killers from prison. He's feted Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe at City Hall and declared Hugo Chavez a "humanitarian." In July 2009, he and 9/11 Truther Cynthia McKinney joined MP George Galloway in a "Viva Palestina" flotilla. During a rally for slave reparations, Barron exclaimed, "I want to go up to the closest white person and say, 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health."

Kathy Kmonicek / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating 50

Dan Maes symbolized the success of the Tea Party-backed insurgent candidates against the GOP establishment until the wheels suddenly came off his candidacy. Neither the Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck or the state party chairman support his candidacy, citing lack of confidence in his abilities. One early tell was Maes' conspiracy theory-laden opposition to Denver's membership in the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. Maes stated that the local bike initiative "is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty." A campaign aide was less than helpful when he told The Associated Press "that Maes was trying to say that the biking initiative is a 'gateway program' being pushed by ECLEI on cities that eventually lead to extreme measures, such as the promotion of abortions and population control." Maes has also come under criticism for exaggerating his claims to have worked undercover in Kansas law enforcement.

Ed Andrieski / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 50

Georgia looks like it is about to elect the subject of a congressional ethics investigation and a "birther" as governor. In Congress, Nathan Deal was a co-sponsor of the Birther Bill and supported ending "birth-right citizenship." This year, the Board of Congressional Ethics found, by a vote of 6-0, that Rep. Deal had violated House Rules and Standards of Conduct. At issue was a Georgia corporation named Recovery Services and co-owned by Deal that did inspections on salvaged vehicles for the state, making $1.4 million a year on a no-bid contract, of which Deal was pocketing an undisclosed $75,000 salary as well as at least an equal amount in dividends. According to the official report, he "sought to preserve a state vehicle inspection program that had generated significant personal benefit for him and a business partner." Worse, Deal brought his congressional chief of staff to meetings over the keeping the contract and allegedly got the lieutenant governor to weigh in. Deal was crafty enough to avoid further congressional discipline over the affair by resigning his seat in order to run for governor, but seeking to preserve a government contract for the purpose of one's own enrichment would seem to violate every principle that falls under the Tea Party's "low-tax, small government" umbrella.

John Bazemore / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 45

The man who looks like he will become the longest-serving governor in Texas history tacked hard right to stop a primary challenge from comparatively centrist Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. In the process, he invoked the specter of secession at a Tea Party rally, saying: "There's a lot of different scenarios... We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that? Texas is a very unique place… When we came to the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that." Perry has supported the teaching of creationism and "intelligent design" in Texas schools alongside evolution, and he opposed the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down Texas' anti-sodomy laws. In April, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named him one of the 11 worst governors in the country for ethical violations, and this month the Dallas Morning News released results on an investigation finding that taxpayer grants were given to a long list of Perry campaign donors. On the plus side, he said Arizona's illegal-immigration law wouldn't be "right for Texas." If he wins, he might make a run for president in 2012.

David J. Phillip / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 40

It's not just Brewer's support for Arizona's controversial illegal-immigrant bill, which has been distorted and demagogued by activists on both sides. Brewer's been presiding over a series of strange missteps in her reelection campaign, including falsely claiming that headless bodies had been found in the desert to an epic fail of an opening debate statement that caused her to refuse any further debates, doing the citizens of Arizona a disservice. When activists were calling the anti-illegal immigrant bill racist, Brewer couldn't resist playing the victim card along the same lines for political gain, saying: "Our border is being erased and our president apparently considers it a wonderful opportunity to divide people along racial lines for his personal political convenience." And when she was absurdly and offensively compared to Hitler by activist opponents, Brewer spoke of the pain this caused her because they knew that her father had been killed fighting the Nazis. Which would indeed have been awful, except her father died of cancer Stateside in 1955 and never served overseas during World War II.

Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 35

This self-funded Tea Party-backed candidate is running neck-and-neck with Democrat Alex Sink to be the next governor of Florida. He's done this despite the absence of any state newspaper endorsements, due in large part to his refusal to meet with any editorial boards to discuss his plans for the state. He's courted controversy in the campaign with ads, especially one titled "Obama's Mosque"—but the real scandal surrounds how he earned his fortune. Scott founded the hospital conglomerate Columbia/HCA before being dismissed by the board with an ample golden parachute. Nothing wrong with entrepreneurs making a fortune in America, but Scott and Co. parted ways amid an FBI probe that ultimately uncovered the largest Medicaid fraud in the nation's history, totaling $1.7 billion in civil and criminal penalties. Under Scott's leadership, Columbia/HCA was found to have been keeping two sets of books, one with the fraudulent revenue included and another accounting for actual profits if their claims were rejected. Scott has long said he did not know about the existence of such practices—and he was never charged—but some of the whistleblowers who first brought the case to light have said they believe that he must have known. Nonetheless, for a candidate campaigning against Obama's health-care reform to have made a fortune off false Medicaid reimbursements, well, that's hypocrisy of the highest order.

J Pat Carter / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 30

There's a streak of Paladino in Maine's GOP nominee, a self-made man with a short temper and a tendency to fly off the handle. But beyond the occasional threatening of reporters, LePage has earned a degree of infamy with some overheated anti-Obama digs that seem to be a bad fit for this eminently reasonable and independent-minded state. When asked what he would tell President Obama, LePage replied, "I'll tell him to get the hell out of my state." On another, much YouTubed occasion, LePage said: "As your governor, you're going to be seeing a lot of me on the front page, saying, 'Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell." He's also had to back off a bizarre—and inaccurate—claim that Maine was "the only state in the United States of America that charges sales tax on bull semen. You hear that? Bull semen." LePage's supporters were instrumental in the GOP platform being changed to call for the abolition of the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve. Margaret Chase Smith would not be amused.

Pat Wellenbach / AP Photo
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Wingnut Rating : 25

The man known as Governor Moonbeam in the 1970s—and whose slogan for president in 1980 was "Protect the Earth, Serve the People and Explore the Universe" (he had me right until that last one)—might not have made this list were it not for a few well-placed tells in his current campaign. And I'm not even talking about the distraction known as "whore-gate." Here he is playing the Nazi card early against his opponent Meg Whitman: "You know, by the time she's done with me, two months from now, I'll be a child-molesting... She'll have people believing whatever she wants about me. It's like Goebbels. Goebbels invented this kind of propaganda. He took control of the whole world." And while conservative critics should credit Brown with an excellent stint as mayor of Oakland, no sane Democrat should be comfortable with his attendance at a fundraiser at the house of Code Pink founder Jodi Evans. Code Pink is the face and voice of the unhinged far left in the United States. Its members have disrupted countless congressional hearings, blocked the opening of military recruiting stations at Berkeley, called our soldiers war criminals, and been apologists for left-wing dictators like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. A politician can't control who supports him, but he doesn't have to conduct fundraisers at the home of extremists.

Gus Ruelas / AP Photo