What fun watching Republicans in Raleigh, N.C. trying to throw Tea party-supported candidate Tim D’Annunzio under a bus. He’s ahead in the polls, his campaign has deep pockets and yet Tim’s a pariah in establishment GOP circles in the state. If I lived in North Carolina, I’d vote for this guy and I have not cast a single Republican vote in my life. To elect a pothead, ex-junkie deadbeat dad Republican who believes he’s the Messiah? You are kidding me? This is going to be the best contest in the entire country! I may donate to this guy’s campaign.
From AP:
Tim D’Annunzio, a congressional candidate in North Carolina’s most competitive district, has run an anti-establishment campaign with vows to dismantle entire branches of the federal government. His ideas have drawn support from tea party activists, and he has raised more money from individuals than his GOP rival while also contributing more than $1 million to his own campaign.
Republican leaders in both Raleigh and Washington, however, are worried about his electability in November if he wins a primary runoff next month. They’re publicizing court documents about D’Annunzio’s past legal, martial and business troubles and denouncing him as unfit for office.“Mr. D’Annunzio has disqualified himself by his background, his record and his behavior,” said Tom Fetzer, North Carolina’s Republican Party chairman. He said the GOP embraces the tea party but doesn’t believe a person with such a checkered past should be the party’s nominee.
In Hoke County divorce records, his wife said in 1995 that D’Annunzio had claimed to be the Messiah, had traveled to New Jersey to raise his stepfather from the dead, believed God would drop a 1,000-mile high pyramid as the New Jerusalem on Greenland and found the Ark of the Covenant in Arizona. A doctor’s evaluation the following month said D’Annunzio used marijuana almost daily, had been living with another woman for several months, had once been in drug treatment for heroin dependence and was jailed a couple times as a teenager.
The doctor concluded that his religious beliefs were not delusional. A judge wrote in a child support ruling a few years later that D’Annunzio was a self-described “religious zealot” who believed the government was the “Antichrist.” The judge said he was willfully failing to make child support payments.
D’Annunzio declined Monday to discuss the specifics of his past and refused to confirm or deny the details of the court documents. He acknowledged having “a troubled upbringing” but that he got himself out of it and changed his life 16 years ago, when he had a religious conversion.
“The bigger story is that the power brokers in Raleigh and in Washington are willing to go to any length and use any unscrupulous tactic to try to destroy somebody,” he said. “They think that they’re losing their control over the Republican party.
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They obviously are! This character makes even Rand Paul seem sane. Can the Sarah Palin endorsement be far behind?