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By Ravi Somaiya
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Anti-incumbent sentiment means that some eccentric candidates snuck under the wire in Tuesday's primaries and will be on the November ballots. Orly Taitz, the public face of the birther movement, may have lost her bid to become California secretary of state, but other once fringe candidates are one step closer to occupying public office. Here are some of our favorites:
Sharron Angle
Who? Angle, a 60-year-old former schoolteacher and state assemblywoman, beat businessman Danny Takanian and the favorite, Sue Lowden, a run-of-the-mill Republican, in the Nevada GOP primary. She now faces Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a battle for his at-risk Senate seat.
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What? Angle comes with the joint endorsement of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party—and it's no surprise. She wants to abolish the Department of Education, the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and hugh swaths of the Internal Revenue Service. She wants to take the U.S. out of the U.N. because it has "has been captured by the far left," and phase out Social Security. Angle has also promoted a drug-rehabilitation program backed by Scientologists, and CBS News reports that she might even be in favor of banning alcohol (the clip is available in this Democratic National Committee YouTube compendium of her more outlandish views). The sections of her Web site that deal with her ideas were taken down Wednesday—probably because they will need some retooling before being exposed to the average voter. You can read more on her policies in The Washington Post.
Chances: She's tried to run for Congress and Nevada's state Senate before, and failed in both. And the Tea Party and Palin endorsements are by no means guarantees these days. Reid, who was in serious danger of losing his seat, will probably be grinning as he mobilizes his ruthless campaign machine against a very inexperienced and hapless-seeming candidate with extreme views.
Alvin Greene
Who? Alvin Greene is a 32-year-old unemployed Army veteran. He paid his $10,400 filing fees and all other campaign expenses himself. He has no signs and no Web site. In fact he has nothing at all, except a victory against veteran state politician and judge Vic Rawl in the South Carolina Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat. He'll face hard-right Republican incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint in November.
What? Greene was not answering at the phone number listed for him on the South Carolina Democratic Party Web site. But, in a somewhat scathing interview Mother Jones conducted, he seemed a little taken aback in talking about his platform. When asked about his primary-campaign expenditures, he responded, "It wasn't much, I mean, just, it was—it wasn't much. Not much, I mean, it wasn't much." So not much then. He did say that he was planning to put unemployment at the center of his campaign. "I'm currently one of the many unemployed in the state and this country," he said. "South Carolina has more unemployed now than at any other time … my campaign slogan: Let's get South Carolina back to work." The Associated Press reported that Greene faces a pending felony charge for "showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student." Records show, according to the AP, that "Greene showed photos to a woman and talked about going to her room at a university dorm."
Chances: This tweet, from Red State blogger Erick Erickson, came before the report of obscene pictures, but we conjecture that it still sums up the general feeling. It begins, "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha."
Paul LePage
Who? LePage, a small-town mayor and manager of a surplus and salvage store, is another Tea Party favorite. He will face state Senate president Elizabeth Mitchell in a bid to replace John Baldacci, a term-limited Democrat, as Maine's governor.
What? LePage, while an advocate for smaller government who favors scaling back benefits and demanding residency before offering people state help, comes across as far more moderate than most Tea Partiers. He has a strong, up-by-his-bootstraps, poor-kid-makes-good narrative, too.
Chances: The Maine race features three independent candidates alongside LePage and Mitchell. One of those, a former Carter administration official, Eliot Cutler, has raised almost $600,000 and spent half a million of that so far. He is expected to be a real factor in the election. In this chaotic electoral environment, anything could happen.
Nikki Haley
Who? Haley, fighting for the chance to replace departing South Carolina governor and hiking enthusiast Mark Sanford, won the backing of Sanford's ex-wife, Jenny, and Sarah Palin, as well as the endorsement of the Tea Party. She fell just short of the 50 percent required to win the Republican primary, but is likely to win a runoff later this month against Rep. Gresham Barrett, who was 20 percent behind her in Tuesday's election.
What? Haley, who is of Indian descent but converted to Christianity from Sikhism, has had a campaign dogged by rumors of affairs and marked by an incident in which state Sen. Jake Knotts said of her, on an online talk show, "We already got one raghead in the White House, we don't need a raghead in the governor's mansion." Knotts later said he was just joking.
Chances: If she makes it through the primary, she will face state Sen. Vincent Sheehan in November. In a conservative state, and with a campaign boosted by perceived attacks on her, she has every chance of making it all the way to the governor's office.
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