Happy Halloween, from zombies to Jackass

THE PROXIMITY OF Halloween and Tuesday's elections recalls something that Gerald Ford said upon taking the Oath of Office to succeed Richard Nixon:

"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over..."

With all due respect to the late president, I would say: Not yet.

That was then, when most of us were pleading for sanity and found comfort in the new president's words. But this is now, in the wake of unhinged political witches and warlocks who sank to an ugly manic depth and are merely the prologue to another nightmare if the polls are anywhere near the truth. As Frank Rich so clearly expressed it in Sunday's New York Times, the new battlefield will embrace the Tea Partiers against the Republican Party, a rear-guard clash between the angry protestors shouting that they want their country back (from what?) to the Old Guard Republicans ensconced in the ways of fancy country clubs, Wall Street and Corporate America. The warfare has already begun as several GOP incumbents were clobbered in the party primaries.

Thanks to Fox News, which encouraged much of the nonsense that created scary moments of grandeur for Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell, to name a few, the Tea Partiers will not go back to their rooms quietly.

What will the new Republican brand be when everyone is seated in the new year? We can only look back and track what the nature of the insurgents will be. A short history lesson is in order.

Sharron Angle, a Tea Partier who might take the Nevada Senate seat from Harry Reid, declared on Christian Radio that the country is violating the First Commandment with its idolatrous "dependency on government." Said Angle: " We're supposed to depend on

God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government."

Conservative Guru Rush Limbaugh: "There is no equality....some people are self starters, and some people are born lazy. Some people are born victims. Some people are just born to be slaves."

Rep.Darrell Issa, right-wing Republican of California, a proponent of extending the Bush tax cuts: "One of the things you lose in a debate is most people don't make a quarter million dollars a year. But a great many people once in their lifetime will sort of win the lottery."

Former U.S. Rep. Dick Armey, the Texan now leading a Tea Party charge against Social Security: "Social Security is a pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme."

Newt Gingrich: "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]. That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."

Christine O'Donnell, Republican senate nominee in Delaware: "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. S0 you can't masturbate without lust."

And so it went with the new group of Founding Fathers and Mothers that will lead us into a debt-free, Obama-free Utopia - and away from Sharia in our neighborhoods, headless bodies in the Arizona desert and wedlock between human beings and clocks. You can count on it when you get your country back.

But should we be surprised in a day. as a Plain Dealer story tells us, when "vampires, ghosts and zombies claw back, win respect in books" ? Or a day when the leading box-office movie is Jackass.

Sharron Angle: Lemmings hate the media

(Seventh in a series)

That's Sharron Angle in the photo. She is the Republican Senatorial candidate in Nevada. She is the Tea Party favorite. She is a disaster waiting to be elected. Ms. Angle does not like the mainstream media. She explained to Fox News, which she likes very much, that she only wants the press to ask her questions that she wants to answer. Way to go, Sharron! That's trouble for the mainstream media unless they watch Fox News to learn what questions she wants to answer. She answers all of Fox's questions. Even the easy ones because Fox never offends its lemmings. Or as George Bush once said in response to a reporter's question: " I would have to ask the questions...I haven't had a chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning." (UPDATE: She just fired her campaign's communications director. But that's another story - Or is it?)

Tuesday's Primaries: Political Planet 2010

THUMBING THROUGH Tuesday's primaries turned up some choice glimpses of the political landscape of 2010.

In California, Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief, spent $61 million - much of it from her own piggy bank - to win the Republican primary for governor. She doubtless will spend much more for the general election against Democrat Jerry Brown. Whitman got 64.1 pct. of the vote, which translates into nearly a million bucks per percentage point. Nice work - if you can find a way to pay for it!

Also from California came the good news that Orly Taitz, who has gained questionable prominence as a leading witch-like voice questioning President Obama's birthplace credentials, was defeated in the GOP primary for secretary of state. She got 26 pct of the vote, which may be evidence that one of four California Republicans believe in witchcraft.

In Nevada, the home of high rollers and quickie marriages, Sharron Angle, won the Republican senatorial primary to challenge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Angle is the darling of the Tea Party and a militant outfit called Oath Keepers, who are convinced they they should be armed for battle when the U.S. government starts creating concentration camps for innocent Americans across the land. If it sounds like anarchy is on the march , well... I can only wonder how Sen. John Cornyn, who heads the Republican national senate campaigns will respond to this bit of scary news.

For pure Planet 2010 in American politics, however, nothing can top the Democratic senate primary in South Carolina, a state where strange things seem to happen every day. A fellow named Alvin Greene, an unemployed military veteran with virtually no cash on hand, won the contest although he was relatively unknown. Never mind. State Democratic Party Chairman Carol Fowler offered this meek explanation of how Greene topped former State Sen. Vic Rawl on Tuesday. She supposed that since neither candidate was well known, people voted "alphabetically." I can only conclude that when the word gets out, a lot of people with last names beginning with "A" or "B" will be clogging the ballots. Makes sense to me.

PS: State Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American, won the South Carolina primary for governor to the chagrin of GOP State Sen. Jake Knotts, who described her as a "f--king Raghead". For the sake of the children who might show up at the polls, let's put that in context: What he said was: 'We already have a Raghead in the White House, we don't need another one in the Statehouse." Then came the added F-word description. Knotts did show a little remorse when he was criticized for his ethnic insight. He allowed that he should not have used the F-word.