What on earth was Mike Erickson thinking? To find out, we present a new feature: the Tiny Thought Process, for a tiny, tiny mind.
You know you're in trouble when most press coverage of your Republican campaign for Congress begins with "unreconstructed douchebag...." Such is the situation that Mike Erickson finds himself in. Confronted by the question, "Is it possible to be virulently and inflexibly pro-life when you've paid for an ex-girlfriend's abortion?", Erickson's apparently decided that the best strategy is to lie and obfuscate- the evidence mounting against him be damned. Hey, when you're a Republican you can do things like that...and if the lies and the prevaricating don't work, you can always fall back on that old standby- blaming the Liberals who are clearly out to destroy you (well, we're not, because Erickson's doing our evil work for us)- for your dilemma.
There's a pretty good chance that Erickson could get away with this sort of thing if he were running for Congress in Texas. Here in Oregon, he's quickly becoming the punch line of an increasingly unfunny joke. If Mike Erickson is the best that the Oregon GOP has to offer, then Republicans are in far worse shape politically than even I'd suspected. Here's a candidate with no ideas, no compassion, no class...and not even the barest shred of morality and decency...and yet he somehow managed to win the Republican primary in CD5. Perhaps it's the overabundance of world-class hypocrisy that Republicans find so appealing.
Oregon's GOP probably could have run a ham sandwich and had better prospects. Then again, a ham sandwich probably wouldn't have paid for his ex-girlfriend's abortion and then trumpeted his pro-life bonafides. Of course, Erickson still has hope; all he has to do is to crank up the propaganda and he's got a fighting chance. Find someone to hate- gays, immigrants, terrorists, non-Christians- and turn them into the reason for the demise of his campaign...and before you know it, Erickson goes from being a liar and a pariah to being a martyr and a victim of Godless Libruls.
Thankfully, Erickson doesn't need us Godless Liberals to destroy his campiagn. Not when he's doing a passable job of hoisting himself on his own petard. I'm not normally one to find satisfaction in the suffering of another. In Mike Erickson's case, though, I'm going to make an exception. I really think I'm going to enjoy watching him twisting in the wind for the next 4+ months.
VOTE REPUBLICAN...IT'S EASIER THAN THINKING!!
