The Craziest Candidate In America

I don't care what you've seen. I don't care what you've heard. I don't care how much insanity has been spewed this election season.

When you've got a straight-up Holocaust denier declaring his candidacy for Congress, the Holocaust denier, by simple virtue of the fact that he is a Holocaust denier, is crazier than every single one of them. His name is Arthur Jones, he's an insurance salesman from Lyons, Illinois, and he's running in Dan Lipinski's district.

I bet Lyons' customers are just thrilled to find out more about who's been selling them insurance.

Lyons is running as a Republican; however, to their credit, the GOP has tried to keep him off their end of the ticket. Not even they're that nuts. However, Lyons somehow, frighteningly, found 1,000 people willing to sign his candidacy petition, and we do not disqualify candidates for office in this country based on their views alone, so he's on the ballot whether anyone likes it or not. He's thus going to be in the Republican primary, against the GOP's actual candidates, Jim Falvey and Richard Grabowski.

This is not the first time Jones has been in the public eye. In 1976, he ran for mayor of Milwaukee, and got predictably pasted in the primary by Henry Maier by a percentage margin of 93-7. In 1993, he appeared on the Jerry Springer Show alongside Milwaukee alderman Michael McGee. McGee punched Jones in the face. This will be Jones' ninth run for office and his seventh run for the seat in Illinois' third district; his record is, thankfully, 0-8. However, in his five previous attempts, he's garnered an increasing amount of the vote each time- 2.64% in 1992, 10.34% in 1996, 12.39% in 1998, 29.38% in 2006, and 33.15% in 2008.

Illinois, your primary is March 20. We in Wisconsin apologize for giving you this guy. Could you please clean up this mess we left you? Again?