Originally Posted by deltav

He was recently voted the Chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, so while not public office it is a prominent position in state GOP politics.

And yep, he's a fucking lunatic. I live in Oregon so have been familiar with him for a while. I actually think Maddow comes across as far more of a fuckwad than he does in that clip (jesus christ that woman), but you can interview him straight and he'll hang himself with his own rope expressing ideas about sprinkling radioactive waste from planes for health benefits, completely abolishing public schools, and so on. Classic West Coast crackpot, god bless em (but keep them out of politics).

To be fair to Republican citizens, his election to GOP Chairman has got a lot of 'regular' Repuglicans bummed out. He represents that unelectable - in a general election - fringe that is going to make the GOP more and more irrelevant in the grand scheme until they reverse course. Which they're trying, but in some sense they've created a monster with a will of its own.

He wouldn't be much of anything in politics today without the backing of Robert Mercer, a hedge-fund billionaire from New Fucking York who donates millions of dollars to super-PACs for Robinson's attack ad campaigns & whatnot. This is because the standing Oregon Dem congressman Peter Defazio spearheaded several Wall Street reform legislations, Mercer has been funding these PACs for multiple elections to unseat him. Unsuccessfully so far, but if they found a candidate who isn't as much of a nutjob as Robinson, it could be a closer thing.

Just another example of the power & reach of super-PACs, no substantial reform in this country is going to happen until that loophole is closed. Not holding my breath though.