IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

The latest ORBAR (Offensive Remark By A Republican)

Karl Rove and company may be attempting to prevent the far-right and gaffe-prone members of the Republican party from alienating vast portions of the electorate
weak_tea
weak_tea

Karl Rove and company may be attempting to prevent the far-right and gaffe-prone members of the Republican party from alienating vast portions of the electorate, but it’s turning out to be a task that gets more difficult by the day.

There’s Iowa Congressman Steve King now leading the GOP primary in Iowa. You might remember him from his suggestion that President Obama’s birth certificate may have been telegrammed from Kenya. Then there’s Paul Broun, the guy behind the idea that evolution and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell.” Broun recently announced his candidacy to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate.

It doesn’t take much to guess the definition of what American Crossroads lawyer Steven J. Law recently called the “Todd Akin problem.” In essence, people at Rove’s new SuperPAC are concerned that Steve King and others will say something that will effectively push away individuals who would have otherwise voted Republican. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has also prioritized a rebranding of the Republican Party.

Thanks to a recent event put on by the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, we’ve got a Tea Partier with a slight case of the “Todd Akin problem.” The event was called a “citizen watchdog training,” and featured speakers from Americans for Prosperity as well as the North Oakland Tea Party Patriots. Norman Hughes, a member of the North Oakland Tea Party Patriots, spoke on the topic of “school choice.” Do charter schools tend to favor well-off students at the expense of their underprivileged peers? Here’s what Hughes had to say.

“Kids aren't going to charter schools if they're ‘A’ students. They go to charter schools because they're failing students and, by and large, the charter schools have a higher percentage of poor families, ‘ethnically challenged’ families.”

The audio was picked up by liberal advocacy group Progress Michigan.

Hughes did not elaborate on what he meant by “ethnically challenged families.” What groups might classify themselves as “ethnically challenged”? Is it the 47% of voters that Mitt Romney said “are dependent upon government” and “who believe that they are victims”? Or the “urban voters” who Paul Ryan credited with helping President Obama win the election?Take a look the Hardball Sideshow for that and more…including one elected officials’ recollection of going “birther.”