For context on why the crackpot opinions of Tennessee's leading Republicans matters, read this from the Institute For Southern Studies: ANALYSIS: Southerners drive far-right of Republican Party. Excerpt:
On almost every issue, Southern Republicans are far to the right of their national GOP brethren. In fact, GOP Southerners appear to be the driving base for some of the most extreme views circulating in Republican circles today.
This is important for both Democrats and Republicans to recognize, especially when our media crows about what it means when a moderate Republican like Scott Brown to wins a Massachusetts Senate race. All Republicans are not alike, and as Southern GOPers get more extreme, some of that mud may sully the rest of the party. Meanwhile, Blue Dog Dems wishing to be more Republican-lite need to think very carefully about what it is they are signing on to.
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So everyone is talking about Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey saying he doesn’t know if President Obama is a U.S. citizen or not. But Pith has posted the entire exchange, which I find even scarier:
The Obama birther who popped up with his question in this roomful of suits? Maclin Davis, the former attorney for the state Republican Party and a partner in the prestigious firm of Waller Lansden.
Here's the exchange:
Davis: Now since the Republicans control both houses of the Tennessee legislature, it seems to me that they might consider passing a state law that says in all future elections no candidate for president can be put on the ballot in Tennessee unless they produce positive proof they are a native-born citizen. If we had one like that a few years ago, we'd be a whole lot better off today. Is there any chance that you would consider that?
Ramsey: ... I suppose that every state could individually do that.
Davis: It seems like it would be really good if somebody would file a suit against our present president to get back all the money he's been paid as president on the grounds he's not a legitimate president since he's not a native-born citizen. The great preponderance of the evidence is he's not a citizen. ...
Maclin Davis, you scare the crap out of me. You’re one of the leading attorneys in this city, a leading figure with the state Republican Party, and you’ve embraced a fringe idea like birtherism to the point where you are calling for state legislators to enact actual legislation? And lawsuits?
So this is what the Tennessee Republican Party has become. The final repository of wackadoodle, a bunch of people who’ve drunk so much Kool-Aid that even the rantings of Orly Taitz makes more sense to them than the reality that they lost a national election to a black guy.
And by the way, birtherism isn’t the only wacko conspiracy theory Orly Taitz has embraced . She also believes Saudi Arabia owns Fox News, Hugo Chavez owns the software used on U.S. voting machines, and the House of Representatives is planning to build six labor camps.
I eagerly await the TN-GOP’s action on these items, too. Especially that voting machine thing.
