Meet the GOP Congressional Candidate Who Called Hillary Clinton the “Antichrist”

The biblical devil-beast who will assemble armies to fight the Lord on the final day of the world, according to congressional hopeful Ryan Zinke.Christy Bowe/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Montana GOP congressional candidate Ryan Zinke made waves last week when, speaking at a campaign stop, he called Hillary Clinton the “Antichrist.”*

But before Zinke was in the news for equating the former secretary of state to the Great Deceiver, Mother Jones flagged Zinke for the dubious campaign finance methods surrounding his campaign for Montana’s only seat in the House of Representatives.

Zinke, 53, is a former Navy SEAL, a fact he advertised loudly in 2012 when he launched a super-PAC—a political action committee that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising. The super-PAC, “Special Operations for America,” (SOFA) raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars in 2012 to support the election of Mitt Romney. And although SOFA didn’t succeed in putting Romney in the White House, the election allowed it to gather a substantial list of small-dollar donors and continue raising money after the 2012 election ended. At the end of 2013, the group had $255,904 on hand.

By that point, Zinke was no longer involved with the super-PAC’s leadership—he had resigned on September 30 and announced three weeks later that he was running for Congress. Soon, the super-PAC Zinke started became his biggest cheerleader. Throughout last fall, SOFA’s website, Facebook page, and Twitter account all urged donors to give to Zinke’s congressional exploratory committee, and then, his congressional campaign. In January 2014 alone, SOFA spent almost $60,000 supporting Zinke’s campaign. (The last time the seat was up for grabs, in 2012, outside spending totaled $240,000.)

If this strategy, which is entirely legal, sounds familiar, that’s because it was pioneered by Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert in 2012. As Mother Jones noted in November:

In January 2012, Colbert summoned Daily Show host Jon Stewart and Trevor Potter, a campaign finance expert, to the Colbert Report studio for a surprise announcement: Colbert was handing control of his super-PAC [to] Stewart. The two comedians signed a two-page document, then held hands and locked eyes while Potter bellowed the words, “Colbert super-PAC transfer, activate!” Colbert then announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to weigh a run for “President of the United States of South Carolina.” Stewart, meanwhile, renamed Colbert’s super-PAC the Definitely Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert Super PAC, and promised Colbert he would run ads to support Colbert’s presidential bid.

The aim of Colbert’s stunt was to show that campaign finance laws are so flimsy that it was legal, in theory, for a politician to start a super-PAC, raise unlimited heaps of cash from big-money donors for that super-PAC, quit the super-PAC, and then run for federal office supported by that super-PAC.

Zinke’s campaign, in other words, was pretty shameless before he called Clinton the “Antichrist.” And pretty well-funded, too.


*Zinke made the Antichrist comment, which was first reported by the Montana website Bigfork Eagle, after telling his audience, “We need to focus on the real enemy.” He did not reply to a request for comment from Mother Jones. When Aaron Flint of Northern Broadcasting asked Zinke about the comment, Zinke said, “I’ve already been put on the Obama campaign enemy list—and they’re just gonna attack. That’s all these people do is attack, attack, attack.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate