Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/60861613@N00/4095488789/">lisby1</a>
Like Disneyworld and a Tallahassee flea market, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) has quite the knack for attracting nutty characters. I’m specifically talking about Grayson’s campaign for re-election this fall, and the latest challenger to emerge out of the woodwork: a Ocala, Florida, resident named Steve Gerritzen who’s running as the lone candidate for (drumroll) the Whig Party. Yes, those Whigs, the ones who haven’t had much clout in American politics since the 1850s. Apparently, Gerritzen, fed up with Democrats and Republicans, “wants to remake the American education system in the model of that of Iceland, which emphasizes high rates of literacy, early childhood education, and taxpayer-funded collegiate studies,” the Ocala Star-Banner reports.
By day, Gerritzen, 39, is an electronics assembler, and struck a populist tone in what’s presumably his coming-out interview with the Star-Banner. “A lot of people are talking about a revolution, but I’m calling for a revolution through the ballot box,” Gerritzen told the newspaper. “Seventy percent of the people make less than $50,000 a year, and that’s who I want to represent. I care about the people because I am the people. I am the working class.”
In addition to the Whig resurrection, Grayson faces a challenge from the Tea Party’s Peg Dunmire, whom Grayson called one of Sarah Palin’s “undead minions.” So rhetorically gifted is Dunmire, Grayson said, that she deserved a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for “Most Consecutive Cliches.” Dunmire’s website says she want to eliminate most payroll taxes, repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (a landmark reform of financial accounting principles), and ramp up offshore drilling off Florida’s coasts.
Florida’s a bizarre enough state as it is, an off-kilter peninsular republic complete with hanging chads, Katherine Harris, Elian Gonzalez, and on and on. Thanks to Grayson and his cadre of challengers, it’s only getting stranger.
