The conspiracy theory wing of the Tea Party scored a substantial victory last night, with Bill Randall prevailing in a runoff for the Republican candidacy in North Carolina’s 13th Congressional district. In case you missed it, Randall has suggested that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf wasn’t precipitated by non-existent safety inspections, a culture of self-regulation, a federal regulator in bed with the industry, etc., etc. Instead, Randall believes, the BP and federal government may have colluded to cause the Horizon rig to explode, crumble into the water, and begin spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf each day. Last month, Randall had this to say about the spill:
Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion. I don’t know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company violating a safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak.
Now, Randall isn’t the only public figure to claim to smell something funny about the spill. Former FEMA chief, Michael “Heckuva job, Brownie” Brown claimed Obama wanted the Deepwater spill to occur so he could shut down offshore oil drilling, and bloviator-in-chief Rush Limbaugh voiced his approval. But unlike his paranoid cohorts, Randall isn’t a washed-up bureaucrat or a talking head—he’s now the GOP’s top candidate for a US representative.
Randall’s defeat of moderate GOPer Bernie Reeves comes as somewhat of a surprise, but his chances this November against Democratic incumbent Brad Miller aren’t that great. That is, unless he can convince North Carolinians that one of the biggest environmental catastrophes in US history was an inside job.
