Did I Say That? Looking back on eccentric pronouncements from Campaign '04

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Politicians Walk Among Us
By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Sunday, November 5, 2006; Page A04


Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), right, ponders his rebuttal to opponent Senator Mike DeWine's charges of harboring a marijuana-laced banana. (By Kiichiro Sato-Associated Press)

Every election cycle brings eccentric campaign pronouncements, bizarre candidates and strange tactics. Some are high-profile: Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) recalling the "nice little Guatemalan man" who fixes his house and telling firefighters "what a piss-poor job" they had done. Or Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) informing a Baptist newspaper, "If you are not electing Christians . . . you are going to legislate sin." Or Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) calling a man of Indian descent "macaca" and saying he enjoys ham sandwiches despite his Jewish heritage. Here are some of the less-observed but oddest developments from the 2006 campaign trail:

Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) charged Democratic challenger Rep. Sherrod Brown in a recent debate with overseeing, as Ohio secretary of state, a "scandal-ridden office" that was investigated for illegal drug use and had one employee fall sick after eating a "marijuana-laced banana."

Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyo.) had her own unusual debate encounter. She was accused of walking up to a wheelchair-bound Libertarian candidate after he angered her at a debate and telling him, "If you weren't sitting in that chair, I'd slap you across the face." She insisted she said something more artful, but apologized.

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) has tried mightily to explain his support for the Iraq war to his district, where it is deeply unpopular. A few weeks ago, he got bogged down in clarifying why the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib was "not torture." He explained: "It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops from (Maryland) who were involved in a sex ring, and they took pictures of soldiers who were naked."

Offering his defense of the Iraq war strategy, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), likely to lose his seat on Tuesday, turned to the Lord of the Rings: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/04/AR2006110401066.html