Is Barack Obama the greatest threat to America right now? Is he an archetype of the true greatest risk to our country: liberalism? Or is he just in, like, the Top Five?
That’s the debate Republicans in Colorado are having today. As the GOP Senate primary approaches, the top two Republican candidates — Jane Norton and Tea Party favorite Ken Buck — are leapfrogging each other in an asymptotic rush to reach Tom Tancredo levels of crazy.
It all started Thursday, when, appearing at a conservative rally, Tancredo told a crowd that Obama is “the greatest threat” to the United States. What followed was a case study in how extreme the pressure is on GOP candidates to move ever rightward.
First, Buck was angry — so angry, he was caught on tape saying “I can’t believe that guy opened his mouth.”
But Norton smelled an opportunity, and the next day she sought to drive a wedge between Buck and the Tancredo-loving tea partiers who are driving that primary.
“There was a real measure of truth in what Tancredo said,” Norton wrote on Facebook. “Obama is spending this country into bankruptcy. Admiral Mullen said our debt is a greater threat than terrorism. It’s time to end the culture of political correctness. Obama’s brand of big government is a threat to America.”
Buck was stuck. With a choice between continuing to distance himself from Tancredo — and therefore, by inference, defending Obama — and caving, he folded fast.
“The other day my good friend and supporter Tom Tancredo said that the greatest threat to this country is the man who occupied the White House, Barack Obama,” Buck said Saturday at the Conservative Western Forum. “And there is a lot of truth, a lot of truth in what Tom Tancredo said. The greatest threat, folks, is not a single man, but rather the progressive liberal movement that is going on in this country. It is the $13 trillion of national debt; it is a huge threat to our security and financial system; Obamacare, cap and trade, card check, our disintegrating relationship with Israel. It is a huge threat to this county.”
Keep in mind, this is the same race in which Norton bashed Obama for not going to war against Islam. So maybe none of this is really that surprising.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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