Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC), who lost his primary on June 22 by a whopping 71%-29% margin, appeared on CNN this afternoon to further discuss the forces that took him out of office: Crazy right-wing conspiracy theories, and his inability and refusal to go along with it.
CNN host Rick Sanchez went over a recent piece on Inglis in Mother Jones, in which Inglis talked about the crazies that he would come across on the campaign trail.
Sanchez read from Inglis’s recollection of a conversation with some voters: “‘Bob, what don’t you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.’”
Sanchez asked Inglis who these people were. And in response, Inglis conceded he might have done better politically had he humored them.
“That was several 80-year-old couples that were expressing their views. And you know, what I should have said was, ‘Over my dead body that’s gonna happen. I can guarantee it’s not gonna happen,’” said Inglis. “That would have been the better answer, wouldn’t it? Rather than the one I gave, which is, ‘Well it’s not quite that bad, let’s keep it within the realm of facts.’”
Sanchez read from another excerpt: “‘I sat down, and they said on the back of your Social Security card, there’s a number. That number indicates the bank that bought you when you were born based on a projection of your life’s earnings’ — I’m gonna try and not laugh here — ‘and you are collateral. We are all collateral for the banks. I have this look like, ‘What the heck are you talking about?’ I’m trying to hide that look and look clueless. I figured clueless was better than argumentative. So they said, ‘You don’t know this?! You are a member of Congress, and you don’t know this?!’”
Inglis responded: “Well you know, I think that my colleague put it well to me last week. She said that her father used to tell her, ‘Leaders can either lead — or mislead.’ And you know, if you’re gonna lead, you need to lead with facts. And you need to help people the realities that we face.”
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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