Tea Party

Short Fuse: Which Tea Partier Will Be First To Cross The Line And Knock Someone Out?

Evan McMorris-Santoro | October 6, 2010, 8:50AM

So: which tea party candidate is going to lose it and actually knock someone out before Election Day? With so many potentially dangerous hotheads (or at least candidates who appear to be interested in coming off that way) running for office on the conservative side of the Republican ballot line, this is a very important question for campaign volunteers, political opponents and anyone else who may find themselves in close proximity to some of these folks.

From New York to Alabama, this year has produced some of the gun-totin'est, threat-makingest, just-plain-wired-to-blowingest crop of potential members of Congress and governors in a long time. And most if not all of the of the ticking time bombs come from the tea party crop. So strap on your black belt, grab your pepper spray, dial 9-1 (be prepared to press the final "1" when necessary) and let's meet the Most Dangerous Men In Tea Partydom.

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Ilario Pantano

NC GOPer Clips Murder Allegation Out Of NBC Video Used In His TV Ad (VIDEO)

Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 24, 2010, 1:48PM

Ilario Pantano campaign ad, "Warzone"

Let's say you're running for Congress as a war hero. And let's say you want to run a TV ad showing some interviews you did with national news outlets talking about your heroism. There's only one problem -- the interviews also mention the heinous double murder you were accused of committing while wearing a Marine Corps uniform in Iraq.

What do you do? If you said "cut out all the murder stuff and just go with the parts that make me look good," you might be Ilario Pantano, the Republican nominee for Congress in North Carolina's 7th District.

As Daily Beaster Benjy Sarlin pointed out in this opus earlier this year, Pantano is actually running on the fact that he was once brought up on murder charges for while serving in Iraq. Here's what went down, as Sarlin told it:

In April 2004, Pantano killed two unarmed Iraqi detainees, twice unloading his gun into their bodies and firing between 50 and 60 shots in total. Afterward, he placed a sign over the corpses featuring the Marines' slogan "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" as a message to the local population.

Pantano admits the killings and turned the story into a huge net positive, writing a book about the tale that earned him rabid support from conservatives and even, as Sarlin writes, "sympathetic treatment from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show." Pantano contends the shooting was in self defense and the military dropped its murder charges against him after a witness' testimony could not be corroborated.

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