A Soldier Deserts From "Those Radical Nut-Jobs"

Jason Thigpen of Wilmington, who got mentioned here last August as a Republican candidate for office who called the new voter ID law a "turd," is making news again by switching to the Democratic Party in his quest to unseat 3rd District Republican Walter Jones (who himself was once upon a time a Democrat).

Don't have any idea whether Mr. Thigpen, who also ran unsuccessfully against Jones in a very crowded Republican primary in 2012, has a ghost's chance at an exorcist convention, but his statement breaking with the Republican Party is just another indication of how far off planet earth the Tea Party-dominated NCGOP has veered:

"...I simply cannot stand with a Party where its most extreme element promote hate and division amongst people. Nothing about my platform has, nor will it change. The government shutdown was simply the straw that broke the camels back. I guess being an American just isn’t good enough anymore and I refuse to be part of an extremist movement in the GOP that only appears to thrive on fear and hate mongering of anyone and everyone who doesn’t walk their line. We’ve received some wonderful support by numerous leaders and members within the NC GOP, as the vast majority of Republicans are wonderful, hard-working people that don’t agree with those radical nut-jobs either but unfortunately the extremists in the party, with their ‘burn it all down’ philosophy, appear to be the ones turning out the majority of voters in the primaries and mid-term elections. And I want the people to know there is a choice.”

A sign of the times.

OMG, NCGOP, WTF? Don't Look Now, But One of Your Own Candidates Gets It

There are probably plenty of registered Republicans who might agree in private with Jason Thigpen (see what follows), but so far few are willing to say it out loud. This from "The People's Business" blog on the Fayetteville Observer site:

Jason Thigpen of Wilmington, the underdog Republican seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Walter Jones in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District, bucked his party and issued a scathing broadside today against the state’s new Voter ID law. 

“You can paint a turd and sell it as art, but it's still a turd,” Thigpen said in article on his campaign’s Facebook page. “This is 2013 and any legislator that puts forth such a discriminatory bill should be laughed out of office. This is America, not Russia.”

My sainted mother, who thought words like damn, durn, darn, and especially shit were obscene, pure and simple, and we were never ever to use them, well, she didn't feel the same way about a good country term like turd, which was a pure noun of substantive reality to her. Our high school basketball coach felt the same way: "Run, you little turds!"

Proud to see that Jason Thigpen thrives in that vein, and that he can still recognize a turd for what it is.