The race in North Carolina’s congressional district isn’t likely to be competitive. It’s one of the reddest districts in a red state, and a conservative candidate named Mark Walker (R) is well on his way to becoming a freshman congressman next year.
And so it’s of interest that Mr. Walker held an event in the district earlier this summer, where he fielded a question from a voter who asked about the possible use of military force “to secure our southern border.” The congressional candidate replied:
“Well, my first answer for that is we need to utilize the National Guard as much as we can. But I will tell you, if you have foreigners who are sneaking in with drug cartels, to me that is a national threat.“And if we’ve got to go laser or blitz somebody with a couple of fighter jets for a little while to make our point, I don’t have a problem with that, either.”
This actually drew considerable applause from attendees.
In fact, when the applause died down, someone in the audience added, “I hope you wouldn’t have any qualms about starting up a little war with Mexico.” Walker responded, “Well, we did it before, if we need to do it again, I don’t have a qualm about it.”
I realize that an anti-immigrant posture has become the norm in Republican politics, with many candidates fighting for position to be more extreme than the next, but North Carolina’s Mark Walker, a Baptist minister by trade, may be the only GOP candidate in the nation who’s open to literally starting a war with Mexico — complete with lasers.
Michele Bachmann will be out of Congress at the end of the year, but the radical torch will be passed to a new generation of extremists soon enough.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."