By most fair measures, Iowa’s Joni Ernst (R) is arguably the most right-wing U.S. Senate candidate in the nation, though she and her party have gone to considerable lengths to pretend otherwise. After the state senator won the Republican primary, George Will said she adopted a “less exotic persona,” which has led some to suggest Ernst isn’t quite as radical as she seems.
But sometimes, a candidate has trouble running from their extremism, no matter how hard they try. Daniel Strauss ran this stunning report today:
State Sen. Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa, once said she would support legislation that would allow “local law enforcement to arrest federal officials attempting to implement” Obamacare.Ernst voiced her support for that, as well as supporting legislation that would “nullify” Obamacare in a Iowa State Legislative Candidates survey for Ron Paul’s libertarian-aligned Campaign for Liberty in 2012.
There’s no credible way to spin a revelation like this. Ernst answered this questionnaire and chose to put herself on the farthest fringes of modern American thought.
Indeed, a few months ago, when evidence emerged that Ernst believes states could “nullify” federal laws they don’t like — a ridiculous argument resolved by the U.S. Civil War — her aides and supporters dismissed the allegations as baseless. And yet, here we have additional proof: Ernst specifically endorsed “legislation to nullify Obamacare” and expressed support for a provision that said local law enforcement could arrest federal officials “attempting to implement” federal health care law in Iowa.
On any ideological spectrum, we can find policymakers that belong on the far left or far right, but Ernst has taken positions that put her squarely in the bonkers wing of the contemporary Republican Party.
Remember, it’s not just this one questionnaire.
Ernst has endorsed banning abortions and many forms of birth control; privatizing Social Security; and impeaching President Obama. She’s argued that Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction and people on Medicaid “have no personal responsibility for their health.” She’s dismissed the very existence of a federal minimum wage as “ridiculous” and credits the Koch brothers for the strength of her candidacy. She’s endorsed enough conspiracy theories to qualify her as the head of a Glenn Beck fan club.
If Ernst is elected — and she currently leads in nearly every poll — she will immediately become one of the most radical members of the U.S. Senate in recent history.
The conventional wisdom holds that Republicans were far more cautious in 2014 than they were in 2010 and 2012. GOP voters nominated plenty of far-right candidates, but balked at the truly nutty fringe represented by recent Senate candidates like Sharron Angle, Todd Akin, and Christine O’Donnell — all of whom drew visceral opposition from the American mainstream.
But as we talked about the other day, Joni Ernst, perhaps more than any other statewide candidate this year, comes from the Akin-Angle-Mourdock-O’Donnell wing of the Republican Party, representing an often-bizarre combination of discredited conspiracy theories and fringe policy ideas.
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."