REPORTS OF THE DEATH OF WINGNUTTERY ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED

After reading (among other things) this New York Times story by Kim Severson about challengers lining up to primary Lindsay Graham in South Carolina in 2014, Alex Seitz-Wald declares that he's unimpressed:

... tea party groups [in South Carolina] have taken to calling [Graham] "a community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood." But despite their common antipathy for Graham, the 40-plus tea party and libertarian-leaning groups in the state must first hash out "a civil war of their own," Severson reports, as they can't decide on a common candidate.

The most promising choice is Nancy Mace, the first woman to graduate from the Citadel, but GOP strategists say the marketing executive, who has never run for office, "might not be ready for primetime." Indeed, running against a well-funded and high-profile incumbent like Graham will be no easy task. He's faced the tea party's ire since its inception -- it flushed him down a toilet in 2009, at least in effigy -- but so far remains largely unscathed.

Yeah, but there are several issues. First off, wingnuts are really frustrated now -- much more than in 2009, because they failed to prevent Obama from getting reelected and failed to prevent Obamacare from passing, and now the Republicans they've elected may fail to block Obamacare and fail to shut down the government and fail to push the country into default. To wingnuts, that would really suck! The frustration level would be tremendous.

Also, wingnuts don't really have to settle on a candidate in South Carolina -- all they have to do is keep Graham under 50% in the primary, thus forcing a runoff -- which could be more likely with multiple anti-Graham candidates. Then the top two would go to a runoff (presumably Graham and one anti-Graham), and at that point Graham is at serious risk.

And finally, I'd say the anti-Grahams, especially Nancy Mace, are hitting all the wingnut pleasure centers. Here she is saying all the right things, in exactly the right media venue:

Nancy Mace, who is the first female graduate of The Citadel, appeared on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125...

"Amnesty does not sell down here," Mace said. "People are very upset with it."

... Mace said the Gang of Eight in the Senate claimed the immigration bill would be deficit neutral when hardly anything in Washington is revenue neutral.

"When was the last time government gave us a number that was actually accurate?" she said....

Breitbart! Amnesty! Government-bashing! Starbursts are being seen in Wingnuttia already.

Want to see Mace's signed Obamacare Repeal Pledge? It's right here, on her Facebook page. And she's not just an Obamacare foe -- she's also a (would-be) defunder:

.@GrahamBlog says defunding #ObamaCare is a "bridge too far." I disagree. Pls support conservative republicans & RT! pic.twitter.com/OUSE2D91LD

— Nancy Mace (@nancymace) August 22, 2013

Richard Cash, the Times story tells us, "is staking out a position as the most anti-abortion, Christian constitutionalist in the race.... In meetings with Tea Party groups, Mr. Cash repeats a carefully honed slogan about his candidacy, which he says is built on three C's: capitalism, Christianity and the Constitution."

And as for Lee Bright, Think Progress says that some of his positions on the issues include the following:

Anyone enforcing federal health care law should get a year in jail....

Pushing for South Carolina to adopt its own currency. Claiming that the state needs "some kind of backup" in case the population should "lose faith in the dollar," Bright filed a bill calling for a study on the creation of a South Carolina state currency based on "gold or silver, or both."...
Supporting secession. Bright sponsored a resolution to affirm South Carolina's sovereignty, asserting state's rights. "If at first you don’t secede, try again," he joked....

Opposing "Sharia law." Bright co-sponsored an Islamophobic bill to ban the use of Islamic law in South Carolina courts....

One of these people could easily break from the pack before Primary Day -- probably whoever gets what seems to be the most valuable currency in a GOP primary, namely an endorsement by Sarah Palin or Ted Cruz. My bet is that the Palin endorsement will go to Nancy Mace -- she's ex-military from a military family, she's a mother (a potential Mama Grizzly!), she's a small businesswomen, she's never run for office before, and she's a former board member of a Christian medical charity (if you were going to create a candidate in a lab guaranteed to get Palin's endorsement, Mace is what you'd cook up).

Sorry, Lindsey -- reflexive pro-militarism isn't going to help you this go-round, not when that sometimes puts you on the same side as Obama. I think South Carolina voters want blood this time. I think they'll get it.