Mr. Potato Head

Idaho voters went to the polls last night to decide primaries, but the story here is the rather meteoric fall of one GOP candidate for ID-1, Vaughn Ward.  What should have been a cake walk for one of the more conservative Rocky Mountain states turned into anyone's guess as Ward has piled on the mistakes in the last month.

Meet Vaughn Ward. He's running in today's Republican primary in Idaho's 1st Congressional District. He's an Iraq War veteran. A former CIA operations officer. A fourth-generation Idaho native. Heck, Sarah Palin supports him.

And after this spring's disastrous, gaffe-filled primary campaign -- during which Ward declared that Puerto Rico was a country, apparently plagiarized fellow candidates and Barack Obama, campaigned on cutting federal spending while his wife's gig at Fannie Mae allowed Ward to go without an income, and re-released a six-month-old endorsement -- Ward may be able to add another title to his resume: Worst candidate ever.

The real strikes against Ward are the disturbing similarities in one of his speeches to that of Barack Obama:


And his insistence that Puerto Rico is a foreign country.



Suddenly, this guy looks like a complete ass. And as expected, Ward got his ass handed to him last night by the voters.

Top national GOP recruit Vaughn Ward on Tuesday lost his primary in Idaho after a series of missteps by his campaign, throwing the Republican Party's chances in doubt against top-targeted Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho).

Ward was trailing state Rep. Raul Labrador (R) 48 to 39 percent, with 90 percent of precincts reporting. The Associated Press called the race for Labrador early Wednesday.

Potato Head, indeed.  Just because the economy is bad and there are lots of problems America faces today, doesn't magically make Republicans any more competent, folks.