A Fond Adieu to Tennessee’s Basil Marceaux.com

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Early in the primary for Tennessee governor, a local TV station gave each candidate from the major parties two minutes to explain their platforms. First up was a stocky former Recon Marine who introduced himself by saying, “I’m Basil Marceaux.com, the Republican candidate for governor.” It was all downhill from there.

Among Marceaux.com’s ideas are to force everyone to carry a gun, but “if you kill someone, though, you get murdered. You go to jail.” He advocated planting grass on all vacant lots in the state to sell for gas and doing away with all traffic stops.

Soon there was a more polished “official ad” where Marceaux.com said he wanted to “do my issues. And make yous all more freer.” One of those issues involved moving the capitol building from the capital of Nashville to Chattanooga as a method of cleaning house, getting rid of “all the back room politic that ruined our politic program in Tennessee.” Another was removing the gold fringes from all flags to “make the flag fly right.”

At a debate in Nashville, Marceaux.com and two other candidates tried to begin by saying the Pledge of Allegiance, but Marceaux.com refused to say it because the flag had gold fringe. After a fruitless search for another flag, Marceaux.com simply left the room. When he returned, the entire contingent had to repeat the Pledge to a picture of the American flag on an audience member’s cell phone. And that’s when things really got weird.

In addition to contending that Native Americans came from Asia and Greece and saying he would do away with Thanksgiving, Marceaux.com said he would round up everyone who looked Mexican and send them south of the border. If they had a Green Card, he contended, they could be allowed to return. Throughout the event, Marceaux.com kept falling asleep standing up at his podium because he said he hadn’t slept in days.

But the news was not all bad. Marceaux.com got a big boost from two long segments on The Colbert Report and an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Sadly, that was not enough to propel him into the general election. That honor went to Bill Haslam, who will face off against Mike McWherter in November. But in a state where two of the top candidates made headlines for suggesting Tennessee could consider secession (Rep. Zach Wamp) or that that Islam might not be a religion (Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey) anything certainly was possible.

Nate Rawlings