He looks to be the next Palin. He somehow got into the national spotlight and clearly doesn't know how to handle this. Hopefully this results in the Republicans just handing the Dems this seat.

Here's the thing: he can't just run for Grand Executioner of the Social Safety Net. I'm predicting Cain/Palin level gaffes when he steps outside his element...

Yeah... He sounded pretty damned smart all things considered. I think not being able to provide good sound bites is really an over-rated skill for a policy-maker. But yeah- he might fall on his face quickly.

"The press is in the habit of drawing juxtapositions like that" is a good and fair response to being pressured about whether you're an isolationist or and interventionist.

He's so honest and sincere that his campaign manager saw fit to scrub the Libertopian cray-cray from Brat's facebook page after the election:

https://news.yahoo.com/brat-campaign-manager-scrubs-facebook-p age-after-election-173536113.html

It's your basic abolish the fed, George Zimmerman 4 Lyfe, chuck the FDA, pseudo-MRA insanity.

Or maybe he didn't honestly or sincerely believe all that BS and now he's turning over a new leaf? Yeah, that's the ticket...

I take no responsibility for any of this man's beliefs.

This may be totally remedial by now but I can't help myself.

The Koch brothers created this guy from the ground up, and without even having to contribute directly to his campaign in a significant way (Cantor outspent by something like 20 million dollars). Instead they pumped huge amounts of cash into right-wing radio shows like Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham's to promote Brat and disparage Cantor, allowing his campaign to maintain its grass roots appearance.

Even his academic career is largely a sham, his position teaching Moral Foundations of Capitalism was created for him by an endowment (2 million dollars by some accounts) from BB&T bank's "charitable foundation" (By then CEO/president John Allison, now CEO/president of the Cato institute, formerly the Charles Koch foundation, also board member of the Ayn Rand Institute) to promote supply side/free market economics and Randian philosophy.

And gmol and aciddie, what the fuck are you smoking? He intimated he was against the minimum wage and even the concept of labor laws. That wasn't a cool withdrawn approach you were seeing, that was a devious cunt who knows better than to articulate what he really believes in front of a camera. I can't believe you two!

Chocholate Jesus H Christ! Moral Foundations of Capitalism? That must be a short course, huh? But it follows from that rather odd statement he made w/ respect to the minimum wage "As an economics prof. I know that wages have to track productivity. Unless we have greater productivity, we can't have greater wages". As if the actual historical data he is referencing doesn't entirely back up the position of perhaps doubling or trebling the mininum wage.

What a fraud. But how is he really any different from Cantor? Same old thing, in brand new drag, comes sweeping thru...I guess the season is on.

Yes, gmol. What could be more sincere than, "I'm happy to give you policy answers next time"?

HE'S AN ECONOMICS PROFESSOR WHO SEEMS TO KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ECONOMICS!!!
I kind of shut him out when he started rambling about how a countries wages need to match its productivity, our wages have long fallen behind our productivity.
I'm no economist myself, but this goon just seems to ignore any economic data that disagrees with his ideology.

Then again Reagan was a sociology major who didn't appear to believe in sociology. After all everything from people's financial status to crime rates was all a matter of individual choices to him.

Some people learn from their education. Some people do well by regurgitating what they're told are the right answers.

Reagan became an actor, so I'm betting he just parroted back whatever he was told to read without too much analysis.

Austrian economists: people who treat fiat currency as real and real people as abstracts

He's named like a fucking Gogol character.
Richie Bratworth might be more fitting, but you can't have everything.

This counts as 'left wing' where you're from?

It isn't picking a side that should bother people so much as FOX news' artform of outright conspiracy fearmonger lying.

I don't get your objection. If a candidate is for Policy A, I'd sure as hell hope that they'd be asked hard, challenging questions about Policy A. I loathe softball questions of any kind lobbed at politicos, especially on Fox News.

I like how asking a politician about his own policies is now considered "hardball questioning."

It's going to get to the point that anything more complicated than "What's your favorite movie?" is going to be too hardball.