Rand Paul: Crazier than Jim Bunning?

Readers, I've probably been a little lax lately in keeping you up to date with the latest Ky political wranglings. It's likely a combination of the shitty weather, general summer laziness, and the crushing sense of impending doom that is the inevitability of what will surely be known to history as the Great Hollerin' Hillbilly Takeover of 2010. I'm talking, of course, about Ky's 2010 Senate race.

So the issue at hand: Rand Paul. He's apparently a big deal--something about his household name of a daddy and a beverage-related get-together. It's been rather messy from the get-go. "Messy" in that, like, the minute he won the primary election he dissed the civil rights movement on national television. He says it's not like he's a racist, mind you--not Dr. Paul, he hates bigotry, lots of black friends, you understand--it's just that, you know, private business owners should get to decide if they'd like to be racists themselves, without all those pesky federal anti-discrimination laws getting in the way.

Bottom line: is he a contender to win this thing? Unfortunately, it looks like Paul is pretty much unstoppable; Louisville may be a bunch of drum circling hippies (comparatively), but the rest of KY is solidly gun-toting and beverage get-togethering. So the real question isn't really "Will Rand Paul get elected?" It's more like "Will Rand Paul be an acceptably bonkers successor to the throne of crazy built by Jim Bunning?" Readers, I wasn't so sure...until I read yesterday's Courier-Journal. Check out this headline:

"Paul ponders legal options after abduction allegation" (!!)

You see, in his wackier college days, Rand Paul (allegedly) kid-napped a female classmate, "tried to make her smoke marijuana and then forced her to bow down and praise a fictional god" !!! Apparently Paul was in some dumbass "secret society" while he was enrolled at Baylor University, and he and a buddy abducted a girl from the swim team, tried to get her to take a bong hit (which would've made all of this make a lot more sense to her), then, as his alleged abductee recently told GQ Magazine, demanded that she give praise to something (someone?) called the "Aqua Buddha":

“They told me their god was ‘Aqua Buddha' and that I needed to bow down and worship him,” she told the magazine. “They blindfolded me and made me bow down to ‘Aqua Buddha' in the creek. I had to say, ‘I worship you Aqua Buddha, I worship you.' At Baylor, there were people actively going around trying to save you and we had to go to chapel, so worshiping idols was a big no-no.”

Wow, 1983...it was a hell of a year I guess (although, as an "active member of Young Conservatives of Texas" shouldn't he have been worshiping Reagan by 1983?).

I wish I could say that this--or any of his other gaffes and rants--would make a difference to the (very) likely outcome I foresee for November. But honestly? He could bite the head off Bristol Palin's baby on Fox News and he'd still crush Jack Conway this Fall.

So to answer my own question: time will tell--but like my Magic 8 Ball always seemed to say, all signs point to "yes".