See update at end of this post about the wife of a Utah county GOP chairman calling Fred Karger “a radical idiot” and saying “thank goodness” he “cant procreate.”
ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 7, 2:39 P.M.: What does it say about Californians that only 6,641 voted for Laguna Beach's Fred Karger for president, while 115,678 chose Aliso Viejo's Orly Taitz for U.S. Senate?
Batshit crazy Taitzy can at least boast she finished better than 19 others on the ballot with her Tuesday. Her Republican colleague Karger (that's about all they have in common; he's openly gay . . . and sane) finished dead last among GOP candidates.
]
That includes three pols who had already suspended their campaigns before California (Ron Paul, second to Mitt Romney, with 10.2 percent of the vote, “Sticky Ricky” Santorum at 5.3 percent and Newt Gingrich at 3.8 percent).
Fred Karger Makes Home State's GOP Ballot
Sure, the races were different, but Taitz actually received more California votes than Santorum (77,784) and Gingrich (56,120).
OC Gay Republican Dreams of Beating President Barack Obama
Meanwhile, Karger's finish had him taking 0.4 percent of the vote in the Republican presidential race. There were likely more write-ins for Snooki.
In Fred Karger's Presidential Run, GOP Stands for Gay Old Party
But where it's really embarrassing is Orange County, where the GOP consultant received only 598 votes. The 61-year-old returned to Laguna to catch the results. Can you imagine all his friends averting their eyes as he walked by?
Fred Karger Delights OC Crowd in Presidential Bid
Without a California miracle, Karger has finishing ahead of Michelle Bachmann in New Hampshire and Paul in Puerto Rico as 2012 campaign highlights.
Fred Karger, Gay GOP Presidential Candidate, Left N.H. in Bachmann-Burner Overdrive
Not that he's finished. Karger is reportedly taking the Un-Straight Talk Express to Utah and Brigham Young University, where he'll talk to students about being proudly gay. In the capital of the movement that brought California Prop 8. Amazing. If only real courage translated into votes.
Fred Karger Gets More Votes Than Ron Paul in Puerto Rico GOP Primary
UPDATE, JUNE 14, 10:43 A.M.: Well, Fred Karger is not getting a warm welcome in every corner of Utah, where his blip-on-the-screen presidential campaign descended in advance of the June 26 primary election, the nation's last.
Take Washington County . . . please!
Running not because he believes he has a legitimate chance of winning the GOP nomination but to hopefully change
attitudes within the party about homosexuality and same-sex marriage, Karger reports Washington County
Republican Party Chairman Willie Billings was “friendly” and
“welcoming.”
That's refreshing, because Utah's Mormon Church and a sizable chunk of the state's residents helped bankroll the Prop 8 initiative that outlawed gay marriage in California, the home state of Karger of Laguna Beach. So, the candidate gave Billings a Karger campaign tee and flying disc.
Billings took the souvenirs home, something his
wife Nanette Billings obviously did not appreciate, based on the email she then fired off to Karger:
Do they teach spelling in Utah schools? Actually, the tone reminds me of something that happened as I was leaving the GOP “victory” party at the Irvine Hyatt the night of the 2008 presidential election. As is usually the case, nearly all the gathered Orange County Republican candidates had won their races, but it was the most-angry gathering I had been to (outside a certain couple Christian church services) because Barack Obama defeated John McCain, who speakers like Dana Rohrabacher informed is not a real conservative Republican and that's why Maverick lost.
Near the end of the night, the tables in the ballroom were being folded up and new stuff was being carted in. I did not think much of it, and having more than enough in my notebook for a story I headed to the parking lot. A few spaces from my ride, I was stopped by a gentle young man who wanted to know the way to the “Yes on Prop 8” party.
“Uh . . . I don't know,” I answered, failing to put two-and-two together that the GOP and Prop 8 shindigs were in the same room. “But the ballroom is that way.”
“He doesn't know anything,” the guy's blond wife interjected dismissively while bent over unfolding strollers for a gaggle of tow-headed children who all appeared to be under age 10.
She then shot her husband a look that suggested, “We've been over this: no more talking to strange men.” He collapsed his shoulders, defeated, and moved over to help her finish piling the kids in the strollers.
Hopefully for him her mood lightened once she clanked glasses with the other haters inside.
Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.