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Written by Cory Liebmann
Jun 16, 2011
If the first half of this year has taught us anything, it’s that our entire state government has not simply been taken over by Republicans but by radicals. Sadly, their extremism includes fighting equality and open hostility toward the LGBT community in general.
The GOP’s march to the fringe is not slowing down. The six Republican state senators facing recalls this summer all have bad records on equality. But some of the Republican candidates running in recall elections against current Democratic state senators take things to an entirely new level.
Kim Simac, the leader of the Tea Party group Northwoods Patriots, has announced her campaign to run against Democratic state Sen. Jim Holperin this summer. You don’t have to listen to Simac for very long to realize just how extreme she is compared to most Wisconsinites. Although she has no elected or applicable experience, she’s supported by the Republican Party.
While promoting one of her “children’s books,” Simac appeared on a low-quality religious program called “By the Book.” During the interview, she expressed nearly every paranoid right-wing idea possible.
Simac made the baseless claim that ministers are losing the freedom to say what they want from their pulpits. She disputed the idea of separation of church and state.
On her various websites, Simac lists a number of the most rabidly anti-gay national organizations, including Focus on the Family and the American Family Association. She has attended so-called “Values Voters” events in Washington, D.C., which are sponsored by groups like the Family Research Council.
Despite declaring herself to be such a “patriot,” Simac doesn’t feel fondly about her state or her country when a party that she doesn’t like is in power. Prior to the state takeover by Republican extremists, Simac told an interviewer “my state of Wisconsin is awful.” In one of her speeches, she described what she called the “complacent selfish American” and declared that the United States became a “genocide nation” in the 1970s. She went on to suggest that maybe we shouldn’t talk about what a great country America is but rather what a great country it was.
Extremist candidates such as Simac are a dime a dozen. They have always popped up in election cycles. The difference in Wisconsin is that the Republican Party apparatus is openly backing them.
It is one thing to be a conservative Republican, but it is an entirely different thing to support divisive candidates on the lunatic fringe. Yet that is exactly the road that the Republican Party of Wisconsin is traveling.
