Jim Bunning

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Rookie for Detroit Tigers, 1955.

Jim Bunning was the junior Senator from Kentucky. He is also a staunch Republican, and quite probably a wingnut.

Bunning started his career as a famous baseball pitcher. He used that to then run for Congress, and the Senate after that.

In his 2004 Senatorial Campaign, Bunning said that his opponent looked like Saddam Hussein's sons; he accused his opponent's staff of beating up Bunning's wife; he admitted that he had no idea that a large contingent of KY troops were refusing orders in Iraq;[1] he used a teleprompter in the debate, despite it being explicitly against the rules[2]; and he (and other prominent KY Republicans) questioned the sexuality of his opponent. Interestingly, the election showed that these tactics probably hurt him; at a time when President Bush won KY easily, Bunning squeaked by with 51% to his opponent's 49%.

Since then, he has been voted by Time magazine one of the 5 worst Senators. Moreover, he's only really staked out independent positions on two things. He has been very aggressive on the baseball steroids scandal, and he voted against Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve, being the only Senator to do so. (He felt that Bernanke would continue the policies of Alan Greenspan.) He was also one of the only two Senators to vote against Robert Gates for Secretary of Defense, because he felt that Gates was anti-victory.[3]

In 2011, Bunning decided not to run for reelection. He was succeeded by professional wingnut Rand Paul.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Jim Bunning Pitches into Trouble, CBS News
  2. He was off-site for it, because he said he didn't have time to come home from Washington.
  3. Rick Santorum was the other one.
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