Tim Donnelly is no Tom McClintock. He’s the village idiot.

01 Jun, 2014 by Chris Reed

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I understand why my CWD colleague and friend John Seiler sees the Neel Kashkari vs. Tim Donnelly fight through the prism of past fights between relatively liberal establishment GOP types and some conservative grassroots candidates.

The idea that a 2008 Obama voter has the enthusiastic support of Pete Wilson, Mitt Romney, Darrell Issa, etc., is hard to digest for anyone who thinks Obama has been a spectacular failure, and that includes most California conservatives and libertarians. John is also right to suggest the California Republican establishment has often shown little savvy or spine and is altogether too ready to play it safe in Golden State politics.

But where I part ways with John is that Donnelly is no Tom McClintock or Bruce Herschensohn. Those guys are brainiacs who deserved establishment support. That doesn’t hold for Donnelly. He is a kook — at best. Anyone who mixes up Hindus and Muslims or sees a continuum in their beliefs is an utter embarrassment to a political movement, or should be.

I felt like laughing until my head exploded a few weeks back when I brought up the sheer stinking stupidity of Donnelly’s remarks and was accused of being “politically correct.”

The racial subtext of Donnelly’s deep suspicions of Asians with dark skins is unpleasant to contemplate, to be sure. But even if his remarks were genuine and not motivated by ugly (and weird) stereotypes, they’re just off-the-charts dumb. He didn’t face a backlash for mentioning uncomfortable truths. He said something that was idiotic and deserved the mockery that ensued.

Who is Tim Donnelly best compared to?

I nominate Ruben Sierra.