Democracy is surely entertaining

During the Republican primary, GOP candidate Christine O'Donnell was accused of failing to pay campaign staffers, stiffing creditors and using her campaign kitty as a personal piggy bank. Tough stuff, but traditional political attacks. Since O'Donnell won the nomination with heavy Tea Party backing, things have gotten really strange. She says she once dabbled in witchcraft. Her one-woman crusade against masturbation has become a national punch line. More serious are allegations that she manufactured much of her purported educational background, including nonexistent stints at Oxford and Princeton.

Then again, Republicans point out a 1985 college paper in which Democratic nominee Chris Coons hyperbolically described himself as a "bearded Marxist." Now, the balding capitalist is the front-runner in the weirdest race of 2010. And O'Donnell said that God has told her to remain in the race, despite intense pressure on her to withdraw.

This is the winner of the "candidates-say-the-strangest-things" award for 2010. The early favorite in the race, Republican Sue Lowden, saw her campaign collapse after she got into a debate over whether chickens should be used as "barter" for health-care services. What?

It's that kind of year. Surging to victory in the primary was Sharron Angle, who has been a cornucopia of politically incorrect pronouncements. She has blamed unemployment insurance for aggravating our jobless problems. She has suggested that veterans' health care should be privatized. And she's taken such extreme positions on abortion that Latino Republicans have disassociated themselves from her.

Bottom line: She's in a dead heat with the most powerful man in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid -- who would lose his reelection bid by a landslide against most any other candidate but has a chance to hang on for six more years because of his colorful opponent.

It's not very often that a candidate for statewide office threatens to kill a reporter. But that's what happened in New York, where Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino told New York Post reporter Fred Dicker last week that he will "take you out, buddy" because, he believed, the newsman was responsible for trying to contact his illegitimate daughter. When Dicker shot back, "How will you do that?" Paladino responded, "Watch."

The Buffalo businessman, whose rude, crude personality and "mad-as-hell" persona fit this year of the Tea Party to a T, is the quintessential outsider. He routed insider Rick Lazio to win the Republican nomination, and he's battling Albany insider -- and son of Albany insider -- Andrew Cuomo in the general election.

It seems like "The Jersey Shore" meets "The Sopranos." But it's playing out on Broadway.

Hollywood's home state should be proud of the entertainment quotient in its 2010 Senate race. There was the "demon sheep" video released by GOP candidate Carly Fiorina portraying her moderate primary rival, former Rep. Tom Campbell, as a red-eyed wolf in sheep's clothing. Then there were the former Hewlett-Packard executives who said they couldn't support Fiorina, an ex-CEO, because of what she'd done to the company. Fiorina has turned from demon sheep to vampire comparisons. Now she attacks Barbara Boxer through a series of missives declaring "Boxer bites." Boxer, one of the Senate's most liberal members, is happy to fight back. Their debates have been substantive and combative -- and a lot of fun.

This is "Survivor: Rocky Mountain Edition." The first man voted off the mountain was early Republican front-runner Scott McInnis, an ex-congressman felled by a plagiarism scandal. He ended up losing to the other guy on the ballot, a Tea Party-backed conservative named Dan Maes. Well, Maes, we later discovered, had some skeletons in his political closet. The worst: His not-quite-accurate tale of working undercover as a police officer in Kansas -- denied by Kansas officials.

Illegal immigration critic Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman who calls President Obama a socialist, launched a third-party bid and is running ahead of Maes in polls. Former Maes allies have turned on him: Northern Colorado Tea Party director Lesley Hollywood posted on Facebook, "Alright Dan Maes -- it's time for you to go. Get out now, while the gettin' is still good." Another Tea Party leader e-mailed associates calling the nominee a "fraud." The next governor? Almost certainly, it's John Hickenlooper, the Democratic mayor of Denver.

This is a remake of "Back to the Future" featuring former Gov. Jerry Brown playing the role (again) of maverick outsider. His opponent is a maverick outsider of a different type, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Brown, as sharp-tongued as always, got into trouble when he told a Monica Lewinsky joke in response to a Whitman commercial featuring an old clip of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton calling him a liar during the 1992 campaign. Whitman has trouble of her own: allegations that she'd knowingly employed an illegal immigrant as a domestic servant. With a month to go in the campaign, there's plenty of time for more melodrama.

Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist and son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, may have dabbled in the bizarre during his college days at Baylor, but he's deadly serious about his 2010 campaign. In the Republican primary, the Tea Party ally trounced the choice of the establishment, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The libertarian constitutionalist's combative election night victory speech set the tone for the rest of Election 2010.

"I have a message," he said, "a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We've come to take our government back." He hasn't looked back since, maintaining a solid lead over Jack Conway, a centrist Democrat who has tried to paint Paul as an off-the-wall extremist -- thus far with little apparent success.

You want entertainment? How about World Wrestling Entertainment, the high-octane, high-decibel pro wrestling circuit? The woman who ran it for years, Linda McMahon, wants to go to Washington, and she's spending her fortune liberally to promote a conservative, outsider message. Critics have attacked her with images from her flamboyant past -- kicking a guy in the groin, etc. But McMahon is giving Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a popular, longtime officeholder, all he can handle in this political cage match.

All of the action in Arizona's wildest congressional race came in the Republican primary, but in this heavily GOP district, the primary was tantamount to election.

The winner, and scion of the next American political dynasty, was Ben Quayle, son of the former vice president. Quayle broke away from the pack in a multicandidate field with a TV ad declaring: "Barack Obama is the worst president in history" and "Somebody has to go to Washington and knock the hell out of the place."

Meanwhile, back at Casa Quayle, the frontrunner was deflecting charges that he posted naughty items on a sexy website known as "Dirty Scottsdale." That prompted this ad from businessman/candidate Steve Moak: "Is this the kind of behavior we want from our next Congressman?"

Apparently, voters didn't care. They sent Quayle on the first step of his journey to knocking the hell of out Washington.

Only one congressional campaign in America features a candidate calling for the impeachment of President Obama. Not surprisingly, that nominee comes from Texas. Here's the surprise: The candidate is a Democrat.