The Republican Party Only Has Itself to Blame

MINEOLA, Tex. — On Super Tuesday, Dale Clark voted for a local Republican who claimed on social media that President Obama had worked as a gay prostitute in his youth, that the United States should ban Islam, that the Democratic Party had John F. Kennedy killed and that the United Nations had hatched a plot to depopulate the world.

Mr. Clark, 75, was unaware that the candidate he had supported — Mary Lou Bruner, 68, a former kindergarten teacher running for a seat on the State Board of Education — held such views. But as he sat with his wife eating lunch in this East Texas city, Mr. Clark was ready to give Ms. Bruner the benefit of the doubt.

“I would not discount her on the basis of having those beliefs,” said Mr. Clark, a retired pilot. “It convinces me, though, that she’s quite conservative, and if I were going to err either way, I would want to err toward the side of the conservative.”

Ms. Bruner’s anti-Obama, anti-Islam, anti-evolution and anti-gay Facebook posts have generated national headlines and turned an obscure school board election into a glimpse of the outer limits of Texas politics. In a part of the state dominated by conservative Christians and Tea Party activists, Ms. Bruner’s candidacy has posed a question no one can answer with any certainty — how far to the fringe is too far for Texas Republicans?

On her Facebook page, Ms. Bruner called Mr. Obama “Ahab the Arab,” and wrote that he “hates all white people and all wealthy people because to him wealthy means white.” Although she condemned the Ku Klux Klan in one posting, she wrote positively of its roots, writing that it started “as citizens trying to fight back against a corrupt government when there were corrupt officials or no officials at all to keep law and order in the rural areas.” Of Mr. Obama’s youth, she wrote: “I heard from a reliable source that Obama was also a male prostitute for a while when he lived in New York with his male ‘partner.’ How do you think he paid for his drugs?”

Floyd Robertson wrote:This country is in desperate need of a new pro choice, marijuana legalizing, gun-toting, fiscally conservative, balance the budget party.

xsanguine wrote:

Floyd Robertson wrote:This country is in desperate need of a new pro choice, marijuana legalizing, gun-toting, fiscally conservative, balance the budget party.

Isn't that the Libertarian party?

Floyd Robertson wrote:

xsanguine wrote:

Isn't that the Libertarian party?

You got me, I've never paid attention to them.

xsanguine wrote:

Floyd Robertson wrote:

You got me, I've never paid attention to them.

To be fair, they're irrelevant.

xsanguine wrote:

Floyd Robertson wrote:

You got me, I've never paid attention to them.

To be fair, they're irrelevant.

Floyd Robertson wrote:This country is in desperate need of a new pro choice, marijuana legalizing, gun-toting, fiscally conservative, balance the budget party.