Tennessee Democrats Hit Low Point With Senate Candidate

The Democratic Party in Tennessee has sunk so low that their candidate for U.S. Senate is a part-time flooring installer with no campaign headquarters, little money and just one yard sign.

The state was once known as home to such stalwarts of the Democratic Party as Vice President Al Gore and President Andrew Jackson. However it has now turned so red that Mark Clayton, the candidate going up against GOP Sen. Bob Corker is a conspiracy theorist who has remarked on his Facebook page that the Transportation Security Administration “mandates [transsexuals] and homosexuals grabbing children in their stranger-danger zones,” The Washington Post reported.

The Post headlined its article "2012’s worst candidate? With Mark Clayton, Tennessee Democrats hit bottom."

“It’s pretty sad. I mean, when your nomination is not worth having, that’s embarrassing,” Will Cheek, a long-time member of the state Democratic Party’s executive committee, told the paper. “That would appear to be where we are.”

When Corker ran for the Senate in 2006 he was challenged by Rep. Harold Ford Jr., who came within three percentage points of winning. But this year many Democrats believe the party is in such poor shape that Clayton won the primary solely because his name was first alphabetically and so top of the ballot.

The party has disavowed Clayton and told voters to write in a name on the ballot instead, the Post reported.