The New Poster Child For TheTEA Partiers

South Carolina voters sure know how to pick them, don't they?

Their governor, Mark Sanford, fully disgraced himself and embarrassed his state when he was caught "hiking the Appalachian Trail" in South America.

Now, their Lieutenant Governor, and would-be governor, Andre Bauer, has put his foot into it. Bauer, who is in full sync the teabaggers and attends and speaks at their rallies, had this to say about people getting hurt by the recession:

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has compared giving people government assistance to "feeding stray animals."

Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better," Bauer said.

As one would expect, his opponents are jumping all over Bauer's gross stupidity and ignorance. One opponent has started a petition demanding Bauer apologize for his crude comment.

What is to wonder is why the teabaggers who have people like Bauer acting as their speakers, or people with signs like this one as one of their top organizers, are treated with disdain and disgust.

I fully expect the usual suspects to try to distance themselves and their fellow teabaggers from Bauer, but when these displays of hate and bigotry keep happening and happening again, it is the norm, not an exception.

And I wouldn't be me if I didn't point out that both Scott Walker and David Clarke love going to these events. And while neither has (yet) been as ignorant as Bauer in their comments, Walker's actions, like those of Clarke's, show that they are right in lockstep with this kind of vulgar thinking.