Oh adorable GOP. You just can’t help yourself. It’s bad enough that the Republican party is pushing Ken Cuccinelli for governor of Virginia, a man who wants to make oral sex illegal, for everybody (not just gays). But the guy they’ve paired Cuccinelli with for Lieutenant Governor, E. W. Jackson, is a nutjob who has claimed that the Democratic party is worse than the KKK, and that gays are pedophiles and perverts.

And Republicans wonder why they’re losing favor nationally. At some point, if you hate the majority of the country, that majority catches on and stops voting for you.

Let’s start with the Klan. If the Republicans really want to go there, and invoke the Klan, let’s talk about the Klan and which party they’d support. Because I’ve got news for you, when former KKK grand wizard David Duke ran for the US Senate, it wasn’t as a Democrat.

And while Republicans love to talk about how a lot of the older southern segregationists were Democrats, the Democratic racists left the Democratic party decades ago because they just didn’t feel welcome. Where did the racist go to feel more welcome? The Republican party.

Here’s E.W. Jackson on Democrats and the KKK:

In a video message from last September, Jackson said that Planned Parenthood “has been far, far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was,“ adding that “the Democrat Party and Planned Parenthood are partners in this genocide.”

And it was only last October that Jackson did an interview with a known hate group, Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality, that has, among other things, promoted the Holocaust revisionist notion that gays were the real power behind the Holocaust. From RightWingWatch, more on Jackson’s pronouncements:

Referred to gays and lesbians as “perverted,” “degenerate,” “spiritually darkened” and “frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally.”

Said regarding homosexuality: “it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of.”

Argued that gays seek to “sexualize [children] at the earliest possible age” and use “totalitarian” tactics.

Claimed gays are hurting black women: “I’ve heard a lot of young black ladies that a lot of young black men seem to be gay. I’ve heard them complain about it, they say ‘so many of these guys are homosexuals’ and they are frankly frustrated by it.”

Said there is a “direct connection” between gays and pedophilia.

I hear bigots like Jackson and it makes me think of the recent study about the most severe homophobes being big old closet cases.

Jackson also frets that President Obama might just be a closet Muslim:

“The idea that Barack Obama is a Christian is laughable” and added that Obama “is, at best, a confused man [and] is, at worst, has the sensibilities …. of an atheists and a Muslim.”

Let’s share that little video, shall we?

While it’s fine to be outraged that E.W. Jackson is a bigot, it’s far worse than that. Jackson is evidence of the larger cancer in the Republican party that Colin Powell recently talked about:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday and had some strong words for his fellow GOP members: “The Republican party needs to take a very hard look at itself and understand that the country has changed.” Powell criticized the GOP of today for everything from their views on climate change to taxes. Most importantly? The party has a “dark vein of intolerance” running through it and “if they don’t change” along with America’s changing demographics, “they are going to be in trouble.”

And they won’t change. And this is exhibit A.

When Republicans attempt to exercise some diversity, they reach out to crazy people. They don’t pick a mainstream African-American Republican to run for office in Virginia, they pick a nut. They do the same when they reach out to women, Latinos, gays and everyone else. They’re simply incapable of embracing anyone mainstream. Why? Because if they do let go of the intolerance, like the recently-fired state chair of the Illinois Republican party, after he publicly embraced gay marriage, you’ll lose your career.

And there’s probably another reason they don’t embrace mainstream minority candidates. Mainstream people don’t vote Republican, and they increasingly don’t run for office as Republicans.