Imagine you're a civic-minded citizen of Hilton Head, South Carolina. (First, imagine that you have enough money to be a civic-minded citizen of Hilton Head, South Carolina. Fun, isn't it?) You realize that your metropolis is electing a new mayor and you want to make a thoughtful, considered choice. So you study your options. You educate yourself on the issues. You vet the candidates in your mind. And you do all this on the beach, which is cool. And then you go to the polls and you still are faced with a very tough choice.

Do you vote for the Holocaust denier, or the Hitler-curious lady?

From the Charleston Post and Courier:

Santomauro, a three-year resident of Hilton Head who has lived much of his life in New York City, is running on a typical platform for a booming coastal area of South Carolina: better traffic management and a moratorium on new building projects. He’s also a self-described “Holocaust revisionist” and denies several documented facts of the mass extermination of Jews and others that took place before and during World War II.

Or...

In an interview in her office with the 12 Jewels of Life Foundation, which runs a free summer lunch program for local needy children, Williams didn’t skirt the subject of Santomauro’s run or try to move on quickly to another topic. She offered that she thought Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was successful in uniting people. “He did what he had to do,” Williams said. “He got that many people to follow him. He must have been doing something right.” ...Williams said what she admired primarily about Hitler was his ability to control people.“I like the power part, I guess, the control part,” she said.

In fairness, there are four other candidates, so you don't necessarily have to choose between two different bags of nuts. Please, Hilton Head. Say no to Nazis. This shouldn't be that hard.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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