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The political landscape has been missing something since Harry Reid beat Sharron Angle in 2010, eliminating for a moment the saliency on the national scene of the problem of paying your doctor with chickens. It was a cautionary tale for other Republicans about where the outer limits of tolerable nonsense were, even in modern American politics. But, down in Mississippi, incumbent U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, the pride of Copiah-Lincoln Community College, is boldly smashing her way past those limits in her run-off with Democratic candidate Mike Espy.

Earlier, you may recall, Hyde-Smith paid a supporter the ultimate traditional Mississippi White Person comment of saying that she would attend a public hanging with him. Those people who are aware that public hangings, especially of black people, were a form of mass entertainment for Mississippi White People over the decades were aghast. This prompted Hyde-Smith to enlist Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant in what was the worst political press conference I've ever seen.

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Pro Tip: the answer to the question, "Are you familiar with Mississippi's history of lynchings?" is not to say that you put out a statement yesterday and that's all your going to say about it. Also, stick around long enough to watch Bryant "pivot" to talking about abortion and fall flat on his face. Mississippi, goddamn.

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Since then, Hyde-Smith has been out on the stump, burnishing her newly acquired reputation as the wingnut's wingnut. She got caught on video musing that it would be just swell if we could keep all those liberal students from voting. When people took exception to this, she moved right back into Mississippi history and blamed the whole controversy on...wait for it...outside agitators. From the electric Twitter machine:

She is still the likely winner in the run-off, which may be the answer she's looking for here. In America, we may not have a sense of humor, but we know a good joke when we see one.

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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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