I’m from Tennessee and if we know one thing, it’s how to create terrible, awful politicians. I’d love to see many of our local politicians voted out. Unfortunately, our populace is fairly uneducated and apathetic when it comes to politics. They are used to going into the voting booth and voting for a (D) or (R). The only real hope we have that awful people will get voted out is a primary challenge (or retirement, but nobody’s going to be doing us any favors there). Here are my top 3 douche bags problematic candidates that deserve a boot.

Problematic Candidate #1: Stacey Campfield. This guy is notorious not only in Tennessee, but in the nation as a whole. He’s probably most famous as the “Don’t Say Gay” guy, but more recently he attempted to pass some welfare “reform” that would reduce the benefits of parents whose children are not doing well in school. Umm, there are about a billion things we can do to help those kids do better in school, but taking away what little money their family has coming in is not one of those things. In fact many children in such situations already have terrible home lives, and making them responsible for the income of the family is NOT something that is going to make school work any easier for them. He represents Knoxville in the Tennessee State Senate and he needs to GO! This is my official call to any Republican willing to take this guy on. As long as you aren’t an even bigger douche bag problematic candidate, I’ll do what I can to help you win your primary.

Problematic Candidate #2: Scott Dejarlais. Dr. Dejarlais (how he still has a medical license is beyond me) is just a hypocrite. This pro-life, family values candidate encouraged two ex-mistresses and his ex-wife to get abortions and also had multiple ethically questionable things going on in his medical career. Fortunately, the Tennessee Republicans were on top of this one as soon as the election (which he somehow won, proving that people indeed just vote for the party and not the candidate) was over. There are already several candidates lined up to give him a good primary challenge. I’ll be surprised if we see this guy back in Washington after the next election.

Problematic Candidate #3: Jim Cooper. Cooper is the TN-05 Representative in Washington. He runs as a Democrat, but his actions are more old Southern Democrat rather than the newer, more progressive Democrats we are used to. If a bill involves any kind of spending increase, Jim will vote against it, including Hurricane Sandy relief. While Jim Cooper has been a target since at least 2009, no one has been able to mount a successful challenge to this Nashville Democrat’s name recognition juggernaut. Hell, even I held my nose and voted for him in the last general election despite a decent Green Party alternative. I’m not sure I will do that again. Since he basically votes Republican anyway, it wouldn’t really be any different having an actual Republican in the seat and might allow a real Democrat to step up in a following election.