Romney Backer Ted Nugent Has History Of Extreme, Violent Political Rhetoric

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/romney-backer-ted-nugent-has-history-of-extreme-violent-political-rhetoric.php

Benjy Sarlin- March 2, 2012, 5:29 PM

Ultra-conservative rocker Ted Nugent endorsed Mitt Romney on Friday. It’s the kind of backing that could do more harm than good.

According to Nugent’s Twitter feed, he made his decision after speaking with Romney himself. TPM has reached out to the campaign to check whether Romney was calling to personally seek his support, which comes days after Romney held a meeting with another musician, Kid Rock, in order to gain his approval. Via “the Nuge’s” feed:

after a long heart & soul conversation with Mitt Romney today I concluded this good man will properly represent we the people & I endorsed him Romney hasn’t shied away from controversial endorsements this cycle — he accepted Donald Trump’s seal of approval, who led a birther revival last year. One of his 2008 campaign officials, Joe Arpaio, become an embarrassment for Republican officials this week when he held a press conference outlining his own theory that Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud (he has not endorsed a candidate in 2012). But Nugent’s allusions to violence likely put him in a league of his own.

Mitt recently insisted he won’t “light {his} hair on fire” with offensive anti-Obama rhetoric, but Nugent certainly has no such qualms. He has a history of outrageously violent boasts against Democrats and the president that go well beyond the usual conservative shock jocks and into “call the Secret Service” territory. Take this concert meltdown from 2007, while Hillary Clinton, whom he called a “toxic c**t” in 1994, and President Obama were duking it out in the Democratic primaries:

“I was in Chicago last week. I was in Chicago. I said, ‘Hey, Obama! You might want to suck on one of these, you punk!’ Obama, he’s a piece of (expletive deleted), and I told him to suck on my machine gun. Let’s hear it for him! And then I was in New York. I said, ‘Hey, Hillary! You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless (expletive deleted).’”