Rep. Mark Martin (R-Twilight Zone) is his party’s candidate for secretary of state. He used an appearance today before the Association of Arkansas Election Commissioners to lay out a campaign issue. He has a variety of proposals — some infringing on the 1st Amendment — to limit political activities of people in that office.

The main point of his announcement, though, is to remind people of something irrelevant to the secretary of state’s office — that his Democratic opponent, Pulaski County Clerk Pat O’Brien campaigned for Barack Obama in 2010.

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Nothing illegal about that, Martin agrees, but it just gives a bad appearance, he says. Particularly, you are supposed to infer, when that person O’Brien supported is, well, you know, that swarthy fellow who was born in a mosque in Indonesia. I’m surprised he didn’t distribute an Obama photograph with the release. (Oh, wait, he did, through a YouTube link.) The sliming was instantly reinforced by the Arkansas GOP with a news release invoking Obama a few more times. Somebody who heard the speech (this account is based on Martin’s release) described it as bizarre. Martin managed to link O’Brien, Obama, Pakistan and violence and chaos. If Pat O’Brien is elected, I guess, the Taliban will take over.. Martin’s suggestion that he’d not be partisan in redistricting is, of course, risible. If his effort today was to persuade people he was more mainstream than he seems, it wasn’t a good start.

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