Don't Like Trey or AynRand? You Have Lots of GOP Options

One of the many positive results of instituting Clean Elections would be leveling the playing field for less well-known and well-financed candidates.

If only for entertainment purposes. Ryan Alessi:

One sings at unexpected times. One promises to be out of the U.S. Senate before his 103rd birthday. And another says he's been waterboarded.

This off-beat trio of Republican U.S. Senate candidates, who haven't had luck raising millions of dollars for their campaigns, struggled until a forum earlier this month in Knox County to even get on the same stage with the front-runners.

Gurley L. Martin, an 86-year-old World War II veteran, made such a fuss at being excluded from participating in a February candidates' forum in Paducah that he was escorted out by a sheriff's deputy.

John Stephenson still complains about the Louisville Tea Party and Bluegrass Institute forum on March 13. After Rand Paul, the Bowling Green eye surgeon, spent nearly an hour fielding questions from a panel, Stephenson was given three minutes to speak before organizers cut him off and took the microphone.

"All fixed — the whole thing was," Stephenson said during the April 5 GOP forum in Barbourville.

The other candidate, Jon J. Scribner, also has been left off several debate invitation lists.

Read the whole thing.

And if you can't get enough of Gurley Martin, Media Czech has him on video. Priceless.