Excerpt:
A right-wing Super PAC is running attack ads against a Syed Taj, a Democratic congressional candidate in Michigan, in an attempt to portray the Muslim doctor as un-American and tied to terrorism. The 30-second ad charges that Taj "wants to advance Muslim power in America," has ties to Hamas, and is "too extreme for America."
The race to represent Michigan's 11th congressional district was already unusual—the seat became open when five-term Republican congressman Thaddeus McCotter failed to qualify for the primary ballot last spring and was subsequently investigated for allegedly submitting election petitions with fraudulent signatures. McCotter, who also pursued a bizarre and short-lived campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, abruptly resigned from Congress one month before the primary.
Republicans were left with Kerry Bentivolio, a Tea Partier who had planned on challenging McCotter from the right. A Vietnam vet, reindeer farmer, and former teacher who was fired from his job in the Fowlerville school district, Bentivolio was hardly the first choice of Michigan's GOP establishment. His brother Phillip calls him "mentally unbalanced," and told reporters this week that "I've never met anyone in my life who is conniving and dishonest as this guy."