This election's most bat-crap crazy candidates

>>> it's been ten days since richard mourdock solidified his standing amongst the bat crap crazy politicians when he said this.

>> even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that god intended to happen.

>> an october poll had him up by 5 points. today he's trailing his opponent by 11 points. joining me now ana marie cox . there is trouble in crazy land the republicans. claire mckas kill is ahead of todd akin , allen west is in a tie at basically 47-48. how is michelle doing in minnesota?

>> she's actually doing really badly when you consider she's outspent her opponent by about 12-1 and she's really running closely with him in part because she showed her inner crazy and didn't do her district the courtesy of coming back and explain herself later. she kept being crazy . i think there's a lesson for the gop to learn from all of this. this is what happens when you try to ride the wave of something like the tea party without pushing back on the ideological stuff that's objectionable to moderates. this is what happens when you grab on to that momentum because you need the momentum because you'll do anything to win, you'll do anything to grab on to something that makes you seem more popular, you wind up with people like this, not in your primaries, but in your general election .

>> krasy joe walsh is now behind tammy duckworth . he said you don't need the exception for the life of the mother for abortion because the life of the mother is never, ever in danger in pregnancy.

>> i don't think all men are stupid, but certainly gop congressmen are and women aren't. this is something we're seeing across the line in swing states . women are paying attention to these races. women thing reproductive rights are important in these races and these guys apparently don't understand that that's something women think about not just as a social issue, but as obama said in one of those debates, it's an economic issue, it's a personal freedom issue.

>> and allen west who's just crazy across the board, he doesn't limit himself to reproductive issues. he's the one who said that the house of representatives has like about 100 communists in it, he's in a statistical tie. and his opponent's ads have just used quotations from allen west . word for word, this is what your congressman has said and that's the basis of his challenger's campaign and that has worked for him so far.

>> yeah. it seems to me that should also work in the presidential campaign some of the stuff mitt romney said, especially now about getting rid of fema, but yes. allen west has been allowed to go off the reservation. when you're off the reservation for that long you lose sight of where your boundaries are. you go off into crazy land and you forget there is such a thing as sane land. voters have a way of shutting that down. voters know crazy when they see it. and when a congressman or when someone who is running for office shows who they are, they will get feedback from voters and it's not going to be voters and it's not going to be positive.

>> >>> watch a special preelection edition of laurd this sunday at 10 p.m . "the ed show is up next.