#243: Sue Lowden (and her opponent during the nominations)

Suzanne Parkinson "Sue" Pluskoski Lowden is the former Chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Party and former State Senator in Nevada. She lost the Republican nomination in the 2010 United States Senate election in Nevada to the incomparably stupid bigot Sharron Angle, who rose to fame after “A” had been dealt with in this Encyclopedia, who subsequently lost to Harry Reid because she was too obtuse, paranoid, incompetent and ignorant even for many rightwingers. (Ok fine you got us - we gave Lowden an entry primarily so we could write about Sharron Angle).

Lowden’s fifteen minutes of national fame arose as a consequence of her response to the healthcare reform. While discussing her preference for consumer-focused reforms and her support of Health savings accounts paired with a High-deductible health plan, Lowden (who had made some pretty stupid comments before) suggested that patients could pay cash and barter with their doctors for payment in order to reduce costs: “[B]efore we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I’ll paint your house, they would do... that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with their doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system.” In spite of the apparent brilliance of the idea, she did receive some flak for what become known as the “bring a chicken to the doctor” suggestion.

Diagnosis: First and foremostly, Lowden is perfectly incompetent, to the extent that she (as opposed to blathering idiots like Bachmann) actually would manage to accidentally run over herself with a truck. As such, her presence has at least thus far unintentionally benefited rationality and sanity (as opposed to Angle, she might actually have beaten Reid if she hadn’t run herself over).