One Crazy Year: 2010’s Most Outrageous Breakout Pols (VIDEOS)

Though every year brings head-scratching remarks from out-of-the-woodwork politicians, 2010 saw those politicians gaining a national platform to broadcast their head-scratchingest views, thanks to the midterm elections.

Here are five of the most outrageous pols who broke out in 2010…

• Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell beat out longtime Rep. Mike Castle in the Republican primary — only to be shellacked by Democrat Chris Coons in the general election. But in the meantime, O’Donnell’s was the candidacy that launched a thousand (a million?) blog posts — from her 90s anti-masturbation campaign on MTV, to her argument that there’s “just as much, if not more” evidence of creationism than evolution, to her exclamation that she once “dabbled into witchcraft,” to her ill-advised campaign ad proclaiming “I am not a witch. I’m you.” 2011 promises to be chock-full of O’Donnell as well, especially now that’s she being investigated for her campaign spending.

Here’s that infamous MTV video:

• New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino‘s campaign got off to a rocky start when it got out that he had forwarded racist and pornographic emails. And after he managed to beat out Rick Lazio in the Republican primary, things didn’t get any quieter. He nearly came to blows with New York Post state editor Fred Dicker over Paladino’s out-of-wedlock daughter, whom Paladino accused Dicker of sending photographers after. “You send another goon to my daughter’s house, and I’ll take you out, buddy!” Paladino yelled. Then he claimed (though never proved) that his opponent, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, had been having an affair. Paladino got into more trouble after he attacked Cuomo for going to a gay pride parade with his children, saying he doesn’t want his kids to be “brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. It isn’t.” And even once he lost, Paladino went out with a bang, wielding a bat in his concession speech and proclaiming: “Make no mistake, you have not heard the last of Carl Paladino.” Watch:
• Colorado Republican Ken Buck might be the unsung hero of outrageous behavior from this year. Though he didn’t generate headlines quite like an O’Donnell or a Paladino, he sure had his moments. “I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state,” Buck said. Buck on climate change: “Sen. Inhofe was the first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated. The evidence just keeps supporting his view, and more and more people’s view, of what’s going on.” In the primary, he said people should vote for him because “I do not wear high heels.” And then there was the time he compared being gay to alcoholism: “I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things,” Buck argued. “But I think that, basically, you have a choice.”

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• Unlike the rest of the politicians on this list, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul carries a special distinction — he actually won his race. But don’t be fooled — his road to victory was filled with as many spit-take-inducing comments as the rest on this list. There was Paul’s suggestion to Rachel Maddow that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 goes too far because it forces private businesses to desegregate, his assertion that President Obama sounded “really un-American” for taking a hard line on BP after the oil spill, his argument that the American Disabilities Act goes too far, and, of course, the infamous tale from a former college classmate that alleged Paul kidnapped the girl, blindfolded her, and forced her to take bong hits and pray to “Aqua Buddha.” Here’s Paul’s Maddow appearance, in a nutshell:
• Nevada Republican Sharron Angle might have actually won Sen. Harry Reid’s seat — that is, if she hadn’t been so out there. She said there shouldn’t be abortions in cases of rape because the woman should make “what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.” She wouldn’t disavow her previous remarks that there are “domestic enemies” serving in Congress, among them Harry Reid, whose agenda was “a violation of the First Commandment,” and she told a group of Hispanic students: “Some of you look a little more Asian to me.” All this while going to great lengths to avoid talking to reporters — including using decoys.

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Stranger Than Fiction? TPM Casts The 2010 Midterms Movie]