The Girl With The Bandwagon Tattoo

Remember Ashley Todd? In 2008 she stole America's hearts and eyeballs for eleven minute in the story Wonkette was born to cover...

A Children’s Treasury Of Ashley Todd Updates

 By Sara K. Smith - October 24, 2008

Ashley Todd is the brave young patriot Ken and Jim have been writing about nonstop since yesterday evening. She got robbed of her pocket change by an angry dyslexic Negro monster lurking behind a Pittsburgh-area money hole, and then Twittered about it all the way home, and now nobody believes her story because America is still a very sexist nation...

To absolutely no one's surprise, the college student's salacious tale of a Scary Black Man knifing up a Young White Girl in an act of Evil Libtard-inspired Retribution was immediately and uncritically swallowed hook-line-and-sinker by the heroes of American Conservative media, who one by one, had to slowly cough the hook the line and the sinker back up a few days later once it became clear that Ms. Todd was nothing but an unstable young lady who had made up a really incompetent lie in some kind of desperate attempt to salvage the failing campaign of her hero-candidate:

Young Republican who claimed Obama supporter carved letter 'B' on her face during robbery made the story up, police say

 

A McCain campaign volunteer who claimed she was robbed, pinned to the ground and had the letter 'B' scratched on her face by a Barack Obama supporter made the whole story up, police said.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from Texas, admitted that the story was false, including the claim that the 'B' stood for 'Barack,' said Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division in Pittsburg...

Every campaign (and church, and Rolling Stones concert, and Little League game.) attracts a certain number of passionate believers who ideological piles have not, shall we say, been sunk deeply enough into the riverbed of reality.  As such, they do nutty things which, thanks to the amplifying power of bored political journalists and social media, can be frothed up into A Big Story with Vital Things To Say About Our Parlous Times almost overnight.

Which is why it falls to the responsible managers and coordinators of the campaign or congregation or concerts or Little League game to police their goofballs, swiftly and clearly.  Because if they don't the goofballs become the story.

Which brings us to Nevada.

The good people at Jezebel took the time to contact some of the chair-throwers and threat-makers who turned an ordinary Nevada State Democratic Pie Fight Over Six Delegates into a national punchline.

What they found will not surprise anyone who has been to this rodeo before:

We Called Up Bernie Fans Who Threatened Nevada Dem State Chair and Asked Them to Explain Themselves

...

As this story got more airplay, I found myself increasingly curious about the angry texters and voicemail-leavers—as someone who voted for Bernie Sanders myself, as someone who’s been the subject of a variety of colorful threats over the years, and, most of all, as someone who has a sneaking and rapidly elevating sense that the pissed off chair-throwers aren’t making any of us look very good. Sanders has harnessed the support of a variety of fiery young progressives, which is a great thing—right up until they start texting an elected official and saying they wish she’d be shot in the face.

So, late yesterday afternoon, I phoned nine people who’d texted Lange insults or threats. I reached three of them...