Although Oklahomans and Republicans may not wish that news spread widely. He was a candidate in a congressional primary, but he got clobbered by his opponent, Frank Lucas. Murray got 5.2% of the vote.
But he is contesting the election, for some rather novel reasons. He claims Frank Lucas is dead.
News Person,
The election for U.S. House for Oklahoma’s 3rd District will be contested by the Candidate, Timothy Ray Murray. I will be stating that his votes are switched with Rep. Lucas votes, because it is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike. Rep. Lucas’ look alike was depicted as sentenced on a white stage in southern Ukraine on or about
Jan. 11, 2011.
This is a situation similar to the Senators’ from Kentucky situation in the 2012 election. I am contesting that this matter has happen since his election was blocked, because of the U.S. Defense Department’s use of Mr. Murray’s DNA. To my knowledge, the U.S. Defense Department has not released to the public that information, as it is their confidential information about many people. Congress is likely wanting me to state that all my DNA used will not result in benefits to people I have never had relations with of a family nature. I have been bound to protect that information unless it causes harm to The People.
Ooookaaaaaaaay.
I don’t think he should bother contesting the election. When Sarah Palin runs for President on the Tea Party ticket, she can pick Murray for her running mate — they’re a perfect match. Then when she resigns two weeks after taking office, he’ll be president, and representing his Republican electorate perfectly.
Small problem. Let’s pretend Murry is right and Lucas is dead. People still voted for the man they thought was Lucas. It was his face on the campaign buttons, website, TV commercials, etc. What Murry seems to be banking on is what Eddie Murphy did in “The Distinguished Gentleman” where a Senator with a very similar name to Eddie’s character’s dies and Eddie registers as a candidate modifiying his name to match the dead guy’s and everyone, out of habit, votes for him sight unseen.
But people aren’t that dumb in real life (insert jokes here).
Wow, I just… Not only is it conspiracy-laden, but nigh incoherent. The hell?
“has been displayed by a look alike. Rep. Lucas’ look alike was depicted as sentenced on a white stage in southern Ukraine on or about
Jan. 11, 2011.”
I take it that English isn’t his first language? That something is lost in translation??
Sounds like reality just filed for a divorce. Conspiracies are all to common, even among the presumably sane, but coupled with being incoherent I start suspecting a mental breakdown of some sort.
WTF!!!11! [is all I can say…]
Can’t stop laughing.
Only thing missing would be GOATS ON FIRE, no?
Wow. I understand what Murray is trying to say, but he strings words together in a way that made it difficult for me to easily understand. I clicked on the link hoping there was more clarity there. Ooooooooooh boy, was I wrong.
Oh and he’s a paranoid conspiracy theorist too:
http://www.timothyraymurray.com/Amb._Hon.html
This guy is odd.
Murray doesn’t even offer proof that Lucas is dead. He just asserts it. Not even a link to anything to substantiate the claim. We’re literally supposed to just believe him. A google search of Lucas shows that this ::ahem:: dead man released a statement in March about the crisis in Ukraine. I thought dead men tell no tales.
I can’t even get past the first two words. Timothy Murray, I wish you all the best.
*collapses into giggle puddle*
5.2% is as good as what the greens typically pull in…
Is it a long standing custom in Oklahoma for mothers to repeatedly drop their babies on their heads?
Wasn’t this a David Lynch movie?
Oh sorry, that was Dick Laurent.
I’m confused as to what the “Senators’ from Kentucky situation in the 2012 election” means. Kentucky didn’t have a senatorial election in 2012. (Mitch McConnell last ran in 2008, trying for re-election in 2014 and Rand Paul was elected in 2010)
I’m not saying that this was the ONLY part of the statement I’m having trouble with, just one that popped very loudly in this Kentuckian’s mind.
Frank Lucas isn’t dead. When he was replaced by a double, the original had his memory reprogrammed and his face surgically altered. His new identity? Timothy Ray Murray!
So, you see, Murray is the rightful winner.
The Walrus was Frank.
It was a movie all right. A documentary.
Frank Lucas is clearly a Pod Person. OTOH, Timothy Ray Murray is also clearly a Pod Person. Oh well, it’s Oklahoma, probably aren’t many humans left there by now.
Contrary to their state motto, Oklahoma is not OK.
Evans v. State Election Board, 1990 OK 132, 804 P.2d 1125, seems to indicate that Murray is out of luck. In Evans, his opponent died of cancer before the election and the dead guy still received 91 percent of the popular vote. As there were only two candidates on the ballot, Evans claimed to have won. The Oklahoma Supreme Court stated “votes for a dead candidate are an affirmative vote for a vacancy in preference to a named and living candidate.”
Methinks that Sally Kern should be recruited for the job of talking some sense to Timothy Ray Murray.
Also, Timothy Ray Murray should look up John Ashcroft. Even if he actually did lose to a dead candidate, he still lost the election.
I’m tempted to say, “I’ll have what he’s having”, but I’m not sure my soul avatar would be able to find the exit out of the labyrinth that fellow is wandering around in.
That’s word-salad, and I wouldn’t be at all confident of my ability to parse what he actually means.
PZ! For shame! How dare you use filthy language like that! Small children might see the O-word and the R-word and be tempted to turn to a life of stealing from the poor to give to the rich, or worse, contract a case of Palin-aphasia!
Robert Heinlein got there first: Double Star, 1956 Hugo award winner. An out-of-work actor is hired to double for a politician who’s been kidnapped in a vitally important ceremony on Mars.
He may not want to have a robot look alike do his job for him, but I sure do. Hell, robo-me doesn’t have to do all my job, just sit in the useless meetings with the boss.
Where do I get one?
The Representative is dead, long live the Representative!
jefferylanam, a double standing in for a dead political figure was an old story when Kurosawa made Kagemusha.
Damn. Got pretty close to “precious bodily fluids” with that nonsense, but didn’t quite make it the full Jack D. Ripper.
@22 jefferylanam
@25 Goodbye Enemy Janine
Wikipedia
But of course, the real point is that Double Star is set in a democracy. (A constitutional monarchy.) And that the actor is politically opposed to the politician he (very effectively) replaces.
Joke’s on Murray, Lucas is only pretending to be dead, and the doppelganger is just for funsies.
5.2% of the vote. In Oklahoma. In the Republican primary. The man was too weird for Oklahoma Republicans. I’m impressed.
Holy shit, Smith Comma John came true.
khms, my main point is the idea of a stand in is centuries old.
Does being dead disqualify you in an election? I seem to remember a candidate dying shortly before an election, still winning the election and the Governor appointing the dead man’s wife to the vacant position.
Yes, U Frood. That is why I referenced Steve Ashcroft earlier. He lost to the deceased Mel Carnahan for a seat in the US Senate in 2000.
Made perfect by the fact that ‘finial’ is a real word.
He had to make it clear because in 2010, Timothy Ray Murray ran as a Democrat in the same district (made it past the primaries).
And in his feature premiere, the tea party gets his current party designations confused:
http://teapartycheer.com/bios/west/oklahoma/tim-murray-ok-bio/
All told, it goes to show that Oklahoma is in desperate need of some new politicians. [but good on them for at least keeping this kind of crazy out of national office]
Murray sounds like he might be a fan of the Sovereign Citizens nonsense, and has combined it with whatever strangeness makes him believe in dead politicians being replaced by doubles.
Can we at least say that this guy is likely mentally ill?
He’s spending a year dead for tax purposes.
I’m no expert, but I’m thinking this guy’s site might be entitled to a Time Cube rating. It’s got gibberish, multiple colors, multiple fonts, creative capitalization and, to the extent I can suss out his meaning, several different conspiracy theories.
I dunno, maybe 0.10 to 0.25 Time Cubes?
“Then when she resigns two weeks after taking office, he’ll be president, and representing his Republican electorate perfectly.”
You’re ALREADY saying that Sarah Palin is going to be elected!? This is Ameri…oh, right.
I can understand The World Court hanging those people about the neck in Ukraine because it is clearly illegal in The Hague.
Goodbye Enemy Janine @31
The earliest example of a double standing in for a political figure in fiction that I’m aware of is The Prisoner of Zenda, from 1894. Do you know of anything earlier than that?
iiandyiiii @ 37:
Why is it important for you to do so? Can’t figure out what to say unless you can get a greenlight for “dude is crazy, man”?
Haven’t you heard? There is no such thing as mental illness Link *sic*
iiandyiiii @37:
Unless you’re his mental health specialist, no. And if you are, it’s unprofessional to discuss such matters with the public.
The status of peoples’ mental health is not something laypeople are qualified to speak on.
Tony! The Fucking Queer Shoop! @45
There is well established precedent for health professionals to discuss the health of people they have not examined and are not their patients. They regularly speculate as to whether symptoms are indicative of an illness and suggest possible course of treatment for someone suffering from such an illness. I can’t see how this doesn’t also apply to mental health professionals.
Lay people should also be encouraged to recognise symptoms of severe illness, so that they can seek diagnosis or encourage someone else to seek diagnosis from an appropriate health professional. If someone is exhibiting evidence of paranoid delusions, then I think it is entirely appropriate for a lay person to question whether that person is fit to stand for public office, for example.
Entirely fair enough. However, it might also be worth some people at least considering that possibility before outright ridiculing the man (especially describing him as “crazy”, as in at least one comment).
If these are sincerely held beliefs, then I would like to suggest that a measure of sympathy for the person is appropriate, whether or not these ideas are the result of mental illness. It must be strange and scary to live in a world where you know that people are being replaced by doppelgangers (and you generally aren’t taken seriously when you try to tell the world).
The interesting and illuminating part of this story is the fact that this sort of conspiracy-drenched fantasy is so similar to the widely received Birther and Islamic Obama accusations, or the wild narratives of death panels and other outlandish government schemes to kill and control the right wing. The interesting part is that Conspiracy! lies at the heart of Tea Party rhetoric and identity – the idea that they have special insight into the dangerous machinations of the state, and only they can oppose that corruption.
The saddest part of this story is that there is an organisation which exploits precisely these sorts of unreasonable fears, and it gains traction amongst a very significant minority. There is clearly a leadership who sit around deciding press releases and calculating attack strategies based on stories no less ridiculous than this, and I doubt that they believe the truth of any of it.
Capgras delusion?
BREAKING: Tim Murray to star in ‘Weekend At Bernie’s’ sequel, with cameos from Ted Cruz and Charles Koch.
I’m trying to figure out if I should give Murray the benefit of the doubt, because it could be a modern-day homage to Jonathan Swift and Ben Franklin, who did quite similar things.
scottruplin,
No, *I* am the Walrus!
.
-If a candidate is put into cryogenic suspension, is he/she legally dead or alive?
.
-If a candidate dies, but his grown-up clone is available, can the clone take the office if it has the same memories and personality?
.
-If the candidate’s body has died, but there exists an uploaded mind clone, can the computer mainframe take the office in the place of the “wetware” body?
Some of what he says on his issues page sounds decent enough. Of course, you could say that about brief summaries of the positions of a great many Republicans, even Tea Partiers. When you look at how they actually interpret those things, and how they plan to achieve them, problems arise quickly.
Apparently, this execution was on TV. And it’s been covered up? That might have worked in the 80s, and possibly well into the 90s- there’s a chance it would have gone on the air at a time when no one was ready to hit record on their VCR, and the TV studios recordings could be confiscated I’d still have a hard time buying the story without some better evidence, but it at least would be in the margins of possibility. But 2014? A member of Congress executed by the World Court on TV and it doesn’t have at least 50 billion YouTube views? Tivo and other DVRs strain any remaining plausibility to the breaking point- you don’t need to be ready to hit record to capture a recording of a TV broadcast anymore. You can wait till it’s completely finished, never to air again, and your helpful little box has already recorded it.
Goodbye Enemy Janine
Just to be clear, you were correct at 18 (vs. 33) with John Ashcroft, who also admonished us to cover our statues when he was attorney general for W, and quite the singer, too.
dianne (at 29)
I find it scary that, even among Republicans in Oklahoma, he can get 5.2%. Who are those people?
Flat Earthers and people who think that plate tectonics is a conspiracy to cover up the fact that the Earth is hollow and filled with the mole people who secretly run everything, I’m guessing.
I imagine a few people voted for Murray as a protest, because they though all the candidates were a bunch of dumbasses. So why not vote for the most outré one?