September 04, 2014 02:07 PM UTC

One Of The Weirdest Campaign Videos Ever Made

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• by: Colorado Pols

​Here's a fact we've learned in our nearly ten years of blogging politics: the annals of Youtube-era failed campaigns are filled with bad candidate videos. One of our favorite producers was 2010 Tennessee GOP gubernatorial candidate Basil Marceaux, whose wacky, drawling speechifications went viral out of sheer laughability–of which dear Basil may or may not have ever been aware.

Here in Colorado this election year, a campaign video has recently surfaced that might give Basil a run for his money. Michael Schlierf, the Republican Colorado House candidate in HD-18 running against incumbent Democrat Pete Lee, released this message yesterday. We don't mind telling you we're a bit fascinated by it, in that can't-take-your-eyes-off-the-car-crash sort of way:

Here are some frames from the video that help capture the beguiling je ne sais quoi of our narrator:

​The woman speaking is never identified. We set out originally hoping to transcribe her remarks, but about midway through we realized it's just too damn loopy–you've got to watch the whole thing to see how strange it it is. We would call it standard Tea Party boilerplate, but it's more than that: the Tea Party on quaaludes? At one point the woman says that public schools are nothing more than "social service delivery programs," but that's not our favorite line. Maybe the best in a message chock full of zoned-out punchlines:

We are in a fight for our national existence. As citizens of this state, we are in a fight for our liberty. And as Republicans, are we not in a fight for relevance? [Pols emphasis]

Short answer: yes. And this video…doesn't help.