In some Republican districts, ANYONE who comes out MORE right wing gets elected. It’s a protest vote.

Does a 17yr-old have enough life experience to govern?

I don’t think so. The Tea Party is a valuable protest movement, like Occupy Wall Street, but it’s foolish to consider many of their candidates qualified to govern.

Less than a month before graduating from high school, a West Virginia teen has won her first election. 17-year-old Saira Blair ran in the Republican primary for state delegate and beat the incumbent state lawmaker Larry Krump …

The impressive west Virginia teen may have won the GOP primary, but what does that mean for her and what does it mean for the Republican party? …

In her own words, she is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-business, pro-jobs and pro-West Virginia. As a Republican platform, those stances are easy to unpack. She opposes abortion, She is against gun control. She is against gay marriage. She wants small government and few government regulations on business. She wants to cut taxes. …

Without taking away from the obviously impressing and interesting story that she has created in West Virginia by winning the GOP primary, her qualifications for being a political leader should definitely be in question. …

Opinion By Lydia Bradbury

Saira is getting some positive press, even from an organization her Tea Party boosters would like to ban, the NPR.

Wish her luck.
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related – A couple of people reminded me of 19-year-old, Pierre-Luc Dusseault, the youngest person ever elected to Canadian Parliament. He gave up his summer job at the Golf Course to sit as an MP.

He was one of a “motley crew of political newcomers” to be elected in that bizarre protest vote against the Bloc Quebecois.