UPDATE: Debbie Pelley did not write the email attributed to her by Trey Baldwin at Natural State Report. See a long correction and mea culpa here.

It’s hardly surprising that one of the most vociferous supporters of teabagging Republican John Cooper in today’s special election in Jonesboro for state Senate is slapping down a race card to inspire Cooper’s base.

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Cooper is, after all, supported by and a spiritual heir to the former legislator Jon Hubbard, whose ouster from the legislature opened the way to regular publication of the slavery apologist’s wacky views in the right-wing-run Jonesboro Sun. 

Cooper faces Democrat Steve Rockwell, a centrist businessman, in the special election to succeed Paul Bookout. More Republicans than Democrats voted in the primary and Jonesboro, like the rest of Arkansas, is trending away from historic Democratic roots.

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To make sure it keeps trending that way, local activist Debbie Pelley is leading the way with racial fearmongering. Her political repertoire includes a range of extremist fantasies, from communists lurking along every bicycle path (really) to the evils of sex education to the perfidious outcome-based-education (don’t ask).

Trey Baldwin at Natural State Report has an e-mail from Pelley to her supporters. She does everything but say Steve Rockwell is the illegitimate brother of Barack Obama. Excerpt:

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ACKNOWLEDGE AND ACCEPT POLITICAL REALITIES: How important is that? In 2012 for the first time the percentage of minority voters was greater than the percentage of the apathetic majority population’s voters. They are winning elections and placing people into office who are incapable of handling the jobs – federal and state, candidates who are willing to allow themselves to be controlled for personal recognition and profit. Minority voters are voting for gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, race and ‘entitlements,’ not for the capability of the candidates running for office. They are killing the ‘geese laying the golden eggs’ (taxpayers) and don’t even realize it.

Boiled down: Rockwell is a you-know-what lover. White people vote Republican.

There’s more in a classic Pelley epistle: evil Mike Beebe, evil private option. But  envision a certain swarthy Kenyan Muslim and you get the focal point of the picture Pelley is trying to paint.

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