It is perhaps an example of just how much a certain snatch of verse by William Butler Yeats — “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity” — fits the modern establishment media in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, that the high-flying con artist known as “Bobby Thompson” is not a household name in the Gopher State the way Casey Ramirez had been in the 1970s and 1980s. This is in spite of the fact that he was featured on “America’s Most Wanted”, was recently captured in Florida, and was the subject of a lengthy investigation by the state’s Campaign Finance Board — an investigation triggered by the fine (if largely ignored by the establishment press) reporting of Karl Bremer at Ripple In Stillwater.

Who is Bobby Thompson, really? That’s part of what makes him so interesting — and why the relative soft-pedaling of his story by the local mainstream media is so puzzling: Apparently, nobody besides Bobby Thompson knows his real name. One thing we do know is that he was one of Minnesota’s most prominent Republican Party patrons, donating thousands to people like Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney over the years.

One of Bobby Thompson’s Republican donees is David Carlson, who is himself rather, erm, interesting. In a disturbing way. Carlson is battling Kurt Bills, the Ron Paul Republican who actually managed to get the party’s endorsement, for the right to lose big to Amy Klobuchar this November. Carlson’s apparently a self-appointed surrogate for the West Metro business one-percenters who are appalled at the recent takeover attempt by the Ron Paul wackaloon insurgency that has swept so many other state GOP orgs. But as Sally Jo Sorensen documents at Bluestem Prairie, Carlson manages the rather remarkable feat of making a Paulista look electorally desirable in comparison:

Earlier this year, budding private security executive David Carlson launched a Kickstarter campaign for a reality television show, American PSD, but the campaign closed after it failed to reach its goal.

Now he’s running for U.S. Senate, challenging Republican endorsee Kurt Bills. At today’s Minnesotans for David Carlson Press Event, he’ll share more of his ideas with the media.

As shown by Sorensen, previous ideas shared by Carlson include something that may be the most vile piece of direct-mail marketing I have ever seen (part of it shares space with Bobby Thompson’s mugshot in the graphic above — if there’s anything I’ve seen that’s worse, I’ve probably irretrievably wiped it from my memory), and this inadvertently hilarious let’s-ramp-up-the-fear-factor video touting his private-security scheme, a video that just begs to be showcased on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report.

Finally, we have this:

The 30 year-old Carlson (DOB 09/08/1981) is twice-divorced, and a glance at the state  family and civil court records page suggests that enterprising reporters might find interesting reading in the case histories. In the criminal cases, files number 62-T8-00-041234 and 62-T3-06-616062 and 69-T2-02-605266 might also be worth examining.

Hoo boy. Can you “Stupid/Evil/Crazy Vortex“, kiddos? I knew you could.