In the course of doing some political science research, I discovered a disturbing fact: Robert Scheer, hack LA Times columnist, once ran for the US Senate in California. Way back in 1970, when he was waaaay out there on the left (far more so than now), he was the candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party. Shockingly enough, he didn’t get too many votes. In fact, his vote total was so low that the Congressional Quarterly database I’m using doesn’t even record it – he was one of the minor party candidates who collectively received 1.82% of the vote in the general election. Thankfully, the sanctity of the world’s greatest deliberative body (ahem) was preserved.