Reading the article, it seems that a Democrat operative secretly recorded him during a private conversation with someone he took to be a supporter.
I suppose the solution is that no candidate should ever say anything off-script in the presence of anyone who has not been strip-searched for recording devices.
Otherwise, the candidate is apparently a "fool."
That isn't a knee-jerk reaction. It is an evaluation of intelligence and capability of someone who is running for a position in which every remark they make in front of a camera or microphone has consequence.
He was neither in front of a camera or a microphone as far as he knew. You didn't read the article carefully - which doesn't really lend a lot of support to the notion that this is an "evaluation" rather than a kneejerk reaction.
If they don't get that 101 type reality of the political arena, they're mincemeat around the savvy politicians in a legislature.
In other words, the default attitude of a candidate at all times should be complete paranoia.
Let's step back a do a real evaluation.
A Democrat operative sneakily lied his way into an unguarded, off-the-cuff private conversation with a GOP candidate. And the absolute worst that they could come up with to alienate his base is that he thinks that individuals who think that Obama's constitutional fitness is the key to winning over the indepedent voters the GOP needs are dumbasses.
If that's the worst they could come up with - i.e. that he has a realistic assessment of how to win a general election - then this whole story is a ringing endorsement of Buck.
Nah. I give up. You're right. He should say what he thinks, by all means.
It really helps tell who people shouldn't vote for if the candidate is candid.
As if we haven't had enough Democrats tell us TEA party 'birthers' (gratuitously noting that not all TEA party people are 'birthers') we're "dumbasses" without electing a Republican to do that?
He crapped in his messkit.
Part of what people are sick of is having some sanctimonious peckerhead tell them they are stupid, and that the all wise gubmint will handle it.
His contempt for his supporters will bite him in the end. Just because he displayed it in what he thought was private and discreet company doesn't mean he meant it any less, rather, that would be the time the candidate's true sentiments were voiced.
Blame whom you will, but he was the dumbass who said it.