Thom Tillis

Yesterday, Greg Sargent at the Washington Post used North Carolina's hapless Republican Senate primary frontrunner, immensely unpopular Speaker Thom Tillis, to demonstrate the conundrum Republican candidates find themselves in when trying to deal with repealing the Affordable Care Act-- at least when they talk with non-Foxified normal voters.

It may be hard for normal people to understand that there are actually candidates to the right of Thom Tillis running for Senate in North Carolina and that he's playing the role of the Establishment (Art Pope) shill. Tillis was first elected to the North Carolina legislature by beating a more mainstream Republican, John Rhodes, in a primary in 2006 and 4 years later was elected by the far right as Speaker.