In Maine, Senator Angus King Is Beset on All Sides by Men in Speedos

Angus King is the junior senator from Maine, and has the distinction of being one of just two independents (along with Bernie Sanders) who caucuses with the Democrats. That means that when it’s time for re-election back home, he has to face a challenger from both parties. When he first won his seat in 2012, the former governor faced down Charlie Summers, a classic business-oriented Republican, and Cynthia Dill, a civil rights lawyer and state representative running for the Democrats.

This time? Well, this time Angus King is once again facing a Democrat and a Republican as he seeks re-election. But this time, my friends, he will not be facing a normal candidate. This time, he will be facing two strange men in speedos.

Let’s start with the Republican. His name is Eric Brakey, and though he has a normal looking campaign website where he touts “Liberty for the Little Guy,” there is also a website called EricBrakeyForSenate.com, and it features just a single video. This is that video:

The Harlem Shake music seems to have been added later, as an original video shows him dancing to samba music. (Which, frankly, is less embarrassing than the time he compared an unfavorable political convention to being raped.) Turns out, Brakey used to be a New York City-based actor, and the video was a full outtake he filmed for a Vita Coco Coconut Water commercial. And this paragraph, from a story about how the video got out, is amazing:

An altered outtake of the video featuring only Brakey was posted on As Maine Goes and circulated to the media and church pastors by Mike Hein, a former employee of the Christian Civic League of Maine known for strong conservative views on issues such as abortion and gay rights. Hein, in his email, wrote that Brakey looks as if he was a “demon possessed.”