In a state known for its questionable contributions to national politics, Rick Santorum is really bringing the heat. The GOP candidate tried to court South Florida African-Americans on Sunday by aligning himself with an outspoken pastor who fell from grace with fellow conservatives and a former cult member once charged in two grisly murders -- and who announced Sunday at a Santorum event that Democrats are akin to Nazis.
"The Democrats, they're the worst thing that ever happen to the black man," Michael the Black Man told a Santorum rally in Coral Springs. "They're the slave masters."
The activist born Maurice Woodside is no stranger to headlines as a current tea party-loving pirate radio host who regularly claims "one-third of the black women is the devil," famously disrupted an Obama campaign stop in protest of Oprah Winfrey's (alleged!) plot to destroy the earth through Barack Obama, and in 1990 escaped murder charges leveled at himself and other then-members of Miami's notorious Yahweh Ben Yahweh cult, whose leader was convicted of conspiring to kill white people as an initiation rite.
After the rally, Michael expounded on his view to the Daily Caller, again comparing Democrats to Nazis:
"Republicans were the ones that freed the black man," he said..."Democrats were totally against us. They were the slave masters. Why in the hell would I vote -- not one good, righteous Jewish would ever vote for any German from the Nazi Party... And no black man under any condition should work with any white man that's a Democrat -- under no condition."
View Michael's intro at Santorum's Coral Springs rally below:
Michael the Black Man wasn't Santorum's only controversial African-American ally of his Sunday stops in Florida. After the candidate's morning visit to his Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach, the Rev. O'Neal Dozier told the Palm Beach Post candidate Mitt Romney won't garner black votes as Mormons are racist:
"Blacks are not going to vote for anyone of the Mormon faith," Dozier said. "The book of Mormon says the Negro skin is cursed."
Dozier, who has been an outspoken critic of homosexuality, Islam, and abortion, was removed from a Jeb Bush-appointed position on a Broward County judge-nominating commission and the campaign committee of former Gov. Charlie Crist after referring to Islam as a 'dangerous religion' and 'cult' in 2006. In 2004, he famously said homosexuality was "something so nasty and disgusting it makes God want to vomit." Though fellow conservatives Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist and Herman Cain have all distanced themselves from the controversial pastor, Santorum not only attended WCC on Sunday morning but spoke about the moment he "laid eyes on his wife" in a message from the pulpit that focused on family values.
Dozier believes Santorum's sermon at the Worldwide Christian Center was a step toward making him the preferred choice of black conservative voters.
"He came to a predominately black church, and he began his campaign at the most impoverished, HIV-invested area of South Florida," Dozier said. "That will be a big boost to blacks Americans. The conservative blacks want a man who is principled."