Bob Wooten: Jim Boy for office? No, thanks

Jim Boy was the weirdest guy I can remember from my college days.

He and I weren't really buddies. Jim Boy -- a nickname I doubt he ever realized he'd picked up -- was just a friend of a friend. He dropped off the radar screen soon after graduation.

Of course, it was the mid-1970s and nearly all of us looked and acted a little strange at least some of the time. But Jim Boy stood apart.

First, there was his beyond-blond, albino-like hair, which had grown over his eyes and below his shoulders. At first glance, he might have passed for famed blues guitarist Johnny Winter, except that Johnny was tall, thin and talented. Jim Boy was short, pudgy and barely knew how to play his own stereo.

Jim Boy talked faster than he thought, pillaged his roommates' fridge right down to the shelving, squirmed his way to within inches of any TV screen and usually drank one more beer than he should have. He had personal habits that made the blood run chill.

Plus, we always knew when Jim Boy was telling a whopper (his lips were moving).

Now, some 30 years later, I'm surprised he isn't running for Congress. Jim Boy would fit right in because, in a nod to bipartisanship, both Democrats and Republicans have fielded some true misfits this year.

Let's start with Rand Paul, the Republican Senate nominee in Kentucky.

GQ magazine quotes an unnamed source who claims Paul participated in a wild incident while they were students at Baylor University, a private Baptist school. She says Paul tied her up, tried to force her to smoke pot and insisted she worship a deity called Aqua Buddha. Paul has denied the claims, but I suspect the Baptists in Kentucky are giving him some funny looks.

On the Democratic side, there's Richard Blumenthal, a Senate nominee in Connecticut who, despite having a perfectly honorable military record, cooked up a phony Rambo chapter about serving in the Vietnam War. In fact, he was in the Marine Corps Reserve, where he organized a Toys for Tots campaign.

His fibbing is odd, but so is the chosen field of his Republican opponent Linda McMahon, the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, where both poor taste and the wrestlers have been on steroids.

Then there's Ben Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle and the Republican nominee for an Arizona House seat. He recently was outed as a contributor to a sex-themed website. Quayle first denied the claim, then flip-flopped with a carefully parsed admission.

But Alvin Greene, the Democratic nominee for Senate in South Carolina, is weird enough to play in Jim Boy's league.

The tongue-tied Greene, an unknown just a few months ago, has proposed a unique job-creation program -- development of a line of action-figure toys based on ... him. Oh, and he's under indictment for allegedly showing pornography to a teenager.

I'm left wondering what kind of nicknames these people had back in college.

• Bob Wooten is the managing editor of the Daily. Contact him at 800-296-5137 or at bwooten@nvdaily.com.