Bare-chested Tennessee Republican gubernatorial contender Basil Marceaux is making a bold claim in the wake of his devastating electoral loss, which came after weeks of gleefully mocking national media coverage. "I hate to say this, but I set the Internet up," he told the Washington Post. "I set the Internet up so they would talk bad about me because it's the only way to get hits."

Did Marceaux, who regularly refers to himself as "Basic Marceaux dot com," really trick the Internet into heavily covering his ill-fated campaign? The Washington Post's Monica Hesse evaluates, asking the bigger question, "Each public appearance yielded the same internal observation: This guy cannot be for real, unless he is the realest thing anyone has ever seen." Hesse concludes ambiguously:

Marceaux will fade into the annals of Internet memes, leaving everyone to speculate just what he had against gold fringe. And to eagerly await the next vessel into which we may pour our collective ironic support.

Vote for Pedro? Nay, Vote for Basil.

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