The American Debate: Polman's midterm election Crazy Quiz

Welcome to the 2010 Crazy Quiz, a salute of sorts to our sordid election season. Grab your pens, jog your memories, test your knowledge - and no fair trolling online for answers!

1. Identify the only remark that tea-party darling Christine O'Donnell, the Delaware GOP senatorial candidate, has not uttered over the years:

(a) Cloning scientists have been "crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains."

(b) "One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar."

(c) "We've got to take back our country from the masturbators and socialists."

(d) "During the primary, I heard the audible voice of God. He said, 'Credibility.' "

(e) Barack Obama is "soooo liberal, he's un-American."

2. Alvin Greene, who won the South Carolina Democratic senatorial primary despite having no money and no job, and despite having been arrested for showing porn to a non-consenting female college freshman, recently said he

(a) wanted a toy manufacturer to create "little action dolls" adorned with his face as a way to create jobs.

(b) planned to make amends for his arrest by hiring the student as his "adviser on women's issues."

(c) wanted the South Carolina Legislature to make fried fish the official state food.

(d) thought that a "chain of porn emporiums" would give a big boost to his state's sluggish economy.

3. Glenn Beck recently insisted on Fox that Delaware Democratic senatorial candidate Chris Coons was

(a) "an unmanly wimp" simply because Coons is bald.

(b) "an ivory tower pencil neck" simply because Coons once attended Yale Divinity School.

(c) "a Marxist - he admitted it" simply because Coons' college friends had joked way back in 1985 that he developed "a bearded Marxist" personality during a semester in Kenya.

(d) "an exotic socialist in the Obama-Kenya tradition" simply because Coons did that semester in Kenya.

4. Speaking of Coons: At a time when Democratic candidates are eager to distance themselves from party establishment bigwigs, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, he of the legendarily loose lips, publicly declared that Coons was

(a) "my favorite acolyte."

(b) "my pet."

(c) "my frisky kitten."

(d) "my pugnacious protege."

5. Complete this sentence with the accurate answer: Nevada tea-party favorite Sharron Angle, who's challenging Reid in his Senate race, believes it's "God's will"

(a) that Social Security should be privatized.

(b) that autistic children - she recently put the word autism in air quotes - should lose their insurance coverage.

(c) that sinful Las Vegas should be eradicated in a biblical flood.

(d) that raped women should give birth to their rapists' babies.

6. True or false? President Obama is in such dire straits that he failed to sell out a recent fund-raiser in die-hard Democratic Manhattan - and that was after the tickets were discounted, with one volunteer admitting, "It's Filene's."

7. Speaking of New York: After GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino acknowledged that he and his buddies liked to swap spicy e-mails - for instance, a doctored photo of Obama clad in stereotypical pimp garb, and a legit photo of a woman having sex with a horse - he offered various explanations for his behavior. Choose two.

(a) "I'm in the construction industry. We got all kinds of nonsense like that on a daily basis."

(b) "A little humor always brightens the day, but I get it, some people are sensitive, so I apologize."

(c) "The horse thing was bad, OK, but I meant nothing by it."

(d) "We were paying very little attention, during the heat of the day."

8. According to Newt Gingrich's second wife, who dished recently in Esquire magazine, the GOP's big thinker told her that he was leaving her for another woman (the future third wife) because, in his words,

(a) "You're a Budweiser beer, and I'm in the market for a Guinness."

(b) "You're prime steak, honey, but sometimes a guy just wants a rare burger."

(c) "I can't handle a Jaguar right now. All I want is a Chevrolet."

(d) "An RCA television was a fine product until Samsung came along."

9. True or false? Steve Forbes, the conservative magazine magnate, wrote three weeks ago that Obama is the offspring of a "philandering, inebriated African socialist," and that because Obama is clearly carrying out his father's ideological mission, "the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s."

10. Ben Quayle, a U.S. House candidate in Arizona and son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, has made news lately because

(a) he wrote that Obama was "an arrogant potatohead," but he spelled potato wrong.

(b) he ran a TV ad calling Obama "the worst president in history."

(c) he was outed for writing tawdry prose on a sex-themed website called Dirty Scottsdale, but said he'd merely been trying to "drive some traffic" to the site.

(d) he sent out family-values pamphlets featuring his wife and two kids, without telling voters that the kids were loaners because he doesn't have any kids.

(e) All of the above, except the potato item.

(f) All of the above.

11. Alan Grayson, a House Democrat from Florida who's locked in a tough race, has been sliming his Republican opponent, Daniel Webster, by calling him

(a) Taliban Dan.

(b) Ku Klux Klan Dan.

(c) George Dubya Bush Fan Dan.

(d) Girlie Man Dan.

12. When Colorado tea-party favorite Dan Maes, the GOP gubernatorial candidate, warned recently about a purported United Nations plot against the people of his state - "This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms" - he was specifically referring to

(a) an academic exchange program with students from Indonesia.

(b) Denver's bike-sharing program.

(c) an international health program to wean little kids off candy.

(d) a European soccer program that could wean adults off Broncos football.

13. In a new poll by the Pew Research Center

(a) 43 percent of Americans didn't know that Franklin D. Roosevelt's agenda was called "the New Deal," which is kind of crazy.

(b) 43 percent didn't know that the holy book of Islam is called the Quran, which is pretty crazy.

(c) 41 percent didn't know the name of the current vice president of the United States, which is disturbingly crazy.

(d) All of the above, which is dumbfoundingly crazy.

ANSWERS: 1. (c) 2. (a) 3. (c) 4. (b) 5. (d) 6. True 7. (a) and (d) 8. (c) 9. False. Those quotes come from the Forbes magazine cover story written by Dinesh D'Souza; Forbes himself wrote a separate column in that issue comparing Obama to Vladimir Lenin. 10. (e) 11. (a) 12. (b) 13. (d).