RON JOHNSON, AN EMBARRASSING LIABILITY.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth

Imagine your fate resting in the hands of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. That's the jam Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell finds himself in, as he waits for the dumbest guy in the U.S. Senate to make up his mind on whether or not to run again.

The longer Johnson waits, the harder it is for other prospective Republican candidates to raise money and launch their campaigns. And the harder it gets for Republicans to win Wisconsin, the slimmer McConnell's chances of taking back control of the U.S. Senate become.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. McConnell, whose chief aim in life has been obstructing Democratic Presidents, even when it means opposing an investigation of the U.S. Capitol insurrection that threatened his own life, cares about nothing but power. So it's amusing to see the Darth Vader of American politics tied in knots by Mr. Goofus Goes to Washington.

If Johnson, who has been one of Donald Trumps most obsequious apologists, does run, he will be bringing along a lot of baggage with him. And that's the last thing Republicans need in a swing state that went for Trump in 2016 but where Democrats won every statewide election in 2018 and Biden pulled off a critical narrow victory in 2020.

Johnson wasted countless hours of committee hearing time on Hunter Biden conspiracies and has called for a full investigation of "irregularities" in the 2020 presidential election, which he terms an "unsustainable state of affairs." He avidly supports restrictive voting measures proposed by Republicans in Wisconsin and, despite the lack of evidence for any amount of voter fraud, claims that we don't yet know how much fraud there was.

Some of Johnson's most headline-generating statements to date have to do with the coronavirus, including his early insistence that preventing deaths from the pandemic was not worth the economic cost of keeping people home and his promotion of dubious alternative remedies. Recently, he opined that masks "have not been particularly effective" at stopping the spread of COVID-19. He also held a press conference with people who have had rare adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines, in an apparent effort to spread fear and confusion--Johnson's specialty.

The junior Senator from Wisconsin says he is not anti-vaccine, and describes himself as "a huge supporter of Operation Warp Speed," calling the Trump Administration's push to develop COVID-19 vaccines "brilliant." But he has also warned against "indiscriminate mass...