Rep. Thad McCotter Abruptly Quits; Cites "Nightmarish Month and a Half"

U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Livonia) abruptly quit his job on Friday, citing a “nightmarish month and a half” that has taken a toll on him and his family.

The announcement came six months before his fifth term in Congress was to expire.

McCotter's political career became an embarrassment this year when his re-election campaign imploded when it came up with pages of invalid signatures supporting his candidacy. On Friday, he issued a statement, saying:

After nearly 26 years in elected office, this past nightmarish month and a half have, for the first time, severed the necessary harmony between the needs of my constituency and of my family. As this harmony is required to serve, its absence requires I leave.
The recent event's totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must "strike another match, go start anew" by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.

The Detroit News reported this week that he had written a script for a TV comedy after his re-election bid imploded.

Jeff Wattrick of Deadline Detroit wrote on Thursday:

Thad McCotter used to be someone--a congressman with a little bit of national profile. Then McCotter confused his little bit of national profile with a whole lot of national profile and ran for president. That turned out badly. Now, unable to even collect the necessary petition signatures for another congressional run, McCotter is just one of those unemployable sad sacks all the time droning on about his tv show idea.

Only it's sadder than that because McCotter's concept is for a faux-variety show featuring Congressional staffers who make fart jokes. It's pretty much exactly the show you'd expect from a midlife crisis-suffering failed congressman who looks like Butthead of Beavis and Butthead fame.