{"id":1205799,"date":"2022-01-10T18:05:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T23:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1205799"},"modified":"2022-01-10T18:05:55","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T23:05:55","slug":"failed-american-idol-taking-second-shot-at-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/failed-american-idol-taking-second-shot-at-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Failed American Idol Taking Second Shot at Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffailed-american-idol-taking-second-shot-at-politics%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1205799&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/democrats\/\">Democrats<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Singer Clay Aiken lost &#8216;American Idol&#8217; in 2003, &#8216;Celebrity Apprentice&#8217; in 2012, and a House race in 2014<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"736\" height=\"514\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/rsz_gettyimages-885071396.jpg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"denied:data:image\/gif;base64, R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/rsz_gettyimages-885071396.jpg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/rsz_gettyimages-885071396-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/rsz_gettyimages-885071396-703x491.jpg 703w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tClay Aiken \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/josh-christenson\/\" title=\"Posts by Josh Christenson\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Josh Christenson<\/a> \u2022 January 10, 2022 6:00 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Failed <em>American Idol<\/em> participant Clay Aiken is running for Congress again as a Democrat from North Carolina.<\/p>\n<p>Aiken, a native of Raleigh who became famous in 2003 for placing second on the musical game show <em>American Idol<\/em>, on Monday announced his candidacy for the state&#8217;s Sixth Congressional District, saying he would&nbsp;promote progressive policies. Aiken also took second place as a contestant on the game show <em>Celebrity Apprentice<\/em>, hosted by then-real estate mogul Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Aiken&#8217;s candidacy comes as a surprise to those who watched his failed 2014 campaign, when he lost to then-Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers by an 18-point margin. He has also expressed he experiences nervousness when confronted by political trackers at campaign events. He even admitted in an <em>Esquire<\/em> documentary on his run for Congress that his &#8220;butthole clenches up&#8221; when he catches sight of them.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Do you see that douchebag with the blue shorts? He&#8217;s with the enemy. He\u2019s trying to catch me doing something stupid,&#8221; Aiken told an aide. &#8220;Every time that tracker comes around it\u2019s like my butthole clenches up! I can&#8217;t talk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Republicans held the Sixth District for decades\u2014first under congressman Howard Coble from 1985 to 2015 and then under congressman Mark Walker from 2015 to 2021. This is Aiken&#8217;s second run for a congressional seat. In 2014, he made it to the general election for the state&#8217;s Second District because his only Democratic opponent died before primary votes were tallied.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Aiken said in his video announcement that he would run on opposing &#8220;backwards-ass policies like the voter suppression bills and the bigoted bathroom bill.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Can you believe it&#8217;s been almost 20 years since I first got to share my voice with you? That&#8217;s a long time. A LOT has changed!<\/p>\n<p>We need powerful voices more than ever, so I&#8217;m running for Congress.<\/p>\n<p>And my voice is even stronger now! \ud83d\ude09 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/JoinTheChorus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#JoinTheChorus<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aQIm8a2xuZ\">https:\/\/t.co\/aQIm8a2xuZ<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xBtN2CYF30\">pic.twitter.com\/xBtN2CYF30<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Clay Aiken (@clayaiken) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/clayaiken\/status\/1480563216405127170?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 10, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats Singer Clay Aiken lost &#8216;American Idol&#8217; in 2003, &#8216;Celebrity Apprentice&#8217; in 2012, and a House race in 2014  Clay Aiken \/ Getty Images &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1205799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1205799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1205799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1205799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1205799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1205799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}