Meet the Gothic-Punk Role-Player Running Against Ted Yoho, a Former Large-Animal Veterinarian

Republican Jake Rush has a long history with live-action role-playing involving vampires and book burning.

Some congressional candidates were businessmen or farmers before they decided to run for office. Others dressed up as vampires and performed rituals involving book burnings.

One of the candidates challenging Rep. Ted Yoho in the Florida Republican primary is involved in that kind of extracurricular activity, the political site Saint Peters Blog discovered.

Jake Rush, through live-action roleplaying as part of the Mind's Eye Society, sometimes goes by alter egos: Chazz Darling, Darling van de Winst, Johan Gambrys, Zane Daily, The Kriesler, Archbishop Kettering, among other vampires and supernatural creatures.

Some of the role-playing involves aiming shotguns at dogs, dressing as a demon, using satanic symbolism, being chained and gagged, and wearing bloody angel wings.

In its description of the society, the Saint Peters Blog adds this explainer: "Note: For the uninitiated, a succubus is a female demon who appears in dreams, usually in human form, to seduce men through sexual activity."

In one of the more disturbing revelations, one of Rush's online posts as "Chazz Darling," where he writes in part, " ... while I snorted a line off my new machete."

Rush responded to the revelations into his personal life with a statement to the Miami Herald, saying he's been treated unfairly for his "vivid imagination" and "hobby activities."

"Yes, I play and have played video games, role-playing games, board games, Yahtzee, Clue, and I have acted in dozens of theatre productions," Rush said in a statement that includes a photo of him and his wife in tight-fitting superhero outfits.

Rush, in the statement, does point to his three passed background checks in his professional career and says he is a practicing Christian. But bottom line, "There is nothing wrong with being a gamer," he continues. "It's kinda nerdy."

This revelation makes the primary race against Yoho, a staunch tea-party congressman and former large-animal veterinarian, that much more interesting.

By day, however, Rush has a more normal life. He's a lawyer and former county police officer. He released his first campaign ad a week ago, and it shows him in a suit with hand on the Bible, and teaching children the Constitution.

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"Jake is a conservative straight shooter who knows that Washington spending is out of control," a narrator says.

UPDATE

The Yoho campaign said it has no comment on these revelations.