Earlier this month, voters in Brazil elected illiterate clown Francisco Everardo Oliveira  Silva “Tiririca” to their Congress. And no, that wasn’t a jocular insult. Silva actually works as a clown and is unable to read. He beat out the second-place finisher by more than double the votes using a campaign slogan of: “It can’t get any worse.”

When things are bad here in the U.S., we all love to blame the government. It’s easy, legal, and often times legitimate.

But the American people need to start taking some of the blame for the ineptitude of our government. After all, we are the ones who elect these people into office.

With public disapproval of government near all-time highs, voters went to the polls this primary season and they came back with some real gems. Most of the candidates in this new batch of potential office holders are better suited for the circus than the halls of Congress. So here’s my list of the top five candidates of 2010 who I’d gladly trade to Brazil in exchange for Silva.

5. Carl Paladino (R-NY)

I would be more outraged at the extremist views of New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino if I wasn’t left so in shock by his brazen arrogance. It certainly takes some kind of man to continue to claim to be the candidate of family values while simultaneously revealing you have a love child with your mistress that your wife doesn’t have a problem with.

Perhaps what’s most perplexing about Paladino are his views on homosexuality.

“I don’t want them (children) to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option. It isn’t,” Paladino said.

Normally I would find a statement like this discriminatory and highly offensive. But when someone like Paladino, who thinks adultery, racism and bestiality is all good fun, tries to give lectures on the morality of homosexuality, I am simply left too stunned and confused to be upset.

4. Linda McMahon (R-CT)

This August, voters in the Connecticut Republican primary had a tough choice to make.

On the one hand, they had Peter Schiff, a Libertarian economist and businessman, who is the only public figure known to have successfully and accurately predicted the 2008 economic downfall two years before it happened.

On the other hand, they had Linda McMahon, the wife of World Wrestling Entertainment’s chief executive officer Vince McMahon. She is best know for chugging beer and kicking men in the crotch to amuse a crowd.

Guess which one they picked.

3. Sharron Angle (R-NV)

Republican senatorial candidate Sharron Angle’s policy positions include restricting abortion rights to rape and incest victims because, as she said, if God didn’t want them to get pregnant he would have stepped in and stopped the rape from happening.

Angle has also said that entitlement programs have spoiled our citizenry. As if senior citizens who fought in World War II or Vietnam, then worked for decades paying into social security, are spoiled from collecting their monthly check amounting to several hundred dollars.

That must also mean Iraq and Afghanistan veterans wounded in combat are spoiled from expecting the taxpayer to cover their medical expenses.

I’m not saying Angle has no soul. But I’m pretty sure if she walked past a mirror, you wouldn’t see a reflection.

2. Christine O’Donnell (R-DE)

The sad part of the Christine O’Donnell story is not that an anti-masturbation, anti-evolution, former witch won the Republican senatorial primary. It’s that Delaware voters could have picked Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE). Castle is a moderate Republican with a strong record of common sense fiscal and social views, and instead they consciously picked O’Donnell.

That’s like someone offering you an all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii and you saying, “No thanks, I’d rather go to New Jersey.”

O’Donnell hasn’t been able to hold a job, pay a mortgage, or even establish with certainty that she has a college degree. But she sure is folksy. I’m sure she’ll do well at Fox News after the election.

1. Alvin Greene (D-SC)

And the number one worst 2010 candidate is Democratic senatorial candidate Alvin Greene. Greene is an unemployed army veteran who has refused to answer allegations he is facing felony obscenity charges for showing pornography to an unwilling college student.

He was able to win the Democratic nomination with no campaign, no website, no money, no platform, and no party support. He is so slow in media interviews that reporters have questioned his mental competence.

Could there be anymore apt a metaphor for the problems of our government than a penniless pervert who is ambiguously retarded?

So America, in your country’s darkest hour, this is the team you’ve assembled to lead the government back from the brink. God help us all.