Can this week get any worse? You may scoff at the suggestion that Kid Rock isn’t serious about his political career and running for an office that pulls down less in a year than he makes in an average tour date. However, the sourcing for this is none other than The Nuge, who tells Michigan radio host Frank Beckmann that the effort to draft The Other Rock for a 2018 Senate race has the star laughing up his sleeve … and all the way to the bank. Via Twitchy and Sopan Deb:

https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/898198465855049728

Perhaps Rock (Ritchie) never intended to run, but it’s not completely coming out of his nether regions, either. Republican fundraisers have been after the Kid to get into the race, although the Associated Press noted last week that they haven’t been able to connect directly to him:

The head of a major Super PAC aligned with Senate GOP leadership encouraged performer Kid Rock to run for Senate against Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

The comments from Steven Law in an interview Friday on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program were surprising. But Law insisted he was quite serious, saying his group would “be actually very interested” in a Kid Rock candidacy. …

Law said he hadn’t spoken with Kid Rock. But he said that despite the entertainer’s redneck image, “the truth of the matter is that he’s done a lot in his home state philanthropically, he’s a pretty smart guy, he thinks about policy, and he’s a shrewd businessman.”

Law is a former chief of staff to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and runs a political action committee dedicated to protecting and bolstering the Senate GOP majority. In next year’s midterms, Republicans will have to protect two endangered incumbents while playing offense against 10 Democratic Senate incumbents in states won by President Donald Trump.

In fact, former GOP presidential candidate and governor George Pataki issued an endorsement for Rock earlier this week:

Kid Rock is exactly the kind of candidate the GOP needs right now. #KidRockForSenate @KidRock
https://t.co/gWagkLPcBb

— George E. Pataki (@GovernorPataki) August 15, 2017

If this was a joke or some kind of ironic commentary on politics — still a very good possibility — Pataki hasn’t yet dropped the big reveal. And contra the Nuge, KR explicitly stated on his potential campaign website that he didn’t need this kind of buzz to sell swag. Kid Rock swag sells itself, man (language warning):

During this time while exploring my candidacy for US Senate, I am creating a 501(c)(4) – a non-profit organization for the promotion of voter registration. Not only can I raise money for this critical cause, but I can help get people registered to vote at my shows. Since the announcement, the media has speculated this was a ploy to sell shirts or promote something. I can tell you, I have no problem selling Kid Rock shirts and yes, I absolutely will use this media circus to sell/promote whatever I damn well please (many other politicians are doing the same thing, they just feed you a bunch of bullshit about it). But either way, money raised at this time through the sale of merchandise associated with this very possible campaign will go towards our ‘register to vote’ efforts.

One thing is for sure though…The democrats are ‘shattin’ in their pantaloons’ right now…and rightfully so!

Maybe all of this is just a lark, as Nugent says, or at least started that way. That doesn’t mean KR might not be taking it seriously now. It’s easy to get one’s head turned by popular praise and assume it’s a legitimate political phenomenon. We’ve been getting a lot of that lately.

There is an upside to this, however, if Nugent’s right. It makes it clear which Rock becomes president in 2024, assuming that’s what Dwayne Johnson is cooking. You like pancakes, right?