"Can you believe that I have been accused of being a racist?"

Lollar, a Marine Corps Reserve major running in the 5th District’s Republican primary, is a mix of conservative candidate (“Everybody can’t go to college. If all of us go to college, who is paying the tuition? If all of us work for government, who is paying the paychecks?”) and motivational speaker (“The only difference between someone very successful and someone not successful is that that person who is successful got up one more time.”).

But Lollar has one more unique attribute: He’s an African-American tea partier…

In Maryland, he met Bruce Wesbury, chairman of the GOP’s central committee for Charles County. Wesbury recognized a potentially transformative figure in Lollar. “Charles can inspire people. People are listening to him and going, ‘Holy smokes, this guy is fantastic,’ then they’re calling their friends and they’ve never been involved. So we get all of these people involved. … I hate to compare him to [President Barack] Obama, but, look, that’s what inspired people to get out and vote, and he ran one hell of a campaign.”