Consider this Reason No. 41 that Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) won’t be the GOP’s vice presidential nominee:

At an event late Tuesday — shortly after The Fix wrote about how West is too much of a bomb-thrower to be the GOP’s vice presidential nominee — the freshman congressman suggested that as many as 81 Democrats in Congress are not only secret Communists, but actual members of the Communist Party.

When a questioner asked West about Marxists in “the American legislature,” some in the crowd jeered, but West took a different approach.

“No, it’s a good question,” he said, adding: “I believe there is about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.”

After a long pause, West adds that he is talking about the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of 76 of the more liberal Democrats in the U.S. House.

West’s comment clearly states that these members of Congress are also actual members of the Communist Party, though. There is no evidence to support that.