Usually when a candidate for Congress says something as outrageous as linking an opponent with fascism, it is caught in an unscripted moment when the candidate's guard is down and they are speaking off the cuff.

Not so Republican candidate Lori Hopkins-Cavanagh, who seeks to unseat four-term Democratic incumbent Rep. Joe Courtney in Connecticut's 2nd District, covering most of the eastern half of Connecticut.

Ms. Hopkins-Cavanagh chose a Jan. 24 meeting of the Republican group Grassroots East at the Holiday Inn in Norwich to discuss what she sees as the United States' drift toward fascism and her opponent's complicity with the Obama administration in making that happen. You can find it on YouTube.

"The message I share here tonight might sound shocking, but it is the tip of the iceberg and many of you know this is true," the Republican candidate told her audience.

It is shocking that a candidate for federal office would make such a bizarre accusation and assume that fellow Republicans agree.

In seeking their support back in January, she provided her definition of fascism, "a regime that exalts nations and often race above the individual and that stands for centralized, autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition," said Ms. Hopkins-Cavanagh.

Leaders who respect Democracy and the U.S. Constitution are the bulwark protecting the nation from such a fate, she then warns, but ...

"Joe Courtney has failed us. To achieve the goal of a socially engineered society the free market must be destroyed in the name of social justice. Our Constitution, our laws, our state's rights, our local control is being methodically and systematically dismantled. This is the change Obama promised us and Mr. Courtney has delivered," said Ms. Hopkins-Cavanagh.

This is the Rep. Courtney, mind you, who helped Electric Boat win the biggest defense contract in the nation's history, providing a solid foundation for the region's economy. The congressman who has organized several trade missions to help local manufacturers develop foreign markets. Who led the fight for a federal-private-state partnership to upgrade a critical rail line and boost activity at the Port of New London.

At an editorial board meeting last week, Ms. Hopkins-Cavanagh was asked to explain her extreme position. She said she did not consider it extreme, but middle-of-the-road, and did not back off.

She threw together a hodge-podge of grievances, after noting an ancestor lived under the iron boot of Mussolini. These included the use of eminent domain at Fort Trumbull, the intrusive demands of the Affordable Care Act on individuals and businesses, high taxes and burdensome regulations.

All legitimate issues, certainly, to raise in a campaign (though we don't see any link between Obama, Courtney and eminent domain), but none of them remotely connected to any slip toward fascism.

Ms. Hopkins-Cavanagh seems particularly worked up over a federal-local dispute in Westchester County, N.Y. The dispute stems from what the New York Times described as one of the most ambitious desegregation lawsuit settlements in decades - resulting from a discrimination ruling against the county in 2009. In the settlement, the county agreed to create 750 houses and apartments for moderate-income people in overwhelmingly white communities and aggressively market them to nonwhites in Westchester and New York City.

But the Obama administration is not satisfied with the progress, has withheld millions in federal housing dollars and continues to legally joust with local officials. Ms. Hopkins-Cavanagh sees such "racial engineering" as a dangerous overreach of federal authority. That's a legitimate argument to make, too, but fascism is not at issue.

Ms. Hopkins-Cavanagh cannot be taken seriously when she makes such a claim and steadfastly stands by it. Republicans should be embarrassed.