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Until a few weeks ago, Michael Anthony Peroutka belonged to the League of the South, an Alabama-based group that decries the presence in this country of hordes of non-white immigrants and wants the South to secede from the union and return to its Anglo-Celtic roots.

He is also the Republican candidate for a seat on the Anne Arundel County Council, facing an inexperienced and little-known Democratic challenger and widely believed to have a good chance of winning the GOP-leaning 5th District on Nov. 4.

Peroutka opposes gay marriage, says he believes in creationism and favors the dismantling of public education, which he has called a plank in the Communist Manifesto.

He sang Dixie at a League of the South conference in 2012, calling it the national anthem.

Officials from both parties were stunned by his narrow victory over an incumbent and three other challengers in the June primary.

And while Peroutka would be only one of seven votes on a body that deals with far less incendiary issues such as zoning and street maintenance prominent Democrats say having him in office in the back yard of the state capitol would be considered an embarrassment. GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Hogan, an Anne Arundel County businessman, and Steve Schuh, the Republican nominee for county executive, disavowed him over the summer,

We dont need to go backwards, said House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel), who joined Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) at a news conference last week urging voters to reject Peroutka. In a brief conversation later, Busch called the Republican nominee dangerous and disruptive.

Peroutka dismissed the attacks. I could think of no better endorsement than Mike Busch and Donna Edwards dont want me to have the job, he said at a candidates forum that evening.

Anne Arundel Council member Daryl Jones, a Democrat and an African American, said that Peroutkas election would be more than an embarrassment.

The real question is where the rubber meets the road, Jones said. If you are an African American in District 5, how comfortable are you going to be coming to him with your issues or concerns?

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Republican with extremist ties stirs up Anne Arundel council race