How Is the New Crop of Republican Candidates Looking?
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A former leader in the American Nazi Party is about to be the only Republican on the ticket for a congressional race in Illinois.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier who has repeatedly tried ― and failed ― to attain office, is the only candidate seeking the GOP nod for the seat in the heavily Democratic 3rd Congressional District.
Images on Jones’ campaign website showed him speaking at KKK and neo-Nazi events, giving the Nazi salute and shredding the flag of Israel. He called the Confederate flag the symbol of “white pride,” “white resistance” and “white counterrevolution.” Jones also told the Sun-Times that the Holocaust was “an international extortion racket.”
Party leaders have disowned Jones.
“The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones,” Tim Schneider, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, told the Sun-Times. “We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District.”
Jones mocked the party’s attempts to stop him.
“Well, it’s absolutely the best opportunity in my entire political career,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “Every time I’ve run it’s been against a Republican who follows this politically correct nonsense. This time they screwed up.”
I don’t know, seems like the perfect candidate for the Trump era. A sadly relevant movie clip is required.
You might say, well, he’s the only one running in a heavily Democratic district so this isn’t quite fair. OK, fine. How about the race for the Republican nomination to be governor of South Carolina?
A Republican running for South Carolina governor has been accused of sympathizing with the Confederacy because of comments she made about her ancestors to a college crowd.
Democrats on Friday took Catherine Templeton to task for telling a crowd at Bob Jones University that her relatives fought on behalf of the Confederacy not to protect slavery but because “the federal government was trying to tell us how to live.”
“We didn’t need them to tell us how to live way back then, and we don’t need them to tell us how to live today,” Templeton told the crowd of mostly students.
On Friday, Democrats including former state party Chairman Jaime Harrison criticized Templeton, accusing her of “romanticizing the Civil War.” Bakari Sellers, a former Democratic state representative and nominee for lieutenant governor, asked his Twitter followers, “How should we start Black History Month? … Let’s go to Bob Jones and tout the Confederacy.”
Templeton is very special and has gone down this path before. There is no reason to think this will do anything but help her with South Carolina Republicans.
In conclusion, it’s pretty clear that Donald Trump is a huge outlier in the Republican Party.