From this story:
On the Republican side, Carlson has an uphill battle and has had to address that he spent nearly six years in prison after being convicted 27 years ago of sexually assaulting a woman following a South Side Irish Parade.
Yes, I suppose that could be described as … an uphill battle.
Or a complete dereliction of duty by the Cook County GOP to prevent a man who served time for sexual assault from running for Congress in its midst.
From an election preview story back in June:
According to court records in his unsuccessful appeal of his conviction, Carlson met a woman at a bar in 1994 near the South Side Irish Parade route on the day of the parade.
The woman testified she left the bar with Carlson and agreed to accompany him in his car to another bar, but instead he pulled the car around a street corner and assaulted her as she begged him to stop, according to court records in the case.
But according to the candidate, this isn’t disqualifying. In fact, it’s a point in his column.
Asked last week whether the sexual assault conviction would make it difficult for him to represent residents of the district, which stretches from the South Loop to the edge of Kankakee County, Carlson said he is better suited than other candidates to represent citizens in Washington, D.C., “because I know the ins and outs of the system.”
“I’m the only one who has lived all of this stuff,” he said.
For all the hand-wringing the Illions and Cook County GOP are doing over the SAF-T Act, they sure seem to have not noticed that they have a violent criminal running for a Congressional seat who sees his violent acts as a reason to support him.
One could see this as a pattern:
The long-shot candidacy of a Holocaust denier’s Republican bid for Congress was defeated Tuesday, but not before the neo-Nazi received more than 56,000 votes in Illinois’ 3rd District.
[snip]
Jones, a 70-year-old from Lyons, had run for office several times before but never advanced to the general election. He received 20,681 votes when he ran unopposed in the Republican primary in March.
Jones has previously described himself as a “white racialist,” or someone who “knows the facts of race,” in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.
A former member of the American National Socialist Workers Party, Jones said he also opposed equality, interracial marriage and school integration.
So for those keeping track: In the last six years, the Cook County GOP has allowed a Nazi and a rapist to run for Congress.
