One of Minnesota’s most hotly contested congressional races has now turned into what one author is calling a disgusting display of desperation and lies from one of the candidates.
In an article in today’s National Review, author John R. Lott, Jr. writes about Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional district race between Republican Jason Lewis and Democrat Angie Craig, both vying for retiring Congressman John Kline’s seat. Lott doesn’t mince any words as he says that Craig has exhibited “a brazen and transparent example of raw political ambition and outright duplicity.”
Lott is the author of “The War on Guns” and was the former chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC), a permanent independent agency in the judicial branch of the government that develops sentencing guidelines for U.S. Federal Courts.
Backed by huge money and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) along with other players like George Soros, Nancy Pelosi and Al Franken, Lott says that Craig’s campaign has engaged in smears, innuendo and outright lies that are deliberately dishonest against her opponent. Lott claims that the Craig campaign has spent upwards of $5 million from a collection of individuals “so scurrilous that they are eager to finance a campaign that will literally do and say anything to buy an election.” The money spent on Craig’s ads is more than all but three candidates for the U.S. House and approximately five times more than what Jason Lewis is spending on his race.
Lott says that Craig knowingly took Lewis’ words out of context in a series of misleading television ads. By doing this, Lott says that Craig has “disqualified herself” from being trusted with a position of power.
Craig’s ads have suggested that Lewis’ book on Federalism entitled “Power Divided is Power Checked” promotes slavery. Lott, who wrote the foreword to the book, says Craig’s claim that the book supports slavery is an “outright lie.”
The DCCC implied in their television ad that Lewis, who is the father of two daughters, is also in favor of rape. The DCCC took a clip from Lewis’ national radio show, “The Jason Lewis Show”, where Lewis used the term “rape” to refer to professional golfer Phil Mickelson’s bank account when the golfer complained about high taxes in California. The DCCC used the clip in their ads without explaining the context for the remark, thereby making someone unfamiliar with the clip think that Lewis supports rape, “…the government rapes somebody…we’re supposed to lay on our back and enjoy it…just rape the hell out of ’em…”
Lott says that Lewis’ reference to rape in this instance was a “graphic metaphor,” but had absolutely nothing to do with actual sexual assault and for Craig to suggest that it does represents the latest in a long line of despicable political falsehoods from the Craig campaign.
According to the National Review, two local television stations ran “fact checks” on the Craig and DCCC ads and found that Lewis’s words were not only presented “without context,” but “with no or so little context that they mislead the viewer.”
“Craig has frequently pointed to Lewis’s conservative comments on talk radio, but we note the audio clips her campaign uses have been proven to be out of context. The Lewis we spoke with is not the same one Craig would have us envision,” said the Rochester Post Bulletin.
Lott said, “Welcome to the Age of Personal Destruction under Clinton — and Craig. Craig’s campaign is so enamored with winning at all costs that it allows the ends to justify the means.”
