Desperate Democrat Angie Craig is accusing Jason Lewis of justifying rape and slavery.
Rarely has an electorate been subject to such a brazen and transparent example of raw political ambition and outright duplicity than those unfortunate souls living in Minnesota’s second congressional district.
While the race for the hotly contested open seat, which covers the southern half of the Twin Cities metro region and areas to its southeast, remains a “toss up” between Republican Jason Lewis and Democrat Angie Craig, according to the Cook Political Report — it has been the campaign of Craig and her Democrat surrogates at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), along with backers such as the Soros family, Nancy Pelosi, and Al Franken, which has engaged in a campaign of smears, innuendo, and outright lies so deliberately dishonest that Frank Underwood of House of Cards fame would surely hesitate.
The lies began with a blogger, then writing for the Star Tribune, who has vainly tried to ride the Democrat’s coat tails back to relevancy. It continued with a complacent and incurious press satisfied with regurgitating press releases rather than doing its job and correcting the record.
To their credit (as you shall see), a few reporters did finally point out the obvious — but, as the saying goes, a lie can travel around the world before the truth gets out the door. That is especially the case when the lie is backed by upwards of $5 million (more than all but three candidates for the U.S. House and about five times more than Lewis is spending) 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.
By knowingly taking her opponent’s words out of context in a blizzard of utterly misleading television ads, Craig has disqualified herself from ever being trusted with a position of power. Her suggestion that Lewis’s book on federalism, Power Divided Is Power Checked, of which I wrote the forward, had anything to do with promoting slavery is in fact an outright lie.
And now comes the DCCC actually implying that Lewis (who has two daughters) is in favor of rape. Its TV ad states: “Lewis said, ‘ . . . the government rapes somebody . . . we’re supposed to lay on our back and enjoy it . . . just rape the hell out of ’em . . . ’”
Lewis, a former national radio-show host, used the term figuratively to describe what happened to Phil Mickelson’s bank account when the professional golfer had the temerity to complain about exorbitantly high taxes in California. To wit:
Mickelson late last night felt he had to apologize for saying he was thinking about moving or retiring. He wrote, released a statement last night, “finances and taxes are a personal matter and I should not have made my opinions on them public, I apologize to those I have upset or insulted and assure you I intend to not let it happen again.” How deflating is this? How symptomatic of the times is this — the government rapes somebody and then the victim apologizes, we’re supposed to lay on our back and enjoy it.
A graphic metaphor perhaps — but it has absolutely nothing to do with actual sexual assault. And to suggest it does represents only the latest in a long line of despicable political falsehoods from Craig and Co.
Welcome to the Age of Personal Destruction under Clinton — and Craig.
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.”
The Rochester Post Bulletin added that “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.”
What do you say about people like this other than that they are simply dangerous and unfit for political office of any kind?
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.
I have known Jason Lewis for 20 years and have always found him to be knowledgeable, personable, and ready to serve. I therefore support him over an opponent who was endorsed by the Progressive Caucus and enthusiastically backs Obamacare, higher taxes, strict gun control that will disarm our most vulnerable citizens, and open borders.
But beyond my policy preferences, the good citizens of Minnesota’s second district must take a stand for decency by making certain deception and dishonesty of this magnitude is never rewarded with a vote.
— John Lott is the author of The War on Guns and the former chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission.
Editor’s Note: This article has been amended since its original publication.