Tammy Duckworth is challenging Sen. Mark Kirk for his spot here in Illinois. Duckworth is of mixed ancestry (her mother is Thai, her father traces lineage back to the Revolutionary War), she joined ROTC while in graduate school, became a Blackhawk pilot and was shot down in Iraq and lost both legs and broke her arm. She has since worked tirelessly in Illinois in support of veterans.
Mark Kirk is the incumbent and has gotten in trouble more than once for misrepresenting his military service:
In the debate last night Kirk took a shot at Duckworth’s military service when he said "I’d forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”
I saw the clip. Yes, wow! A stroke? Well that would provide some kind of explanation I guess. It’s only by a really slim margin but I think he managed to out-Trump Trump there. Give Trump time though…
Her mother is of Chinese ancestry, if that matters. One would think he would do some basic research on his opponent in a Senate campaign. If she plays her cards right she might be POTUS one day.
You really don’t even need to do research to figure that someone with the last name “Duckworth” probably has some non-East Asian ancestry on her fathers side.
Bizarre. It’s pretty hard to think of any single sentence Kirk could’ve said that would’ve been worse for his campaign. It simultaneously:
ties him to the same “kids of immigrants can’t be real Americans” Trump stuff that Kirk has been working so hard to distance himself.
Questions a double-amputees feel good story about her families military history without any good reason
Recalls Kirk’s own exaggeration of his military service.
Is racist. Even coming from Trump this would seem pretty bad.
Doesn’t really lend itself to a generous reading. Sometimes you can debate that someone who said something terrible just mis-spoke. But its pretty hard to come up with an innocent reading here.