Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst said Monday night that she wasn’t faking it when she took offense to Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-IA) comments on her looks.
Earlier Monday, Harkin said he regretted telling the audience at a local Democratic Party event that if Ernst’s political positions were wrong for the state of Iowa, it wouldn’t matter that she’s “attractive” and “nice.” He also compared her to pop star Taylor Swift.
After Ernst first condemned those remarks, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros said she believed the Iowa Republican was “feigning a little bit of outrage” to capitalize on Harkin’s gaffe.
Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked Ernst that question directly Monday night.
“I’ve heard some people say that you weren’t really offended, you were feigning your outrage to try to take advantage of something that he probably shouldn’t have said, but he said,” Kelly observed.
“No, I am offended. And I’m offended for every woman that runs for office regardless of party,” Ernst replied. “When they just talk about what’s on the outside, attractiveness, niceness — I am a nice person, but you know what, I’m pretty darn tough.”
As for Harkin’s statement, Ernst said she thought that was “as good of an apology as we will get.”
“I do accept that,” she told Kelly. “It is regrettable that he said those things in the first place, but you know what, just like Taylor Swift says, we’re gonna shake this off.”
Watch below, via Fox News:
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EDIT (from a DKos fundraising email, yesterday):
Don’t despair for Iowa quite yet folks!
jw1
Great! I still dont have to answer any real questions. Am I Senator yet?
I don’t know why this site can’t manage to convey what Harkins actually said in a concise way. “Harkins said he’d been hearing from Iowans that they considered Ernst ‘attractive’ and ‘nice,’ and said it didn’t matter how attractive or nice she were if her positions were wrong for Iowa.” How hard is that?
jw1, I’d like to commend you for your GOTV effort and I’ll add one thing: I have to say to some of our resident purity trolls that if you do not vote for the Democrats today, do not ever, ever, ever complain about the state of politics going forward, because you don’t have the right to. You can bash the Democrats and complain about their feckless kowtowing to corporate power and whine that they’re not all to the left of Che Guevara if you vote. If not, just shut up because nobody wants to hear it.
Money.
If the site/channel/agency doesn’t toe the line most favorable to the PAC$?
The money gets funneled elsewhere.
Eventually your competitors are better funded.
You know where that leads.
I recommend all to read Sniffit’s series of posts from yesterday
on the ®s and Dark Money article/thread.
Straightforward explanation.
jw1
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