Miss America vs. Mr. Incumbent

[Valin]

TWS:

Not your ordinary House primary race

JONATHAN V. LAST

Aug 12, 2013

 

The most interesting House primary of the 2014 cycle began in June in the 13th District of Illinois. It pits freshman Republican congressman Rodney Davis against an insurgent candidate named Erika Harold. Davis is a political operative who won his seat last year nearly by accident. Erika Harold is a 33-year-old lawyer. Who happens to have been Miss America.

 

Erika Harold at the 2004 Republican convention in New York

 

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* Harolds decision to run has already driven one of the local poobahs to self-immolation. In June, Montgomery County GOP chairman Jim Allen called Harold a streetwalker and the love child of the DNC. That is, we assume Allen was talking about Harold. He never mentioned her by name, referring to her instead as Little Queenie. This caused something of a firestorm.

 

 

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Is she a squish? Possibly, but probably not. Differentiating between Obama and his policies is smart politicsHarold is running in Illinois, after all, a heavily Democratic state where Obama is a favorite son. Yet while Harold tries to resist easy classification, her ideological markers are highly suggestive of a conservative worldview. Theres the abstinence, of course. Shes fiercely pro-life. She favors concealed-carry gun laws. And shes on the board of Prison Fellowship Ministries, the program founded by Chuck Colson.

 

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* Hello. My name is Jim Allen, and I'm dumber that a small box of rocks.