Campaign Photo
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship escalated his racial attacks on the mixed-race family of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, reports CNN.
In his ad, Blankenship refers to Chinese as “China people” and calls McConnell “cocaine Mitch” and his “China family.”
“Swamp captain Mitch McConnell has created millions of jobs for China people, while doing so, Mitch has gotten rich,” Blankenship says in the ad transcribed by Time. “In fact, his China family has given him tens of millions of dollars. Mitch’s swamp people are now running false negative ads about me. They are also childishly calling me despicable and mentally ill. The war to drain the swamp and create jobs for West Virginia people has begun. I will beat Joe Manchin and ditch cocaine Mitch for the sake of the kids.”
According to Time, Blankenship claims McConnell’s father-in-law has given the Senator and his wife millions of dollars and that cocaine was found on a ship owned by the father-in-law’s shipping company. That shipping company is American and based in New York.
“There’s no mystery to what Mr. Blankenship is doing,” said Rep Judy Chu in a statement published in the South Pasadenan. “It is intentional race baiting. I condemn his comments and urge him to stop going down this hateful and divisive path. Unfortunately, one of President Trump’s legacies seems to be the lesson that stoking racial resentments and xenophobia are effective tools for winning an election.”
Blankenship is in a three way race for the Republican nomination to represent West Virginia. The primary is Tuesday.
He has a checkered past. He spent a year in prison after 29 people were killed in an explosion at a mine owned by Massey Energy. Blankenship served as CEO and his company was cited for numerous mine safety violations.
“By using racially insensitive rhetoric to target Secretary Chao and her family in order to take cheap shots at Senator McConnell, Mr. Blankenship is perpetuating the hateful stereotype that being Chinese means you cannot also be a patriotic American. That this kind of rhetoric has been used to justify persecution of Jews and Catholics, the imprisonment of innocent Japanese during World War II, and more, and should give anybody pause,” said Chu.
"Chinaperson?” Mr. Blankenship, you’re starting to sound like a real assperson. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/7AreuRUlJP
— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) May 4, 2018
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