A Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Arkansas referred to Sen. Charles Schumer as "that Jew."
According to Politico, Arkansas state senator Kim Hendren used those words to refer to Schumer during a speech with Pulaski County Republican County activists.
He then told an Arkansas Republican blog that he misspoke, that he modeled his political beliefs after an almost 50-year-old television show and said to not be surprised if he said other dumb things during the campaign. From the Tolbert Report:
At the meeting, Hendren addressed the comments that Sen. Schumer made shortly before last week’s meeting. Sen. Schumer, appearing on MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow Show, said “The hard right, which still believes that when the Federal Government moves, we chop off its hands, still believes in the traditional values kind of arguments, in strong foreign policy, all that is over.”
Hendren told me, “At the meeting I was attempting to explain that unlike Sen. Schumer, I believe in traditional values, like we used to see on The Andy Griffith Show. I made the mistake of referring to Sen. Schumer as ‘that Jew’ and I should not have put it that way as this took away from what I was trying to say."
He also said to expect plenty of verbal gaffes in his campaign. “I don’t use a teleprompter and occasionally I put my foot in my month,” Hendren told Tolbert. “I will no doubt stick my foot in my mouth many times in the process but this is who I am.”
Politico reports that Hendren "is the only Republican currently in the race" against Democratic incumbent Blanche Lincoln, "though state senator Gilbert Baker and former US Attorney Tim Griffin are also mulling campaigns."
UPDATE:Schumer told the New York Daily News, "Apology accepted."
SECOND UPDATE: The Arkansas News talked to Hendren about the incident and Hendren might want to just stop talking:
He said he remembered saying “the Jew” or “that Jew,” and didn’t know why in the world it came out, but that he did go on seconds later to say there was a Jewish person he did admire, and that would be Jesus. And then he told me that, for that matter, he rather liked Joe Lieberman.
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