CHICAGO –A downstate Illinois GOP Republican chairman who recently came under fire for making racially charged comments about a black female congressional candidate in which he compared her to a street-walker has resigned from his post.
Montgomery County Republican Party chairman Jim Allen had no shame when he emailed Doug Ibendahl, a Chicago attorney who runs the independent website Republican News Watch, about 2003 Miss America and GOP Congressional candidate Erika Harold, an African-American woman running in the 13th Congressional District primary.
Harold announced her eyebrow-raising candidacy earlier this month and almost immediately began to change the face of the Illinois Republican Party. After Harold launched her campaign against incumbent Rep. Rodney Davis, Ibendahl wrote a flattering post about the University of Illinois and Harvard Law School graduate which prompted Allen’s rant. According to Republican News Watch, Allen wrote:
Rodney Davis will win and the love child of the D.N.C. will be back in Shitcago by May of 2014 working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires.
The truth is Nancy Pelosi and the DEMOCRAT party want this seat. So they called RINO Timmy Johnson to be their pack mule and get little queen to run.
Ann Callis gets a free ride through a primary and Rodney Davis has a battle.
The little queen touts her abstinence and she won the crown because she got bullied in school,,,boohoo..kids are cruel, life sucks and you move on..Now, miss queen is being used like a street walker and her pimps are the DEMOCRAT PARTY and RINO REPUBLICANS…These pimps want something they can’t get,,, the seat held by a conservative REPUBLICAN Rodney Davis and Nancy Pelosi can’t stand it..
Little Queenie and Nancy Pelosi have so much in common but the one thing that stands out the most.. both are FORMER QUEENS, their crowns are tarnished and time has run out on the both of them..
Harold or Allen could not immediately be reached for comment, however Davis’ office quickly moved to distance itself from Allen’s comments.
“Mr. Allen’s comments are misguided and wrong and certainly do not reflect the views of Congressman Davis or his campaign,” Davis spokesman Andrew Flach said in a statement. “Our hope is that supporters for all of the candidates conduct themselves in a positive manner and focus on the issues facing our country as the campaign moves forward.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Allen was listed as a ‘Team 2014’ member on Davis’ campaign website prior to the attack on Harold, however his name has since been removed.
The explosive rant quickly went national.
Tuesday, Allen apologized for his late-night e-mail, telling the State Journal-Register, “My comments are very inappropriate and wrong, and I apologize to Miss Harold and her campaign and her supporters,” according to NBC Chicago.
Within two days, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus demanded Allen’s resignation according to GOP.com, and received the resignation shortly after, according to Illinois Statehouse news publication, a Capitol Fax.
“The astonishingly offensive views expressed by Chairman Allen have absolutely no place among the leaders of our party at any level. His behavior is inexcusable and must not be tolerated. He should apologize to Erika Harold and resign immediately,” Preibus wrote.
Illinois GOP Chairman Jack Dorgan confirmed in a statement, saying, “Today, I accepted the resignation of Jim Allen as Montgomery County Chairman. These types of offensive and inappropriate remarks have no place in our Republican Party.”
The news is particularly jarring to the Illinois Republican party, which has traditionally been hard for candidates of color to penetrate. Should Harold win the primary and general elections for the 13th Congressional District, she would be the first African-American Republican female congressman in the history of the United States. In Illinois, experts say she could be a true link between minorities and the local Republican Party.
“When I heard that she was running, my first thoughts were, if the Republicans are serious to reaching out to a diverse community to become relevant, that maybe they recruited her to run,” noted Illinois political strategist Delmarie Cobb. “She would certainly be a person that they would need to recruit to show that they’re the new Republicans, they’re not the same old party.”
“Outrageous comments like those of Jim Allen are why we as Republicans fail to gain any respect from minority voters,” Ibendahl wrote on his site, when he published the email. ”If officials in my party (the Republican Party) fail to understand how destructive it is to attack an impressive person like Erika Harold merely because she dares to challenge the good-old-boys, the GOP will remain a losing party for decades. This stay-in-the-back-of-the-bus mentality destroys any hope the Republican Party has for regaining momentum in future elections.”
Since the newly drawn district that Harold is competing to represent is more than 90 percent white, Cobb noted, “You wouldn’t think of her as someone from that area.”
Still, the road ahead may be tough for Harold, who has to pierce the traditionally white male Illinois GOP bubble.
“She’s going to have to change the mindset of many of the people who are there,” Cobb said, suggesting she run solely on the issues. “She doesn’t need to regurgitate the extreme views of the Republican Party. What she needs to do is offer new ideas and show that she’s reflective of what the party can be and should be, moving forward.”
Renita D. Young is a Chicago-based multimedia journalist. Follow her on Twitter @RenitaDYoung.