Apologies if this has been blogged about already.
Over the weekend, the St. Paul Pioneer Pressreported that MN-AG candidate Doug Wardlow (R) allegedly bullied a gay classmate so badly he tried to commit suicide.
That classmate, Ryan Durant, spoke about how Wardlow, a fellow student at Eagan High School, a wealthy suburb of St. Paul, along with other students at the school, bullied him constantly. These incidents took place during the early-mid 1990s. Said Durant:
“I hated going to school every day. I wanted out of there so bad.”
The Pioneer Press contacted several other students who verified Durant’s story, including one of the people who joined Wardlow in the taunting.
Jason Kopp, who said he was a close friend of Wardlow’s at the time, said he and Wardlow harassed Durant because of his sexual orientation.
Spoiler alert — the article noted that Kopp himself later came out as gay and apologized for his behavior.
Wardlow, shockingly, blamed the Keith Ellison campaign for the story, stating: “It’s a desperate smear campaign by a failing campaign. They know they are behind so they are leveling accusations against me that are completely false.”
The reality here is that Ellison’s campaign has been slow to gain traction due to a number of factors. Fair or not, it’s been a tough slog for him and of all the constitutional offices up in the state right now — three are open seats — the AG slot seems to be in the most danger. Democrats have held the AG position in Minnesota for well over four decades, and Republicans are firing away in an effort to change that.
As Minnesota Public Radio noted about Ellison: “he’s more concerned about Wardlow’s more recent legal career, representing a mortuary that fired a transgender employee and working on other cases which push to allow businesses to deny services to people based on their sexual orientation.”
With a week remaining in until election day, will this be enough to swing the race back in Ellison’s direction? Despite my misgivings about Ellison as a candidate, the thought of Wardlow in the top law enforcement office in the state makes me shiver just a bit. Hopefully it will be enough for others to overcome their misgivings as well.
