Raw Story: One of the four gubernatorial candidates introduced to at the California Republican state party’s semi-annual convention last week spent a decade in prison for convictions for voluntary manslaughter and assault with intent to commit rape, according to the LA Times.You don’t have to worry though, because he loves Jesus and that makes everything OK. He also loves him some guns and thinks that his past, combined with that love of firearms, makes him the perfect Second Amendment Hero candidate. “I know what the criminal mind thinks, and I know how it works and I know how to stop it, and that’s something [other politicians] don’t get,” he told an interviewer. See, if what want to stop criminals, you have to think like a criminal — and Champs experience in this area is exhaustive.
Speaking before hundreds of delegates and supporters, Glenn Champ, 48, did not directly address colorful history, choosing instead to explain, “In my life, I’ve been held accountable because of my stupidity. I do not want anyone else to be enslaved because of their lack of knowledge.”
Champ was one of four candidates speaking at the convention – introduced by party chairman Jim Brulte – speaking between leading GOP gubernatorial candidates, former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari, and state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County.
Champ’s criminal history is extensive. Court records show that he pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed firearm in 1992. In 1993, he was convicted of two counts of assault with intent to commit rape and was placed on the state’s sex-offender registry.
In March 1998, he accepted a plea deal on a charge of loitering to solicit a prostitute. In the same year he pleaded no contest to a voluntary manslaughter charge after hitting a man with his vehicle, and was sentenced to 12 years in state prison.
Let’s run a little thought experiment. Let’s say that everything about Champ was absolutely the same, except he was African-American and a Democrat. How do you think the rightwing blogosphere would respond? That’s right, he’d be a thug and a gangbanger and the worst thing ever!! Likely secretly Muslim and a terrorist sympathizer to boot.
Hell, they’d probably take up a collection to fly George Zimmerman out there to Stand His Ground against him, after chasing Champ version Two-Point-Black around the neighborhood for a while.
But this guy? Candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor and not a peep. Seems the right is fine with thugs and goons, so long as they’re not made up, are white, and are Republican.
