November 01, 2017 04:04 PM UTC

Tancredo Yucks It Up Over NYC Terror Attack

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• by: Colorado Pols

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo entered the race yesterday promising to run the “ugliest” campaign ever, Denver7’s Blair Miller reports:

Firebrand and former congressman Tom Tancredo will again run for governor of Colorado in 2018, in what will be his third straight try at the seat and what he says will be the “ugliest” race he’s ever run in.

“I think we need to shake up Colorado politics a little bit, and I’m the guy to do that,” he told Denver7, suggesting he might need a Haz-Mat suit for a race that could get dirty quickly. “This is beyond something we’ve ever done before.”

And at this morning’s campaign kickoff event at the Whistling Pines Gun Club in Colorado Springs, Tancredo made good on his promise–cracking wise about the terrorist attack yesterday in New York City in terms we have to think should be condemned by anybody less than 24 hours after the event:

TANCREDO: Today, the front page of the Denver Post, top headline, right? Truck attack kills eight.

(laughter)

TANCREDO: A truck got up in the morning and thought “oh man, I’m sick I’ve had it with this traffic in New York. I’m gonna start driving down a bike path and kill as many people as I can.” [Pols emphasis] But that’s what, you know it doesn’t say terrorist attack, no, truck attack, those are the headlines, the above the fold headlines in the Denver Post!

In the age of Donald Trump, maybe showing respect for the dead by holding off on the caustic humor about their deaths for one literal day is just out of style. If it seems like Trump has helped legitimize Tancredo’s special brand of insensitivity, that’s because Trump has–even if Tancredo was doing this kind of thing long before Trump.

Whether Tancredo represents the chicken or the egg of the ugliness, it’s still pretty ugly.