U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) on Friday set off racist dog whistle alarms by sending a fundraising email to supporters announcing his new 2022 Democratic challenger, Charles Booker, and describing him as his “racial left opponent.”
Booker, the former state representative who narrowly lost the Kentucky Democratic Party’s nomination in the primary to oppose Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, is Black.
The email makes clear the Paul campaign is going to make this fight about race.
“Dear _______,” the email begins, “yesterday I got an Act-Blue backed racial left opponent for my reelection.”
Senator Paul last year infamously and “single-handedly” blocked the Emmett Till anti-lynching bill, as America was strongly focused on the Black Lives Matter movement during the protests supporting George Floyd.
But the Republican from Kentucky wasn’t done focusing on “race.”
“That means millions likely coming in to attack me and lie about me in my race,” he adds in a curiously-worded sentence that, again, gets supporters to focus on race.
Booker posted the email on social media: