Comparing yourself to a rape victim is about like comparing your present political plight to the Holocaust. When you do it, you look stupid, and you usually wind up issuing an apology. The question then becomes: how long does it take Brandon Shaffer to make that apology after he compared his political plight to that of a victim of sexual assault in an interview with The Denver Post's Curtis Hubbard?
From Hubbard's Op-Ed on Sunday:
So Wednesday I asked him what he thought about our editorial that blamed the GOP for their obstruction on the issue but also questioned the wisdom of Democrats having their top two leaders in the statehouse running for Congress. (Rep. Sal Pace, D-Pueblo, is challenging Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, in the 3rd CD. Pace has since stepped down as House minority leader.)
"What I thought when I read your piece — it's a little bit like blaming the woman or saying to a woman she deserved it," he said, apparently referencing victims of rape or sexual harassment. [Peak emphasis]
Shaffer apparently believes Republicans' attempts to stop him from grandstanding with his leadership position in the state Senate to further his Congressional campaign is equivalent to the experience of a woman being raped.
Did he really say that? Is his ego that big that he thinks his political opposition opposing his political moves is the same thing as rape?
It's not as if Shaffer stood a snowball's chance in hell of winning his 4th Congressional district race, but now his entire Senate caucus has to hang their heads in shame as their leader embarrases himself with disgusting and self-serving analogies that are certain to bring an outcry from women's groups across the state.
That Shaffer would resort to hyperbole immediately is no surprise, given how much importance he attaches to his own ambitions, but the fact that he would invoke such a horrific act of violence to employ that hyperbole is jaw-droppingly ignorant.
What does state Senator Morgan Carroll think about Shaffer's invoking rape as an analogy to political opposition?
What do Sal Pace and Joe Miklosi think about their fellow Congressional hopeful Democrat and his explanation of running for Congress as a legislator?
How long does it take other Colorado Democrats to condemn his statement and denounce his use of rape as an analogy?
Hubbard said later in his column that "as he moves forward this political season, Shaffer would do better to view himself through the lens of reality — he's running for Congress at a time of hyperpartisanship — than in comparing himself to a victim of sex assault."
We think he needs to do more than just view life through a lens of reality. He owes the women of Colorado an apology. And soon.