Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s campaign claims she had no idea she was posing for a photo with a former Ku Klux Klan leader who was once convicted of a violent assault on a Black man. Loeffler was photographed beaming alongside Chester Doles at a Friday campaign event.
“Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for,” a campaign spokesman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But Loeffler was at a September event for QAnon candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene that Doles attended—and was kicked out of. You’d think that someone being a no-go for Greene would stick in the mind. After that event, a Loeffler campaign spokesperson said Loeffler didn’t know who Doles was. But again, that was her opportunity to learn. Apparently she didn’t bother.
We need all hands on deck to win the Georgia Senate runoffs on Jan. 5, and you can volunteer from wherever you are. Click here to see the Georgia volunteer activities that work best for you.
The Loeffler campaign’s denial of her interest in posing with a former KKK leader also leaves unaddressed the question of why she’s an appealing candidate to someone like Doles, who said in a 1998 interview: “I definitely follow the Nazis. National Socialism is my religion.”
In short: “While Kelly Loeffler runs a campaign based on dividing and misleading Georgians, she is once again trying to distance herself from someone who is a known white supremacist and former KKK leader who nearly beat a Black man to death,” as a campaign spokesman for the Rev. Raphael Warnock put it. “There’s no acceptable explanation for it happening once, let alone a second time.”
Can you chip in $3 to help Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff turn the Senate blue?