The beaten Illinois Republican Party, desperate to find a candidate for its Senate race to lose to Barack Obama, had turned its eyes toward "drug warrior" Andrea Grubb Barthwell (an obvious Rove choice).
Except that she might actually make disgraced former candidate Jack Ryan look good.
In front of her staff, Andrea Grubb Barthwell made repeated comments about the sexual orientation of a staff member and used a kaleidoscope to make sexually offensive gestures, according to the findings of a March 19, 2003, "hostile workplace memorandum" prepared by drug policy office staff. The Associated Press obtained the memorandum.
In an interview Wednesday with the AP, Barthwell said the memorandum overstates what happened, but she said she was wrong for participating in "inappropriate banter" at a staff birthday party.
"As the senior person there it was my job to stop it before it got started and I didn't. I in fact joined in," she said.
Barthwell said she has not decided whether to pursue the Senate seat, but she said the complaint should not be a factor in her candidacy.
So she mocked a staffer for being gay (even though he was apparently straight), and tried to put the kaleidoscope on a chair in which he was about to sit.
Where does the Illinois GOP come up with these jokers?