How Dan Proft Managed to Compare Alexi Giannoulias With a Suspected Killer

Given enough time, Illinois Republicans may find a way to link Alexi Giannoulias to Ivan the Terrible, or suggest that he was in the room when Mel Gibson allegedly struck his wife.

At the Illinois State Fair Thursday, Dan Proft, a failed candidate for the Republican Governor's nomination, said something close.

“Getting a lecture from Ali Giannoulias on honesty in government is like getting a lecture from Drew Peterson on domestic violence.”

Whoa! This comes just weeks after Mark Kirk attempted to link the Democratic Senate candidate to Saddam Hussein, through a six-degrees-of-separation type of game.

Understandably Democrats pounced on the gaffe.

"Did Mark Kirk think Dan Proft was being clever and funny?," asked Rep. Jan Schakowsky in a press release.  "If not, he should immediately repudiate Dan Proft's offensive and misogynistic rhetoric that makes a joke of violence against women. Every one of the Illinois Republicans that shared the stage with Proft should do the same."

Reached for comment, Dan Proft played dumb.

"I haven't heard/seen Schakowsky's comments," he wrote in an email.  "(Political columnist/blogger) Rich Miller said something like I overstepped the bounds of decorum to which I replied to him, 'Rich Miller lecturing on decorum is like Drew Peterson lecturing on domestic violence.' Why?  Is there some hue and cry of which I am not aware?"

The answer is yes. Yes there is.

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