A Republican senator struggling in his re-election race made a racially charged remark about his Democratic opponent in a debate on Thursday night. Illinois senator Mark Kirk seemed to suggest the Asian American heritage of congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran, somehow diminished her family’s long service to the US. “I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington,” Kirk said of Duckworth. Kirk served 23 years in the Naval Reserve as an intelligence officer and retired in 2013 after suffering a major stroke. Illinois is a Democratic-leaning state and Kirk pulled off only a narrow victory in the Republican wave of 2010 against a scandal-prone Democratic candidate.

Source: The Guardian October 28, 2016 03:39 UTC