What Fools These Mortals Be

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz urged voters in Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District outside of Chicago to vote for the Democratic candidate rather than the man who won the Republican nomination — a former leader of the American Nazi Party.

Arthur Jones, whose campaign website includes a section called “Holocaust?” in which he calls the genocide of six million Jews “the biggest blackest lie in history,” won the party primary in his heavily Democratic district after no other candidate entered.

“This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress,” Cruz wrote on Twitter. “To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes.”

The chairman of the state Republican Party condemned Jones when he won the primary in March, saying that the party would “explore all options to oppose Mr. Jones’ candidacy — whether that be supporting an independent candidate for IL-03 after the primary, encouraging a write-in campaign, and potentially other options.”

The party had in the past forced Jones off the ballot by challenging his petition signatures, but said this time that they had no reason to question the validity and number of his signatures. After the deadline for registering third-party candidates for the ballot came and went last week, a party spokesman said that the petition process was too difficult for prospective candidates and that they would try to find a write-in candidate.

When informed by Politico that the Republican Party wouldn’t field a third-party candidate on the ballot, Jones reportedly laughed.

“I snookered them,” he said. “I played by the rules, what can I say?”

My body, inevitably: