Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) wife, Kelley, recently penned an open letter to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). She asked him to pull back his comments about intimidation, when he encouraged activists to “please get up in the face of some congresspeople.”
Kelley Paul wrote the piece, which was published by CNN, as she watched a sheriff’s cruiser slowly stroll by her home, where months before, her husband, a one-time Republican presidential candidate, was attacked while he was outside taking care of his lawn.
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“He was not okay last November, when a violent unstable man attacked him from behind while he was working in our yard, breaking six ribs and leaving him with lung damage and multiple bouts of pneumonia,” Kelley Paul recalled.
Democrat Senator Cory Booker (NJ) encouraged activists on Wednesday to engage in physical confrontation with politicians, telling them to "get up in the face of some congresspeople." pic.twitter.com/GfGzusxTJ5
— Ryan Saavedra 🇺🇸 (@RealSaavedra) July 26, 2018
She used her story, and her well-known husband’s brush with violence, to urge Booker to change his language — verbiage that has, no doubt, fueled some level of vitriol among voters of all political stripes.
Kelley Paul noted that Alison Lundergan Grimes, secretary of state for Kentucky, recently joked about the attack on Rand Paul. Joking about his political stamina, Lundergan Grimes quipped, “Many folks say that Rand Paul can’t be beat, they’re worried he might be too well-liked. I don’t buy that. Just ask his neighbor, he can be beaten.”
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She’s not alone, either, in making jokes about Rand Paul. MSNBC correspondent Kasie Hunt, for example, said that the assault on the Republican lawmaker was one of her “favorite stories.”
“Preventing someone from moving forward, thrusting your middle finger in their face, screaming vitriol — is this the way to express concern or enact change?” Kelley Paul asked of Booker. “Or does it only incite unstable people to violence, making them feel that assaulting a person is somehow politically justifiable?”
The conservative senator’s wife ended her letter by asking Booker to “retract your statement” and “condemn violence” as well as the leaking of elected officials’ personal home addresses.
Read the full letter here.