NWA EDITORIAL: Shooting his mouth off

Count us among those surprised to see John La Tour running for public office.

He's done it before, and successfully. In 2014, a perfect political storm of sorts gave this less-government-is-better-government conservative a term on, of all public bodies, the considerably more liberal Fayetteville City Council. La Tour had opposed a controversial ordinance offering protections based on sexual orientation, gender identity and other characteristics not protected in state or federal law.

Voters ultimately rejected that ordinance in a special election forced by its opponents. In a six-person race a month before that, La Tour got 43 percent of the votes in a six-candidate race. It was enough to win.

After four contentious years in office, in which he made headlines once by asking a café employee to acknowledge her gender before he asked for a dance, La Tour lost the post in the 2018 election in a three-way race that put Teresa Turk on the City Council in his place.

Now, La Tour is running as a Republican in what is probably one of the safest Democratic seats in the House of Representatives. District 86 includes the University of Arkansas and much of Fayetteville and is now represented by Democrat Nicole Clowney.

La Tour continues his provocative ways. Last week, he posted and later removed a Facebook comment: "Antifa and BLM are now saying they're coming to the country. I wonder what the bag limit is, and where I can purchase a riot-idot [sic] hunting license."

He got a reaction. State Democratic Party leaders called for state Republican leaders to denounce La Tour's remarks. Several did exactly that, calling the comments "inflammatory" and "unacceptable." They clearly show "a lack of critical thinking," the party chairman said.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said "no citizen, candidate or public official should be suggesting or even alluding to violence or threats."

Clowney, who advocated for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America before being elected to her first term two years ago, said La Tour's comments represented "a direct threat." Nothing about violence is every funny, Clowney said.

For his part, La Tour replaced his deleted comments with this: "Bla, bla, bla [sic]. Does that offend you?"

It's typical La Tour fodder. He enjoys rebelling against what he believes to be political correctness and big government. He's never been particularly nuanced about it.

It's not about offense, as much as a political candidate ought to avoid it when possible. Rather, his comments were entirely inappropriate, to the extent that they, in our view, demonstrate a disqualifying lack of judgment. Making jokes about hunting people -- no matter how vociferously one might disagree with them -- is no joke at all.

Republicans and Democrats both sometimes set the bar for nominees, particularly in nearly impossible to win circumstances, extraordinarily low. Democrats did it with senatorial candidate Josh Mahony, who bailed on his campaign against Sen. Tom Cotton. Now Republicans are dealing with the fallout from La Tour, disavowing that he represents the views of the Republican Party.

If the GOP is distancing itself from La Tour, it's hard to believe the voters in District 86 won't.