Our Stubborn Politicians, Democratic Party Edition

So you think Todd Akin’s refusal to step down is delusional? Ha! He doesn’t hold a candle to Minnesota’s Kerry Gauthier. Gauthier, a DFL representative, was apprehended at a highway rest stop having oral sex with a seventeen-year-old boy. Gauthier described the incident as a “private matter.”

Gauthier’s fellow Democrats are trying to show him the door; one of them referred to him publicly as a “child molester,” while Governor Mark Dayton said, “I believe he is unfit to serve beyond this term.” The Minneapolis Star Tribune, however, reports that Gauthier says he will run for re-election in November:

Duluth state Rep. Kerry Gauthier will seek a second term, rejecting unrelenting calls from DFL party leaders to step aside after admitting to police he had oral sex with a 17-year-old boy at an interstate rest area in Duluth.

In an interview with a Duluth television station, Gauthier said he was going to let constituents decide his political fate, “not the political power-base in St. Paul.”

That last comment is decidedly Akin-esque, but say this for Akin: at least he isn’t a child molester.

The Strib’s story concludes:

Gauthier told the television station that after the authorities made the police report public, he took several muscle relaxants and was found unconscious. Gauthier was in the hospital when leaders began calling for him to either resign or not seek re-election.

Gauthier has been a licensed social worker and alcohol and drug counselor.

Is there any possibility he could win in November? One wouldn’t think so, but his Duluth district is heavily Democratic. His campaign will reveal, perhaps, whether Democrats have any standards whatsoever.

UPDATE: My post apparently pushed Gauthier over the edge. A half hour ago, WCCO TV reported that Gauthier will not run for re-election and may resign his seat.

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