At a recent event, John Raese compared a smoking ban in the county with Adolf Hitler making Jews wear the Star of David. Raese is running for a United States Senate seat as a Republican in the state of West Virginia. The event was held in Hurricane, West Virginia at the Putnam County Lincoln Day Dinner. The ban he was speaking about is in Monongalia County. He said it is a perfect example of the overreach of government.
“But in Monongalia County now, I have to put a huge sticker on my buildings to say this is a smoke-free environment. This is brought to you by the government of Monongalia County. Okay?” he said. “Remember Hitler used to put Star of David on everybody’s lapel, remember that? Same thing.”
In the video embedded in this post, Raese also can be heard calling President Franklin D. Roosevelt ‘General Roosevelt’ and ‘Fidel Roosevelt.’ In an interview after the event, Raese also said the following:
“No, this is not a standard line, nor a misstatement. It is a loss of freedom. As Ronald Reagan once said, there is no such thing as partial freedom, there is only freedom.”
Raese lost to the state’s Democratic Governor, Joe Manchin in a 2010 special election held to replace the deceased Senator Robert Byrd, a democrat from West Virginia. He lost the vote by only ten points. During the 2010 campaign, Raese commented that minimum wage should be repealed and that the United States should put ‘1,000 laser systems’ up in the sky in order to defend against a possible ‘rogue missile.’ Raese again is running against Manchin in 2012 and it will be his fourth time running for a spot in the United States Senate. The state of West Virginia has not elected a Republican to the United States Senate since 1956.
