Illinois Republicans aren’t done showing off just how deplorable they can be — and how far they’re willing to go to hand winnable seats to more liberal Democrats. While one House candidate is a proud Holocaust denier, Republican gubernatorial candidate and current State Rep. Jeanne Ives recently released this ad targeting GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner, one of the more vulnerable Republican governors in the nation.

It’s just one nasty untrue stereotype after another, from the transgender woman with a deep voice intended to scare viewers by celebrating “legislation that lets me use the girl’s bathroom” to the pussy hat-wearing feminist who thanks Rauner for “making all Illinois families pay for my abortions.”

When the lies are this blatant, you expect them to come from conservative Christians or Republican leadership, not serious challengers to an incumbent governor in a typically blue state.

Even the chairman of the state’s Republican Party disavowed the campaign:

… Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider said Ives should pull the ad and “immediately apologize to the Illinoisans who were negatively portrayed in a cowardly attempt to stoke political division.” “There is no place in the Illinois Republican Party for rhetoric that attacks our fellow Illinoisans based on their race, gender or humanity,” Schneider said Saturday.

That’s… strange, considering that attacking Americans based on their race, gender, and humanity is essentially the national GOP’s platform these days.

At a speech yesterday afternoon, Ives defended the ad by saying, among other things, “The transgender man, that’s exactly what, typically, a transgender man looks like.” (Besides the ignorance in that remark, the person depicted in the ad was a woman. That was the whole point.)

She also claimed that, as a Christian, she respected everybody. Which must have come as a surprise to everyone in the room.

“As Christians we believe every person is made in God’s image and deserving of dignity. I respect people who are different from me. I respect people who have different views than me. In fact it seems that the converse is not true among many (with) whom I disagree. They shouldn’t be silenced. But neither should I. And I won’t be.”

No one ever silenced her. But she also isn’t immune from the consequences of her faith-based bigotry. May the bigotry in this ad be the only thing she’s ever known for, since she sure as hell threw decency and humanity out the window.

I said this before, but it applies here, too: The Republican Party may not endorse her, but the Republican Party always attracts Christian bigots like her.

You don’t have to travel to Alabama to find fringe conservative candidates who exude hate. They also exist in the midwest. At least my state isn’t taking her seriously.

