By RFD Radio/WFMB
SPRINGFIELD – The candidate for US Senate squared off in a televised debate in Springfield on Thursday.
Incumbent Republican Mark Kirk is taking heat for a comment made towards Democratic U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth. She said that she was daughter of the American Revolution and proud her history serving the nation and would want to part of any decision to send troops into battle.
Kirk quipped “I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”
A spokesperson for the Democratic state central committee called the remark “offensive, wrong, and racist.”
Duckworth’s mother is from Thailand but her she traces her father’s family ancestors back to the earliest days of the country.