By David Martosko
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Erika Harold is running for Congress in Illinois. A former Miss America, the Harvard Law School graduate is now forced to contend with racism emanating from inside her own party
Politics can be a full-contact bloodsport in President Barack Obama's home state of Illinois, but the most vicious war of words is usually directed from one party to the other.
Not so in downstate Montgomery County, where Republican Party chairman Jim Allen sent a race-baiting email to a blogger on Tuesday, targeting an African-American former Miss America who wants to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Rodney Davis in a 2014 congressional primary election.
'Rodney Davis will win' the primary against Erika Harold, Allen wrote, 'and the love child of the D.N.C. will be back in S**tcago by May of 2014 working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires.'
'The little queen touts her abstinence and she won the crown because she got bullied in school,,,boohoo..kids are cruel, life sucks and you move on,' Allen continued.
'Now, miss queen is being used like a street walker and her pimps are the DEMOCRAT PARTY and RINO REPUBLICANS?These pimps want something they can?t get,,, the seat held by a conservative REPUBLICAN Rodney Davis and Nancy Pelosi can?t stand it.'
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Rep. Rodney Davis (L) will face a GOP primary challenge from Harold next year, and some old line Republicans in the state's 13th District aren't happy about it. The winner will likely face Democratic judge Ann Callis (R)
THERE SHE IS: Harold, 33, who won the Miss America contest in 2003, will challenge Republican Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois in a 2014 primary contest
'RINO' is a derisive term that stands for 'Republican In Name Only' - a jab that refers to members of the GOP who are centrist on some issues or lean libertarian on others.
Allen's complaint, that Harold is a Democratic party-friendly alternative to the more conservative Rep. Davis, is not new, but Harold insists that she's as conservative as anyone on the political right.
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'At this point in the Republican Party's history, as it's trying to reach out to new voters,' Harold said in a recent Fox & Friends interview, 'I think I can both espouse conservative values and reach out to nontraditional voters.'
Doug Ibendahl, a long-time state-level GOP insider who helped the Bush-Cheney campaign with the 2000 president election recount, received county Republican chairman Jim Allen's racist email
Allen sent his incendiary email Tuesday evening to Doug Ibendahl, a Chicago attorney who was General Counsel of the Illinois Republican Party from 1999 to 2001. Ibendahl also writes a blog titled Republican News Watch, about Illinois GOP politics.
On Friday he wrote an essay published by The Huffington Post, arguing that Harold would be a breath of fresh air for a Republican party that has never sent a black woman to Congress.
'It would be wrong to focus only on race and gender,' Ibendahl wrote. 'Harold is a Rock Star candidate who just happens to be a black woman. Still, given the huge problem the GOP is having everywhere with minority outreach, Harold's ability to lead on brand repair cannot be ignored.'
Harold, a Harvard-educated attorney, won the 2003 Miss American pageant. She sits on the board of Prison Fellowship, a national Christian outreach program serving incarcerated inmates, founded by the late Chuck Colson.?
HIGH PROFILE: THe combination of her fame and her politics earned Erika Harold a speaking slot during the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City
Harold aims to represent Illinois' Thirteenth District, a farm-rich part of the state that's not used to seeing the level of political hardball that has made Chicago so infamous
The 13th Illinois Congressional District is in an agriculture-heavy area of the state, and usually divorced from the rough-and-tumble of upstate Chicago political mudslinging.
Ibendahl told MailOnline that Allen's choice of words isn't welcome.
'Outrageous comments like those of Jim Allen are why we as Republicans fail to gain any respect from minority voters,' he said.
'If officials in my party (the Republican Party) fail to understand how destructive it is to attack an impressive person like Erika Harold merely because she dares to challenge the good-old-boys, the GOP will remain a losing party for decades.'
'This stay in the back-of-the-bus mentality,' Ibendahl added, 'destroys any hope the Republican Party has for regaining momentum in future elections.'
Jim Allen, Erika Harold, Rep. Davis and the National Congressional Campaign Committee did not respond to requests for comment.
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