Steve Fitzgerald, Kansas 5th District hopeful, jokes about domestic violence

Here’s your tone-deaf candidate of the week: Steve Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald is the Republican running against incumbent Kansas state Sen. Kelly Kultala. On Friday, October 26, he took part in a candidate forum in Leavenworth, put together and moderated by Ernest Evans, a political science professor at Kansas City, Kansas, Community College. At the end of Fitzgerald’s remarks, the candidate asked the audience if there was anything else they wanted to ask him.

“When did you stop beating your wife?” Evans asked, off-camera.

“Who said I stopped?” Fitzgerald replied. Some members of the crowd laughed and applauded as Fitzgerald then left the podium.

“Forum went well,” Evans told us Monday in an e-mail confirming that his was the joking voice. “Both Fitzgerald and Kultala on their good behavior!”

But neither man looks good coming out of this one. Evans made a bad joke that leaves us longing for the quiet reserve of Jim Lehrer. And Fitzgerald took the bait on a textbook loaded question, with a response that — especially in this election season’s “legitimate rape” climate — wasn’t just unfunny but offensive.