New tone.
Via Beltway Confidential:
During a radio debate, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., called his Republican opponent Chris Fields a “scumbag,” twice called him a “lowlife scumbag” and for good measure called him a “gutter dweller” too.
Ellison and Fields were about 37 minutes into a debate on local station KFAI FM when Fields accused Ellison of paying a company almost a quarter of a million dollars to dig up dirt on him and later referenced Ellison’s own recent divorce. Fields was reacting to recent local media reports that his ex-wife had once sought a restraining order on him. Ellison angrily responded that he had not done the snooping.
Then it got really nasty. Ellison told him: “You’re real stupid for bringing up your domestic violence allegations. I wasn’t going to say a thing about it… You are a scumbag. You’re a massive… You are a lowlife scumbag. You are a lowlife scumbag. You are a gutter dweller.”