Spratt admonishes spokesman for bin Laden joke

Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.) admonished his spokesman Saturday for an off-color joke about the fifth district's conservative leanings, the Rock Hill Herald reports.

"If Osama bin Laden ran in this district as a Republican, he would get 38 to 40 percent of the vote in any election year," Wayne Wingate told Columbia's Free Times weekly newspaper by way of explaining his 14-term boss's neck-and-neck race against state senator Mick Mulvaney. "This is a very Republican district. So you've got that, plus this tea party angst against any incumbent in the world right now."

State and local Republicans picked up on the comments, and Spratt issued a statement Saturday.

"Wayne Wingate does not speak for me in saying that there are voters who would vote Republican even if the candidate were Osama Bin Laden," the House Budget Committee chairman said. "Though made in jest, it is a terrible attempt at humor, which is offensive and insulting and in no way reflects my views about voters in the Fifth Congressional District."

Wingate has also apologized.

"I am deeply sorry if anyone was offended by it," he told the Herald. "If it detracts in any way from John Spratt, I regret saying it."

Spratt and Mulvaney were tied at 46 percent in a July poll by the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies, according to Roll Call.