Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson used his speech at the Republican State Convention over the weekend to compare his current reelection campaign to the heroic passengers of United Flight 93 from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Johnson said he had recently visited the memorial for Flight 93, the plane where passengers overtook terrorists and ultimately forced their plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field. He said the passengers on that plane took a vote before they did what they knew they needed to do.
“The reason I like telling that story now, as we head into the election season, is we all know what we need to do,” Johnson said. “In November of 2016, we’ll be taking a vote. We’re going to be encouraging our fellow citizens to take a vote. Now, it may not be life and death like the vote the passengers on United Flight 93 took, but boy is it consequential.”
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The campaign for Johnson’s opponent, former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, said Johnson was wrong to draw the comparison.
“It’s beyond bad taste for a sitting senator to compare a horrific national tragedy — one that united all Americans — to his own partisan reelection,” said Feingold campaign spokesman Michael Tyler.
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