Foley, Minnesota, man punches Republican House candidate in the face [View all]

On a night in mid-October, Republican House candidate Shane Mekeland sat on a stool at Jack and Jim’s Bar, a little place near Foley, Minnesota.

The man sitting near him was 53-year-old Foley resident Richard Donald Schmit. Mekeland had just finished his beer, and was starting on another. Schmit had had “six or seven” bottles of beer, by his own count. The two of them were talking politics.

On any other night, during any other election year, this might have played out like a Norman Rockwell painting called something like “Winning Hearts and Minds.”

But that night, according to a criminal complaint filed not long afterward, Schmit turned to Mekeland and said “You fuckers don’t give a shit about the middle class.” Then he punched Mekeland in the face.

Read more: http://www.citypages.com/news/foley-minnesota-man-punches-republican-house-candidate-in-the-face/499851431