Dem candidate with ‘perverted agenda’ ripped for event at spot offering ‘Happy Endings’

A campaign has to be scrambling for cash pretty badly to book a fundraiser at a place advertising "Foreplay" and "Happy Endings" on the menu and not think twice about how that looks. Somebody on staff either didn't Google the venue or didn't care, and neither answer is flattering.

This isn't really about a menu, though. It's about the tin ear that keeps showing up in how some of these candidates present themselves to voters who are, by and large, still pretty conventional people. You can talk all day about kitchen table issues, but if the optics of your own event undercut the message, that's on you, not on the people pointing it out. Voters notice when a campaign seems more comfortable in a novelty bar than at a diner counter.

Republicans should be careful not to make this bigger than it is. A tacky venue choice is not a scandal, and turning it into one risks looking like grasping for a gotcha instead of talking about records and votes. But it's fair to ask what it says about a candidate's judgment when the "perverted agenda" label sticks this easily. Bad optics have a way of becoming the whole story when nobody bothers to prevent them.

At the end of the day this is a small, silly episode, but small silly episodes are exactly what voters remember when they're deciding who actually gets them.