Antenori vs. Kelly. This could be interesting

by David Safier

Cage matches are a little too violent for my tastes, but I think I'll be watching the Frank Antenori-Jesse Kelly cage match primary, if they both climb into the Republican CD-8 primary ring, attentively, even obsessively. I've never known either of these guys to pull punches. It could be something to watch.

Can we look forward to Kelly sponsoring another gun shoot as a fundraiser? If so, expect Antenori to crash the party and proclaim his gun is bigger than Kelly's.

Antenori already said during the 2010 primary, Kelly is "just a brawler," and "a lot of people" — Antenori didn't include himself, of course — were looking forward to seeing Kelly "slap her [Giffords] around in the debate." Antenori didn't think whoever ran against Giffords could "pussyfoot around her."

No, I didn't cobble together those lines from a bunch of Antenori quotes. They all come from one answer in a Congressional Quarterly interview in 2010.

“Whichever one wins [Paton or Kelly], they need to go after her. They can’t pussyfoot around her,” said Antenori, who is not endorsing anyone in the primary. “Paton has more experience and because of that is more methodical. Kelly is just a brawler, and a lot of people just want to see him get through the primary so he can slap her around in the debate.”

Antenori has never been known to back away from a fight, but who knows, he may be a bit more gentlemanly if he's campaigning against another "gentleman." When it was Marian McClure he was running against, he said he wanted to "kick her ass" in the primary. Here's the quote.

"I would have rather spent that money [in the primary] to kick her ass than not spend that money and have her beat me," Antenori says.

But maybe I'm being unfair to Antenori to imply he's a misogynist — though maybe not. After all, when he was running against Todd Camenisch in the 2010 LD-30 general, Antenori said he planned to "bury [Camenisch] like a freaking fish in the backyard." Then again, burying a fish is a reasonably passive act. Antenori doesn't demonstrate the same relish for the active slapping around and kicking ass when it comes to a male.