Seeing some folks defend this guy because he's a lefty and he was in middle school when he told one girl to kill herself, blackmailed another & circulated her nude photo. And of course the dumb things you do as a kid shouldn't hang over you forever. But... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/us/politics/aaron-coleman-kansas.html

This guy also posted this about a former Kansas state rep on Facebook, while he was running for office: “John, I’m going to laugh and giggle when you get COVID and die." He ran for governor at 17. I am not sure there's a lot of great judgment happening here.

And he's 19 now, so it's not like any of this was decades ago. If we've learned anything from the GOP, it should be that just because someone shares your politics does not mean that they should be in elected office. Judgment, decency, rationality, etc all matter.

"Coleman said he was amused by the prospect of COVID-19 spreading among Kansas Republican candidates ... He said that result would be darkly comedic in the way 'we laugh' when someone talking on a cellphone while driving gets into an automobile accident." Uh

It is absolutely the case that the brain grows and changes as people grow up. My concern is that this guy really does not seem like he's grown up. He strikes me as a person with some serious issues, who lacks empathy and judgment and probably should not be in elected office.

It's astonishing and depressing to see him made out as the victim whose campaign is being "sabotaged." Of course we need to be thoughtful about how we weigh past bad acts, especially bad acts committed by children. But a look at him right now suggests this person is... not great.

You can believe that people should not have to pay a price their entire lives for bad acts, and you can believe that some bad acts should preclude or at least raise questions about a person holding certain positions of power and influence.

I don't know if I believe that what this guy did as a kid should bar him from public office forever. But looking at the totality of the circumstances - what he says and does NOW and very recently - suggests he hasn't grown much and he's a troubled, disturbed person.

(And, obviously, this is far beyond "dumb kid stuff." I'm using the language of the people defending him, not endorsing that view. What he did was predatory, abusive, exploitative, cruel, and illegal. Still, it does matter that he was a child.)

Anyway, point being, just because someone shares your politics doesn't mean that they should be in elected office and we should definitely have figured this out by now.

Coleman wrote this to a relative of the girl he harassed (who tried to kill herself): "I’ve moved on. They call the past the past for a reason, because that’s where you are supposed to leave things. At this point you shouldn’t move on for me, you should move on for yourself."