Out of left field

Dan Kennedy, a Boston journalism professor who writes criticism of the media, was surprised last week to receive a message from Washoe County Republican legislative candidate Rex Crouch.

“I read how you support the Communist Bill Ayers and even lied in support of the Communist Bill Ayers,” Crouch's message began. “Why do you support Communism? Yes, if you support Ayers, you support Communism.” The capitalizing is in the original.

After that ice-breaker, Crouch went on to write emotionally about a variety of things, like China, Islam, and use of language. (“I'm nonresponsive to the Liberal hater nouns of Racists, Islamophobe, Homophobe.”)

Kennedy wrote about Ayers a few times, mostly during and right after the 2008 presidential campaign, when Barack Obama's relationship with the 1960s radical was in the news, and most recently in 2013 when Kennedy corrected a Howie Carr claim that Ayers is a “convicted terrorist.”

Kennedy told us, “For the record, I do not ‘support' Bill Ayers.”

Crouch is running in Assembly District 27. He defeated Rodney Bloom in the GOP primary and is opposed by Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson, who was unopposed in her primary.