Do Democrats even bother to vet their candidates for sexual depravity in their past, or do they just wing it?

This has been an open question since the Graham Platner disaster, but at least the man who won the Maine Democratic senatorial nomination and then was forced to give it up after a rape allegation topped off a long, sordid, and documented history of perversion gave it up. Bobby Pulido is still running, and while he’s never been accused of rape, the Texas U.S. House candidate’s past is so deeply troubling that he should have bowed out long ago.

In the latest resurfaced problem for the congressional hopeful and Tejano music star, Pulido defended the artist behind a controversial 2016 music video in which the musician tortures, gropes, and then kills an unfaithful girlfriend.

Pulido called it “the decision of the artist and their team” — which, considering the decisions Pulido has made in the past, is probably not the statement he wanted resurfacing.

According to Fox News, the controversy involved Mexican folk singer Gerardo Ortíz and the video for his song “Fuiste Mía,” or “You Were Mine.”

The video initially shows pictures of a happy couple — the singer and another woman. Then, Ortíz discovers her being romantic with another man.

Ortíz pulls a gun out of a cabinet and shoots the man dead. He then corners the cheating girlfriend, handcuffs her, gropes her, and shoves her into a car trunk while choking her.

He then sets the car on fire by dropping a cigarette as the police close in on his house, smiling as he walks away.

Asked about the video in an interview, the Latin Grammy Award-winning Pulido said it was perfectly fine by him.

“I’ve made videos with suggestive images; some have stayed, others have been edited, and still others were never used,” he said.

“That’s the decision of the artist and their team.”

He said that it was akin to rubbernecking during a highway crash: “What happens when there’s a [car] accident?” Pulido asked rhetorically. “Traffic doesn’t flow because people slow down or even stop to see what happened; something similar happens with the regional Mexican genre when these kinds of incidents occur.”

His campaign is singing a different tune now, using dubious allegations that his opponent “verbally abused” her daughter to deflect from Pulido’s 2016 comments.

“This is emblematic of national Republicans doing anything and everything to distract voters from what are very real — not based on a fictional video — child abuse accusations against Monica De La Cruz and her refusal to release the Epstein files after thousands of girls were trafficked and abused,” the campaign said.

Just to be clear, this is based on allegations by her ex-husband during divorce proceedings, which we all know we can completely trust.

“Monica De La Cruz knows she’s losing, so she’s deploying the RNC to do her dirty work and deliberately mischaracterized a decade-old Spanish-language interview, in which Bobby said he respects artists’ right to make their own music — a right that Republicans used to believe in but apparently don’t when it comes to their opponents,” they added.

It’s unclear that De La Cruz is losing in the race in Texas’ 15th Congressional District, but the Republican’s seat is one that the Democrats have targeted with star power. While Pulido is hardly a household name outside of the Latin music community, he’s considered Tejano royalty.

However, the path to an easy victory has been blocked by Pulido’s Platner-ish past.

At first, his frequent comments about his pornography consumption on social media — including links to sites known to host videos of underage and non-consensual pornographic content — were his biggest issue. Then came a resurfaced video of his own, “Dias de Ayer,” in which he plays a series of bizarre characters, including a self-pleasuring cross-dresser and an exhibitionist. (This had nothing to do with the lyrics, mind you; it was apparently in response to rumors within the Tejano community that Pulido had some perversions of his own, including being a little light in the loafers.)

This was all a bit gross, albeit not disqualifying. Then came el escándalo de Frankie Caballero, in which it was discovered that Pulido toured with the accordionist and sex offender, who was convicted of molesting an 8-year-old girl, long after the conviction. Pulido even performed at a school event with him, as if that weren’t bad enough.

While Pulido denied knowing about the conviction, sources within the Tejano music scene said that Caballero’s sordid past was a well-known fact in the scene.

“This really raises some concerns about Bobby’s judgment. You get to a certain point in music where they vet everybody around you,” said Tejano bass player Ramon Rodriguez.

A former Hidalgo County, Texas, prosecutor also told the New York Post when the story first broke in April that there was “simply no version of this story where Bobby Pulido did not know the man he employed and befriended for decades is a career child predator.”

He added that Caballero would have had a “probation officer” that Pulido’s people would have had to contact and “employer verifications” Caballero would have had to undergo to perform with the star. He also had performed with Pulido long before his conviction on the molestation charges but after other convictions and arrests, including one arrest for aggravated sexual assault.

But sure — this is all because Rep. De La Cruz is really worried that she might have yelled at her daughter a few times and that’s going to sway the voters.

There comes a point at which we have to ask how stupid the Democrats think we are when it comes to how they vet their candidates so long as the candidate involved creates buzz around an important race.

Platner turned out to be an accused rapist, but the red flags were there long before the allegation came out. Precisely how many red flags must the party be shown before Bobby Pulido is consigned to a similar fate?

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Dem Candidate, Music Superstar With Sick Sexual History Defended Fellow Musician’s Video In Which He Gropes and Kills Woman appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.