Does this sound like a guy who merits a CNN story that went viral?
Bill Fawell is running against incumbent Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos in Illinois' 17th District, where she won by 20 points in 2016 even though the district also voted narrowly for Donald Trump. Fawell won his uncontested primary in March. He has not reported any fundraising to the Federal Election Commission, per publicly available records.
I don't know Fawell, but he doesn't sound like a serious candidate.
In hopeless districts, anyone who tries hard enough can become the nominee. Especially if it's an uncontested primary. It doesn't make him a real candidate.
All sorts of fringe candidates run as Democrats or Republicans in hopeless districts. So why focus on Fawell?
The Republican nominee for a US House seat in Illinois has said the September 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job and that singer Beyonce Knowles has ties to the Illuminati.
That's the first para. The headline reflects it.
CNN is taking a non-issue and making it a story. It's part of a pattern. I wrote recently about the media pretending that a Neo-Nazi was a viable candidate in California. There's a series of these stories. Each of them picks a fringe candidate with no shot or party support, pretends that he represents Republicans, and then if the media can get the GOP to disavow him, its story gets even more legs and makes it look like the GOP's candidates are nuts.
These are Alinsky tactics. And they're another example of how the media is burning through its last shreds of credibility to try and win in 2018.