Moments before a Democratic news conference to call him out, Republican candidate for the Minnesota State Senate Mike Parry issued a vague and weak apology for "past tweets".
Parry had twittered about President Obama, calling him "a Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man". It was one of 33 tweets that were later deleted from the account. Parry says he did not do the deleting.
"I sincerely apologize for past tweets which were written in haste and out of the frustration I felt for the out of control spending in Washington. Given the fragile state of our economy and the kind of out of control and wasteful spending we're seeing from Democrats, the people of Senate District 26 must have an election about the future. While volunteers to my campaign removed several tweets without my knowledge, I take full responsibility for all mistakes in my past tweets. I will never stop fighting to make the lives of all Minnesotans better."
In this video, DFL party chair Brian Melendez gives details about the twitters and challenges Parry to answer the following three questions:
1. Did you authorize the tweets that appeared on your twitter account? If not, then who did, and how and why did they have access to your account?
2. Did you scrub the offensive tweets that disappeared from your account, or did you authorize someone to do it for you? If not, then who did the scrubbing, and why were they making decisions about what views are being expressed in your name on your twitter account?
3. Finally, if you’re willing to use your twitter account as a mouthpiece for racist and homophobic comments, will you treat a seat in the Minnesota legislature the same way?
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Parry's campaign woes continue. The Minnesota Progressive Project has been combing through Parry's twitter account and found he apparently ascribes to a conspiracy theories that have been easily proven false. Case in point: claiming that a US House bill was using $20 Million in US tax dollars to to "immigrate Hamas Refugees to the US" went it did not.
Parry is also facing questions about his portrayal of his record on the Waseca City Council. His account of why he tried to sell a city park differs greatly from what the city council minutes and the local newspaper reported.
Parry is a candidate in a special election on January 26, 2010