SC GOP chairman calls on Jaime Harrison aides to resign over their old vulgar tweets

[yota691]

SC GOP chairman calls on Jaime Harrison aides to resign over their old vulgar tweets

• By Jamie Lovegrove jlovegrove@postandcourier.com
• Sep 18, 2020 Updated Sep 18, 2020
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S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick points to offensive tweets posted years ago by staffers for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Harrison’s campaign as he called on them to resign at a news conference in Columbia on Friday, Sept. 18, 2020. Jamie Lovegrove/Staff

By Jamie Lovegrove jlovegrove@postandcourier.com

 

 

 

 

The chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party called on a pair of senior staffers working for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Harrison’s campaign to resign Friday after a series of vulgar, offensive social media posts they wrote years ago resurfaced this week.

He also condemned Harrison for liking a tweet from a supporter last month that referred to his Republican opponent, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, as “Lady G” — a derogatory nickname that stems from unsubstantiated allegations by a porn star earlier this year that Graham has hired male escorts.

“Jaime Harrison is adding fuel to the fire on a vicious, explicit internet conspiracy theory begun by a porn star Twitter troll,” said S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick, accusing Harrison of “implicitly condoning this sort of slander and degrading, inexcusable comments.”

 

The tweets from Harrison’s staffers, which were posted between 2010 and 2014 by his political director Bre Maxwell and communications director Guy King, included anti-Semitic, sexist and homophobic comments. 

“We’re calling on today to correct your evidence pattern of enabling derogatory, hateful comments from the people who work with you and for you,” McKissick wrote in a letter to Harrison. “It’s time to own up to your mistakes — it’s time to do the right thing. Restore decency to your campaign.”

 

 

 

In a statement, Harrison campaign manager Zack Carroll said the “inappropriate tweets are inconsistent with the values of our campaign and violate our employee policies.” King and Maxwell apologized when the tweets reemerged, and Carroll said “the matter is being handled internally.” They are not resigning.

“This campaign isn’t about staff tweets from years ago, it’s about the issues of today,” Carroll said. “This race should be focused on how to get help to South Carolinians who are struggling to make rent, at risk of losing their health insurance, and getting their children safely back in schools during the worst pandemic in the last century.”

Maxwell’s tweets included one that disputed whether something was “ghetto” because “ghetto is a Jewish term and the jewish Americans are wealthy.” In another, she praised a speech by Louis Farrakhan, the head of a group called the Nation of Islam, who has an extensive history of anti-Semitic and anti-White comments.

 

 

King’s tweets included apparent jokes about rape and multiple derogatory comments about women in graphic terms.

Some of King’s tweets were quotes from song lyrics or television shows. They were sent when King was in high school and college. But S.C. GOP communications director Claire Robinson argued neither of those are sufficient excuses for sharing them.

[yota691]

Donor cash surges to Harrison, the Democrat taking on Graham

By MEG KINNARDSeptember 18, 2020

 

 

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FILE - In this Dec. 14, 2019 file photo, Democrat Jaime Harrison, who is seeking to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, speaks to Democrats gathered at the Spratt Issues Conference in Greenville, S.C. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham has been outraised for the first time by his Harrison, Democratic challenger, in a record-breaking quarterly period that sets up a multimillion-dollar grudge match leading into the general election. Harrison announced late Wednesday, April 14, 2020, that he took in $7.36 million in the first three months of 2020, a figure his campaign said brought his total, overall fundraising to nearly $15 million. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard, File)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It won’t be known until Election Day if a poll showing a tightening contest between Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democrat Jaime Harrison portends an upset — but the gains are real enough in the Democrat’s campaign account.

On the heels of a Quinnipiac University poll that has him tied with Graham among likely voters in South Carolina, Harrison’s campaign has marked two back-to-back fundraising days of $1 million apiece, bringing his total fundraising to over $30 million.

It’s a staggering sum, unheard of for a Democrat competing in this conservative state, and matches what Graham has also raised in his pursuit of a fourth term. It also dwarfs the $10 million figure Harrison previously told The Associated Press he thought necessary to win.

 

The influx of cash for Harrison — a Democratic National Committee associate chair and former state party chair — is providing a rare opportunity to blanket the airwaves in a place where Democrats haven’t won a statewide contest in 15 years, bolstering the party in their fight to win back the Senate majority.

On Labor Day, the pro-Harrison political action committee Lindsey Must Go flew a banner plane along the South Carolina coast deriding Graham’s stance on offshore drilling, a day before President Donald Trump expanded a moratorium on the practice. This week, the PAC announced it would spend $300,000 on a Charleston-area television ad on the same topic.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has also pledged to spend at least $1 million in the race’s closing weeks, funding polling, field organizing and advertising.

“Having that kind of cash available means you can explore many different strategies at one time, which will be difficult for the Republicans to deal with,” said Democratic media consultant Martha McKenna, who has previously helmed media buying for the DSCC. “I think it’s a huge advantage for Democrats that we have not enjoyed in previous cycles.”

National GOP groups including the National Republican Senatorial Committee haven’t devoted the same level of resources to Graham, but the group told the AP on Friday it was monitoring the contest and felt Graham was well-positioned to win it. A pro-Graham PAC, Security is Strength, showed about $1.6 million in fundraising. On his own, Graham has run a vigorous advertising campaign, including criticism of Harrison’s past work as a Washington lobbyist.

 

Much of Harrison’s money has come from out of state, with national Democrats long ago marking the contest among their top targets. Harrison launched his campaign not in local media but on MSNBC, where he has been a frequent guest and where his campaign regularly advertises.

Harrison and the groups backing him argue that Graham, a Trump critic turned close ally, is too easily influenced by the president. But Graham, who has said “elections have consequences” to explain his previous support of Obama-era Supreme Court picks, used that same explanation in a 2018 interview with the AP as to why his attitude toward Trump had shifted from animosity to alliance.

Trump carried South Carolina by double digits over Democrat Hillarious Clinton in 2016, and Republicans control both legislative chambers, all statewide offices and most of the state’s congressional seats. South Carolina is assumed to be safely in his reelection column, and Trump hasn’t announced plans to stump there for himself — or Graham — and is instead spending time in states that are general election battlegrounds.

Trump’s popularity in South Carolina is a significant challenge for the groups working against Graham. Steve Schmidt, co-founder of The Lincoln Project — an outside group of Republicans devoted to defeating Trump — said he’s trying to convince voters that Trump’s relationship with Graham speaks poorly to Graham’s character. His group has paid for jarring ads portraying Graham as a “parasite.”

“You voted for Lindsey Graham before, but this is really the first race where you get to vote for Lindsey Graham where you know, really, who he is,” Schmidt said during a recent meeting with AP reporters. “Lindsey’s got an affectation as a goofy sidekick, a funny guy. But I think when you strip it all away in 2020, it’s really not that funny.”

Graham, who easily bested several primary challengers, has rarely faced formidable general election competition. In 2014, he defeated a longtime state senator by double digits, with both candidates raising a combined total of less than $8 million.

Terry Sullivan, a GOP consultant who headed up media for Marco Rubio’s 2016 White House bid, said that, while Graham’s national profile has been on the rise since 2016, his home-state status has suffered because of linkages to Trump.

“Lindsey Graham, prior to the last two years, always had the ability to seem the most real and authentic politician in South Carolina, and maybe the country,” Sullivan said. “I can’t help but think, as much as I love Lindsey Graham, is that he’s lost a lot of that in the age of Trump.”

Regardless of Democrats’ attention, said Matt Moore, who chaired the state’s Republicans during the 2016 election cycle, South Carolina voters remain conservative and do not want Democratic representation in the Senate.

“South Carolina Republicans always show up at game time,” Moore said. “Despite the claims of Democrats that they’ve made up ground in the past, there are still no elections the party can point to where they’ve won.”

For Harrison, the survey data — and the windfall it’s created — backs up what he’s said throughout the race: A statewide Democratic win is possible in South Carolina.

“From day one I felt like I could win this race,” Harrison told the AP recently. “I just feel like everybody is coming to where I’ve been since day one of this campaign.”

[caddieman]

3 minutes ago, yota691 said:

SC GOP chairman calls on Jaime Harrison aides to resign over their old vulgar tweets

• By Jamie Lovegrove jlovegrove@postandcourier.com
• Sep 18, 2020 Updated Sep 18, 2020
•  
  •  

 

 

S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick points to offensive tweets posted years ago by staffers for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Harrison’s campaign as he called on them to resign at a news conference in Columbia on Friday, Sept. 18, 2020. Jamie Lovegrove/Staff

By Jamie Lovegrove jlovegrove@postandcourier.com

 

 

 

 

The chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party called on a pair of senior staffers working for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Harrison’s campaign to resign Friday after a series of vulgar, offensive social media posts they wrote years ago resurfaced this week.

He also condemned Harrison for liking a tweet from a supporter last month that referred to his Republican opponent, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, as “Lady G” — a derogatory nickname that stems from unsubstantiated allegations by a porn star earlier this year that Graham has hired male escorts.

“Jaime Harrison is adding fuel to the fire on a vicious, explicit internet conspiracy theory begun by a porn star Twitter troll,” said S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick, accusing Harrison of “implicitly condoning this sort of slander and degrading, inexcusable comments.”

 

The tweets from Harrison’s staffers, which were posted between 2010 and 2014 by his political director Bre Maxwell and communications director Guy King, included anti-Semitic, sexist and homophobic comments. 

“We’re calling on today to correct your evidence pattern of enabling derogatory, hateful comments from the people who work with you and for you,” McKissick wrote in a letter to Harrison. “It’s time to own up to your mistakes — it’s time to do the right thing. Restore decency to your campaign.”

 

 

 

In a statement, Harrison campaign manager Zack Carroll said the “inappropriate tweets are inconsistent with the values of our campaign and violate our employee policies.” King and Maxwell apologized when the tweets reemerged, and Carroll said “the matter is being handled internally.” They are not resigning.

“This campaign isn’t about staff tweets from years ago, it’s about the issues of today,” Carroll said. “This race should be focused on how to get help to South Carolinians who are struggling to make rent, at risk of losing their health insurance, and getting their children safely back in schools during the worst pandemic in the last century.”

Maxwell’s tweets included one that disputed whether something was “ghetto” because “ghetto is a Jewish term and the jewish Americans are wealthy.” In another, she praised a speech by Louis Farrakhan, the head of a group called the Nation of Islam, who has an extensive history of anti-Semitic and anti-White comments.

 

 

King’s tweets included apparent jokes about rape and multiple derogatory comments about women in graphic terms.

Some of King’s tweets were quotes from song lyrics or television shows. They were sent when King was in high school and college. But S.C. GOP communications director Claire Robinson argued neither of those are sufficient excuses for sharing them.

Looks like they have learned well from the highest office in the land! 

[yota691]

5 minutes ago, caddieman said:

posted between 2010 and 2014 included anti-Semitic, sexist and homophobic comments. 

Trump wasn't isn't office in 2010 and 2014, this is right up your alley. 

[caddieman]

23 minutes ago, yota691 said:

Trump wasn't isn't office in 2010 and 2014, this is right up your alley. 

So these guys should resign for what they did back then (That I think I agree with) But Trump who is on tape saying he can grab women by the P——! That’s ok? If your going to call it out......call it all out!

[Indraman]

37 minutes ago, caddieman said:

So these guys should resign for what they did back then (That I think I agree with) But Trump who is on tape saying he can grab women by the P——! That’s ok? If your going to call it out......call it all out!

 

Posting on Twitter and talking to someone in confidence are two totally different things. I agree that what Trump said was a horrible thing to say, but he did not intend for all to hear these comments. Posting on Twitter shows intent for ALL to see.

 

I think the "ghetto" Tweet is PC Culture gone bad, and coming back around to bite you. The tweet backing a Louis Farrakhan speech does not look good, but without context, it's hard to make a call. Most Farrakhan speaches are anti-Jew, Anti-American so it would be easy to assume that this Speach expressed similar thoughts.

 

Indy

Edited September 20, 2020 by Indraman