I’ve tried to be transparent about my working relationship with the Republican Party of Iowa. For little more than a year I’ve run their social media and website. At the beginning of this year I was just responsible for managing their social media. I wasn’t the only one who would tweet or post things on their Facebook page, but I did the lion’s share. Last night, I posted an image on their Facebook page. Within an a 1/2 hour of it being live I received a text from A.J. Spiker as he was receiving blowback from the media over the post.
I wrote accompanying the post above “Because it’s Friday night and we don’t need serious political posts on Friday night we are sharing this. Happy Friday and LIKE and SHARE! Unless you think the chart is racist, then don’t.”
It was an attempt at humor which perhaps would have been ok for my personal page, but not for the Republican Party of Iowa. My intent was to make light of how the race card is often played in American politics, regardless of my intent it was inappropriate. It was an error in judgment, one I deeply regret, and take full responsibility for. I apologize to those whom I offended, as well as, to Iowa Republicans. This is not the message we need to send. It is distracting to our mission of electing Republicans. I also would like to publicly apologize to A.J. Spiker for the problems this has caused him.
I did not mean to cause offense or to be disrespectful, and again I am truly sorry.
I have had the opportunity to talk with my kids in terms of how important it is to be careful about what we post on social media and to use this example of what not to do. Granted mistakes most people make won’t cause a media firestorm, but they can carry negative consequences regardless.
As of this morning my working relationship with the Republican Party of Iowa has ended. I completely understand their decision and I wish them all the best.
Update 1/26/14 5:39p: Comments have been closed as they were getting out of hand by people who could not follow a simple comment policy. No personal attacks. No vulgarity. Stay on topic. It seems as though some folks don’t know how to leave a comment without personally attacking the person they are replying to in the comment or attacking me. This is my website, I pay the bills here. I don’t have to put up with it.
Update 2/4/14 6:23p: FYI, comments were not taken down due to disagreement. We switched our comment system from Disqus to Facebook comments so older comments no longer show up on every article. Unfortunately there is no way, that I am aware of, to import comments. If that is incorrect, please let me know. We did make this switch to help foster a more civil dialogue as anonymous comments will no longer be allowed.
