Twitter is not the real issue on Owatonna

Unless he wants to absolutely sink his political aspirations, District 26 Senate candidate Mike Parry should stay away from Twitter for his own good.
Controversy arose this past week surrounding messages — or “tweets,” as they are called — that the Waseca Republican posted on Twitter over the past year. Then, shortly after Mr. Parry received the GOP endorsement in the special election to succeed outgoing state Sen. Dick Day, the controversial tweets — 33 in all, his political opponents say — magically disappeared from Parry’s Twitter feed.
In one of the offending tweets, Parry refers to President Obama as a “power hungry arrogant black man.” In another, he seems to make a correlation between Democrats and pedophiles. The first tweet, Parry readily admits he posted. The second, he doesn’t recall.
In this day and age, you would think that someone with even a modicum of understanding of the Internet would know that such messages, once posted, are never lost for good in cyberspace. And if he ever desired to seek public office beyond Waseca, he should have known that such postings would eventually come back to haunt him, just as they did last week. It was a foolish thing for him to do — a realization that he must have come to since he issued an apology for them.
What is equally troubling about the situation is the way that Parry’s foes have jumped on the tweets and tried to turn his postings into something that would disqualify him for office. On Wednesday, Minnesota DFL Chair Brian Melendez called a news conference in St. Paul in which he called Parry both racist and homophobic. Likewise, the left-leaning Minnesota Progressive Project posted blogs on Parry’s tweets, blasting Parry for the remarks.
What is clear, however, is that both are doing it for political reasons — to shoot Mike Parry’s candidacy down and improve the chances of left-leaning politicians to get elected to the Minnesota Legislature. Not convinced? Then consider, if Mr. Melendez wanted to bring his concerns about the tweets to voters in District 26, then why did he hold the press conference in St. Paul rather than somewhere in District 26. Owatonna, Faribault or Waseca would have gladly welcomed such an event. And if the Progressive Project really wanted to talk about this as an issue rather than use it as a way of attacking, then why didn’t they bother to pick up the phone, call Mr. Parry, and ask him about it? And why at the end of the blogs have they used what happened as a way of soliciting donations for Parry’s DFL opponent Jason Engbrecht?
This is not Twitter-gate, no matter how much the DFL tries to make it so. It’s time for the DFL to put this issue aside and talk about the real issues that need to be discussed, like the budget deficit, taxes, job creation and education.

Owatonna People’s Press editorials are the opinion of the Press editorial board. Other editorials, columns, letters and cartoons appearing on this page are the opinions of the authors and artists and not necessarily the People’s Press.

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Member Opinions: By: ksanh68 on 1/10/10 Yes, DFL please put the issue of character or temperament aside when it only seems to be based on prior utterances and actions of a candidate. Remember these types of questions have no place in American politics and should not be of interest or a concern when deciding who we elect to represent us. lol By: secretsquirrel on 1/10/10 Character? Integrity? In politics? Believe it when I see it. By: atlascollapsed on 1/10/10 Man this is getting scary. I'm agreeing with K and Mike in the same week? No more vacations for me! Character matters. Now personally I see his remarks as off hand not malicious. Much like the news about Harry Reid saying President Obama had an advantage because he was "light skinned" and has "no negro dialect" or Vice President Biden saying "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man." It's the same thing in my book because I highly doubt they are any more racist than Mike Parry is. I'll vote on a candidates stance on policy, not whether or not they've said, typed, posted, tweeted, twitted or tooted something stupid. By: ksanh68 on 1/10/10 Politicians say the darnedest things. And I certainly can't claim innocence in past numerous failures on my part to engage brain before opening my mouth. The Mrs. would vouch for me on that point, that is if she were speaking to me this morning. I think it was something I said last night, not sure. My short term memory problem kicking up again. What I do find so very entertaining these days is how politicians make statements/pronouncements which show a complete disregard for statements/pronouncements they've made in the not so distant past. They act like there is no such thing as videotape, audio recording or computer data storage. Do they take the citizenry for fools? Have they been on an island somewhere and miss the electronics revolution? I could rant on, but I'd better start vacuuming. I must have really opened mouth and inserted foot last night. By: ConsiderThis on 1/12/10 Parry’s deleted angry multiple tweets give voters insight as to how he truly feels. And no weak apology can erase Parry’s thinking. Mr. Parry’s insensitive tweets just add to his unpopular personal out-of-touch agenda when serving Waseca on the City Council for just one term. In his two contested elections for City Council in Waseca, Parry lost his Ward 3 by almost 2 to 1 margins! Using Parry’s own words in one of his tweets critical of our President, Parry has a reputation in Waseca as “power hungry, arrogant!” Conventional wisdom in Waseca is that he will not carry his hometown in this special election.
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