It takes a worried man: SD 26 GOP Endorsee Mike Parry scrubs potentially offensive twitter posts

Update 1/6: To read about the twitter scrubbing story hitting the local news (and Mike Parry's denials) check out Uproar: Parry twitter scrubbing story hits local papers in Waseca and Owatonna End update.

According to today's Waseca County News, GOP-endorsed SD 26 candidate Mike Parry boasted at the recent GOP endorsing convention in Faribault:

He told delegates that, like them, he wants “a senator that is not worried about being politically correct....”

However, when progressives on twitter began to research and respond to Parry's twitterstream, Parry appears to have reversed himself about both his state of mind and political correctness.

After Patrick Timmons, who tweets as @mngopwatch, discovered a May 26 Parry anti-Obama tweet which Timmons copied into his own tweetstream:

Putting this here, in case he deletes it. RT @mikeparry read the exclusive on Mr O in Newsweek. He is a Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man

Parry began to scrub the posts being discussed on twitter. Readers won't find all the tweets discussed in this post if they visit  Parry's twitterstream at http://twitter.com/mikeparry. To better read the screenshots, clink on the images in this post to access larger files.

Since he's scrubbed some his posts, so I'll be posting screen shots of the material under examination. The "Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man" from May 26 is the third tweet in the screenshot above. The first tweet in the screenshot ("4th grade Graduation at Sacred Heart. Hope these kids are tainted by Mr. O") from May 29.

Other tweeps and bloggers are raising questions about the "Arrogant Black Man" post. I'll be focusing on  two other Parry tweets--scrubbed and unscrubbed--that carry more implications for SD26 voters in the January 26 special election.

 My subject is Parry's understanding of the concept of "Absentee Voter fraud."

 Facing a mid-winter special election, SD26 "snowbirds" who have gone south for the winter--but who may well wish to vote via absentee ballot--might be perplexed by Parry's original take on their voting rights.

Parry hasn't yet scrubbed a post (click on the image to the right)in which he decried absentee voter fraud.  What's missing is the post that had followed, in which he observed that "Only those serving overseas can vote absebtee! [sic]."

Tweeps dissecting Parry's posts remarked about the now-scrubbed item about absentee voting. One sharp-eyed tweep wondered while correcting the candidate's spelling:

maybe he should learn the law before running for office: RT @mikeparry Only those serving overseas can vote absentee!

Then pointed to Minnesota's laws on which voters may use absentee ballots:

guess he doesn't know how to use the internet http://www.sos.state.mn.us/index.aspx?page=211

Were Mike Parry to follow that link, he'd learn:

You may find that you are unable to get to your polling place location on Election Day but still want to vote in the election.

In Minnesota, citizens are allowed to vote absentee for the following reasons:

• Absent from your precinct
• Illness or disability
• Serving as an election judge in another precinct
• Religious discipline or religious holiday or observance
• Eligible emergency declared by the governor or quarantine declared by the federal or state government

Click the links below for more information:

General Absentee Information
Military and Overseas Voters
Delivery of Absentee Ballots by Others
Permanent and Ongoing Absentee Ballots
Voters Moving From Minnesota to Another State

One acquaintance suggested that perhaps Parry's now vanished tweet was actually a call to change Minnesota law to restrict the use of absentee ballots to only those in the military serving overseas. 

Under either reading, the deleted post is a slap in the face to most voters who need to obtain an absentee ballot--and may legally do so under Minnesota law.

How worried was Mike Parry about this and other scrubbed content? How extensive was the scrub job? As Southeast Minnesota Area Labor Council President Laura Askelin, who tweets as "cursedthing", noted earlier this afternoon:

cursedthing Corrected count...@MikeParry deleted 33 tweets today to try to scrub questionable tweets. (was at 124 now at 91)

I'll update this post if more bloggers find additional telling information among those scrubbed post. What's self-proclaimed anti-political correctness warrior Mike Parry so worried about that he hoped voters wouldn't read--and so erased from twitter?

An earlier Minnesota Progressive Project post,Does Mike Parry have any positions? If so, what are they? looked at Parry's retooling of his web site. Parry had been originally planning to run against Rep. Kory Kath for a seat in the Minnesota House, and so the links to the national Republican platform are even more curious.

Note: in copy editing this post, the title was changed within 30 seconds of the original publication.

Comments

[Fruit F Fly]

This is a brilliant post! Very well sleuthed and extremely detailed. Thank you for your hard work!

FFF

[Kelly]

Go get him, progressives!!

[PNUT]

Wow, an ignorant,racist Republican politician....how typical.

[Brian Sanburn]

"Wow, an ignorant,racist Republican politician....how typical."

In police work, such a comment would be considered "racial profiling." Did you [PNUT]* really intend to convey that all Republican politicians are ignorant and racist? That's so sad, not only because it's not true but because it portrays you as someone who is committed only to the political party and not the substantive issues as well as not being a realist. After all, I'd like to think that you don't believe EVERY Democratic politician is above board and always does the right thing...or do you believe that?

It'd be nice for all of us, regardless of political party, to find those things on which we can agree and work together to overcome them instead of using areas of disagreement as a tool to divide us -- economically, socially, religiously and Constitutionally.

*Editor's note: Prior commenter's screen name added by editor to clarify that Mr. Sanburn is addressing the opinion expressed in the earlier comment.

[Danny]

Has the Strib covered this? I'd like to see Mike Parry get all the exposure he so richly deserves.