At a Brown County Republican fundraiser tonight, First Congressional District candidate Mike Parry claimed that Governor Dayton pops 15 to 16 pills when he's sitting across from you in negotiations and that the governor is scary, according to a tweet by New Ulm Journal reporter Josh Moniz.
Moniz was livetweeting the event.
If that tweet is accurate, the statement may undercut the Waseca Republican's self-claimed advantage over Allen Quist. Mike Parry has dredged up things that rival primary candidate Allen Quist said many years ago. To his discredit, Quist wavered on whether he said them, but has had to acknowledge them as documentation surfaced.
But Parry, too, has a history of saying the outrageous, tending toward the petty and personal as while as racial and homophobic. While Parry claims now that he apologized for tweets calling President Obama "an angry black man" and equating "Dems and Pedophiles" during the debate on the Matthew Shepard bill, he wasn't so apologetic last year when Doug Grow invterviewed him for the Minnpost column, GOP hardliner Sen. Mike Parry not afraid to tweet what he believes:
That one [tweet calling President Obama an 'angry black man'] brought him national attention. After trying to ignore the outcries that the tweet was racist, Parry came up with an unapologetic defense of the message.
"My opinion is that our President is arrogant and angry," he told reporters. "The fact is, he's a black man. Now if the Democratic Party and the liberals want to take my opinion and the fact and mix it together … they're grasping at straws."
Those who bristle at his tweets are bound by political correctness, Parry says. He presents himself as a guy tough enough to stand up to the liberal critics and say what he thinks.
"The reason we have the problems we have today is that people don't say what they think," said Parry in an interview last week. "All they do is beat about the bush."
Or make tasteless remarks at fundraisers.
According to Will Quist’s past comments on gays and women hurt him? Times are a-changin’, a column by Cindy Brucato in Minnpost today, Quist's old statements might not matter:
Eighteen years later, though, the shock value of Quist’s comments – such as, “the husband should be the head of the household because of a genetic predisposition” – fades. His speeches as a state representative decrying homosexuality, even his visit to an X-rated bookstore for “research,” seem like old news.
Party has changed
The GOP has since seen Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann emerge as leaders who use their views on gay rights and traditional families not as stealth tactics but as a broad appeal to conservative voters. . . .
One has to wonder, though, about a personal attack on a popular governor who has made no secret of his struggles with alcoholism and depression. The dig seems petty and cruel--and to confirm Quist's assessment of Mike Parry as a man who can't debate issues.
Or perhaps Parry is simply trolling for headlines as the primary nears.
Bluestem looks forward to Moniz's report on the fundraiser in tomorrow's New Ulm Journal. Perhaps video footage of this cleverness might emerge too. It's possible that Moniz's tweet is inaccurate, but not characteristic of his work.
Related post: Emo Senator: Mike Parry's twitterific amnesia strikes again following TPT Almanac debate
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