The campaign manager for New Mexico Attorney General Gary King’s (D) gubernatorial campaign resigned after a report highlighted sexist tweets he wrote on his Twitter account.
Now-former campaign manager Steve Verzwyvelt’s resignation, a day after he was hired, followed the Washington Free Beacon‘s publication of screenshots of a number of tweets on Verzwyvelt’s Twitter account.
The tweets included Verzwyvelt saying “fat girls” shouldn’t wear bikinis and that he didn’t like “overcooked” women who wore “too much makeup.”
King released a statement on the tweets. “While they were his personal views, Mr. Verzwyvelt’s comments were, nonetheless not up to the standards of what I expect from my employees and in direct conflict with my own beliefs of tolerance, respect and decency,” King said, according to The Associated Press. King also said that he was not aware of the tweets until the report.
One tweet from January 2012 said “just got eye banged by a big girl. That’s my signal that it’s time to go.”
Another tweet, posted on March 11, 2012, also said, “Fat girls should not wear bikini’s! #spisspringbreak2012.”
The Beacon posted a screengrab of that tweet:
Verzwyvelt said his Twitter account had been hacked at the start of 2012. “My account was hacked in the first part of February, that could have been it,” Verzwyvelt said, according to the Beacon. “It was hacked the first part of the year. I don’t know what happened, that could have been some of that.”
However, at least one of the offensive tweets appears to have been sent before that. The Beacon also partially quoted a tweet that said, “overcooked” women “put on too much makeup, tanning bed, and have over done hair,” in October 2011.
“I respect women highly, I’ve been in a relationship for the past three years, all of my candidates in 2012 were women. I’ve actually fought for women on their issues and getting them elected,” Verzwyvelt added.
He also said that he’s “a huge supporter of women and their issues, I really don’t recall.”
King (pictured) won the Democratic nomination for governor on June 3rd.
(H/t The Huffington Post)
