The man who runs the unofficial Chicago Republican website where a photo of a naked woman was posted yesterday tells TPM he won’t take the picture down, saying it’s all about free speech.
“I think I’m just gonna let this thing ride and take the heat,” said Tom Swiss, 42, a self-employed Chicago man who runs ChicagoGOP.com.
The NSFW picture is here.
As we explained yesterday, the real Chicago Republican Party site is at ChicagoRepublicanParty.com, not ChicagoGOP.com — which is an independent blog run by Swiss.
Which isn’t to say Swiss isn’t involved at all with the party. He tells TPM that he does a lot of volunteer work with the local GOP — and that some state party officials have urged him to take down the naked picture.
“As you can imagine, this is very controversial,” Swiss said, adding that “there are some that are definitely unhappy.”
Let’s just say that these people were upset and requested that it be taken down.
While Swiss says he recognizes that “this pushes the line of what may or may not be acceptable,” he says the ChicagoGOP.com user who posted the picture is a big first amendment advocate who just “wants to exercise her right.”
Swiss said something would have to be “very, very extreme” for him to censor it.
