Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna (R) hit a snag in his campaign for governor Monday after The Stranger, a Seattle weekly, caught one of his staffers telling Asians to “speak English” and the elderly to “get a wheelchair” on Twitter.
The offending Tweets, posted by McKenny policy staffer Kathlyn Ehl early this year and in late 2011 (they have since been deleted, but the site captured them):
Ehl will remain on the campaign staff, according to reports, but McKenna condemned her tweets in a statement published by the Seattle Times:
“The tweets sent by a member of my campaign staff, Kathlyn Ehl, were offensive and inappropriate,” he said. “They were insensitive and wrong, regardless of the context.”
Ehl also apologized.
“These insensitive comments were harmful, not just to those groups which I mentioned in the tweets, but also to my family, friends and my co-workers,” she told the Times. “For causing that pain, I am sorry.”
The nominees for the governors race in Washington will be selected via a jungle primary on Aug. 7. McKenna is expected to be chosen as a nominee, and the PollTracker average shows him leading the expected Democratic nominee, former Rep. Jay Inslee, 42.6 percent to 40.1 percent. Washington has not elected a Republican governor since the 1980s.
