Deb Morrow, the Democratic candidate for South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District, is reportedly down a staff member and has shut down her campaign’s Twitter feed after tweets appeared labeling her opponent, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) “homos.”
The Free Times reports:
Both Tweets were deleted shortly after, according to Washington, D.C. social media consultant Sean Bertran, who alerted the media to the posts. Bertran, a Republican with South Carolina ties, was monitoring Twitter activity related to the Fast and Furious controversy on Tweetdeck when he saw the tweet from Gowdy’s Democratic opponent.
Sean Bertran, a GOP operative, captured the tweets and sent them to media outlets:
Morrow, a self-described retiree and progressive activist, is challenging Gowdy, a first-term Republican. She told the paper she wasn’t responsible for the tweets and that the person who is responsible left the campaign an hour before the tweets posted.
“We’re Democrats,” Morrow told the Free Times. “I just wouldn’t consider calling anybody a homosexual a bad thing. It just wouldn’t be something that we would say. We’re all for human rights and civil rights and everything.”
Republicans are unmoved by Morrow’s apology.
“Deb Morrow is defending one of the most awful slurs in the English language,” Matt Moore, executive director of the South Carolina GOP, told TPM. “If she can’t lead her campaign, she has no business attempting to represent the 4th District in Congress.”
Update: Morrow told the Free Times Tuesday afternoon after the story first broke that her account was “hacked” and was not posted by someone associated with her campaign.
“We will not be tweeting anymore,” she told the paper.
7/11 Update
Morrow emails in this statement fully denying involvement in the tweets by her or her campaign staff:
The Twitter account for Deb for Congress was hacked. Nobody on the campaign would use offensive name-calling about anyone. We are all present and accounted for – nobody past or present on the staff is in any way responsible or was “let go.” Since this can happen, we have shut down the twitter account and have no immediate plans to tweet.
