US: Democrats call on Republican aide to quit after he sent a video of a Senate hopeful at gay pride
Calls for a Republican political aide to resign have come, after he sent links to a video of an openly gay Democratic Sentate hopeful dancing at a gay pride event, along with a message questioning her “heartland values”.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman, Mike Tate, has called for Brian Nemoir, a political advisor to Republican Senate candidate, Tommy Thompson, to be fired, after he sent an email and Twitter link to a video of Democratic Senate hopeful, Tammy Baldwin, dancing at Wisconsin Capitol Pride in 2010.
Brian Nemoir, sent an email to what he described as “a handful of select contacts”, just ahead of Representative Baldwin’s speech at the Democratic National Convention last week, however news quickly broke of the message, which was sent from his official email address. It read:
“Yesterday, Madison-Liberal Tammy Baldwin cited “heartland values” as the topic for her primetime speech to the DNC tomorrow night.
“Clearly, there’s no one better positioned to talk “heartland values” than Tammy.”
A link to a video of Representative Baldwin dancing with Wonder Woman at the gay pride event followed.
Former Wisconsin Governor, Thompson, released a statement on Tuesday saying he: “shouldn’t’ have done it,” but his aide Lisa Boothe described Thursday’s calls for him to resign as “desperate move meant to distract voters from Baldwin’s record,” Channel 3000 reported.
John Kraus, a spokesperson for Representative Baldwin, criticised Tommy Thompson on Tuesday for not taking action immediately following “the divisive, personal attack his own campaign launched.”
Mr Nemoir had since said that he didn’t regret sending the video, but that he did not sent it in an official capacity, despite it coming from his campaign email address. He also described the video as representing some “extremely significant” issues in the Senate seat race which, he said, would be discussed.
Brian Nemoir’s Twitter account has now been set to ‘private’ and did not comment following the call for him to be dismissed.
Tammy Baldwin hopes to become the first openly gay candidate elected to the US Senate.