The Iowa GOP’s chairman says one of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s advisors has offended the very voters Walker needs to win Iowa’s Caucuses.
Liz Mair has worked for Walker before and is now on board as the social media guru for his likely presidential campaign. Iowa Republican Party chairman Jeff Kaufmann told Radio Iowa this afternoon Mair’s tweets that are critical of Iowa’s Caucuses are “very offensive and, quite frankly, rather ignorant on the part of an advisor to say something like that.”
In January, Mair tweeted that the sooner Iowa’s Caucuses quit being the first event in the presidential election season, “the better off American politics and policy will be.” She also tweeted about Iowa “embarrassing itself.” Kaufmann is stopping short of calling on Walker to fire her, but Kaufmann said Mair’s kind of “condescension” isn’t welcome here.
“Will that have an impact, fairly or unfairly? I think a lot of that depends on his opponents,” Kaufmann says. “Are they going to continually bring that up? I think you and I know the answer to that, so that’s a decision he’s going to have to make.”
In one tweet this past January, Mair cited federal ethanol subsidies and called Iowans “government dependent.”
“This goes beyond disagreeing with our ethanol policy,” Kaufmann said. “I think that’s fair game to say that although, you know, I think I’d check in with my boss first.”
Earlier this month Walker himself reversed course and said he supports at least temporarily retaining the Renewable Fuels Standard which requires a certain amount of ethanol be blended into gasoline each year.
Walker’s communications team has not responded to Radio Iowa’s request for a response to Kaufmann’s remarks. Some conservative thought-leaders in Washington, D.C. have jumped to Mair’s defense and criticized Iowans for being thin-skinned and ill-suited to host the first test for presidential candidates. Mair has worked for the Republican National Committee, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and former Texas Governor Rick Perry. She was also part of Walker’s campaign team when he won his 2012 recall election. On Monday Mair told CNN she had been hired to work for Walker’s PAC.