The response to the Walker campaign’s ill-fated romance with digital strategist Liz Mair, which lasted a mere 24 hours, has largely centered on Walker’s decision to hire and fire her and what it says about his political operation.
Also worth noting that campaigns should read the Twitter feeds of the operatives they’re bringing on board. It was just six weeks ago that Mair was tweeting things about Iowa, which Walker needs to win, that threw GOP leaders in the state into a tizzy. “”The sooner we remove Iowa’s front-running status, the better off American politics and policy will be,” she wrote in January. Breitbart hammered her as an “advocacy advocate” on account of a series of tweets she fired off in support of comprehensive immigration reform, an issue on which the governor has done an about face on the campaign trail.
News of her dismissal also sparked a backlash, including from right wingers. Red State’s Erick Erickson, for example, faulted Walker for “passing the ball off” and making a staffer “off herself.”
It’s worth noting that Walker’s not alone here. Jeb Bush was forced to hire and fire his own chief technology officer last month when a review of his tweets by a number of news outlets found that his Twitter feed included commentaries about “sluts” and burping.
Perhaps the larger lesson here is that campaigns should start reviewing Twitter feeds, and operatives who aspire to work on presidential campaigns should stop airing so many of their opinions on Twitter.