Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI)
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's presidential campaign
lost an aide rather quickly Tuesday when, just a day after her hire was announced, online communications staffer Liz Mair resigned over some January tweets criticizing Iowa.
“Morons across America are astounded to learn that people from IOWA grow up rather government-dependent. #agsubsidies #ethanol #brainless,” she tweeted on Jan. 22. [...]
“The sooner we remove Iowa’s frontrunning status, the better off American politics and policy will be,” Mair tweeted on Jan. 24.
Yeah, you really can't say that and expect to work in a presidential primary. And Scott Walker especially can't hire someone who said those things, since Iowa will be a particularly important state for him. It's not just the first state, it's right next door to his own state. Losing there would show a larger weakness.
But Digby points out another important factor in the Republican response to Walker's hire of Mair: she has supported immigration reform (in general, Mair is the Republican operative who Democratic operatives seem to talk to and think well of). And Walker, having only recently decided that he opposes a path to citizenship, having previously supported it, is already suspect on this issue in the eyes of the far-far-far right. Breitbart characterized Walker's hire of Mair as "another massive misstep," and, Digby writes, "It's early days but you can't keep making 'massive missteps' forever." The fact that Mair played into an issue where Walker was already suspect to a big chunk of his party's base is probably as important in her hasty resignation as her insults to the all-important Iowa.
But boy, if you think back a month to Jeb Bush's short-lived technology hire, or to Pinterest's takedown of a Rand Paul trolling page, the top Republican presidential campaigns are not doing so well with the extremely broad category of things related to the internet.