The Mecklenburg County Republican Party in Southern Virginia is defying the state GOP and refusing to remove a series of anti-Obama pictures from its Facebook page in the wake of public pressure.
Pat Mullins, chairman of the Virginia GOP, told the Washington Post that the series of Photoshopped images, which carry birther messages and depict Obama as a neanderthal and witch doctor, "have no place in political discourse."
“They are offensive, tasteless and should never have been posted anywhere, let alone a local unit’s Facebook page. The Republican Party of Virginia condemns this sort of imagery in the strongest possible terms," Mullins said in an interview with the Post. "I am in the process of contacting our Mecklenburg County unit to inform them that this is unacceptable behavior from any local unit associated with our party.”
But R. Wallace “Wally” Hudson, chairman of the Mecklenburg Republicans, told the Post that the photos were there to stay.
“If that group is that sensitive, I’m sorry, they’re just not human,” he said, according to the Post. “It’s not American. If they’ve got a problem with it, we’re not going to change what we do.”
In a later interview, he appeared to challenge the Virginia GOP to act.
“They can do what they want,” he told the Post. “I’m waiting for the phone call.”
Hudson uploaded most of the photos to the Facebook page months ago, but the images received renewed scrutiny on the heels of the committee's recent meeting with GOP Senate candidate George Allen.
While it's unclear whether Hudson is in charge of running all of the party's day-to-day Facebook activities or only its seemingly consistent flow of controversial photos, whoever does appears to suffer from the occasional lack of judgment. The committee recently posted a link to an Onion article titled "Obama's 19-Year-Old Son Makes Rare Appearance At DNC," adding a comment to their own post asking, "How come we never heard of this one?"
Before You Go
