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The Week on Politwoops: Hiding campaign connections, playing coy about 2016 and more
This week’s roundup of deletions archived by Politwoops includes a campaign-related image deleted from an official account, another possible 2016 contender removing a reference to them as a candidate and more.
We start with the official House account for Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla., which deleted the image to the right with the message, “Honored to speak at this morning’s special breakfast event celebrating #BlackHistoryMonth.” The tweet was deleted after a day, and the image of Frankel standing in front of a Palm Beach County Democrats banner was swapped out for new images of Frankel posing with other attendees.
Thanks to Political Party Time, Sunlight’s project to track the fundraising circuit, we can see the special event Frankel was attending was a fundraiser for the Palm Beach County Democratic Party, where a $150 donation got you two VIP tickets. According to materials gathered by Political Party Time, Frankel was listed as part of the host committee. Under House franking rules, official social media accounts operated using taxpayer money may not share “campaign-related political party” information. This deletion likely came out of an abundance of caution, though her account has not respond to a request for comment.
The official account of Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., deleted a retweet of @ThisWeekABC that teased his appearance on the TV show by asking, “Is @SenSanders going to run for president?” The deletion came after just 18 seconds and joins similar slip ups by possible 2016 presidential contenders. In January, Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., deleted a retweet referring to him as a “2016 GOP candidate.” And last November, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., deleted a retweet mentioning, “Cheers for him to run for president.”
Looks like Sen. Perdue deleted retweet of @IsraeliPM and instead adapted it into his own tweet http://t.co/WxQr98moqC pic.twitter.com/KbYLXr2i1I
— Nicko (@SFnicko) February 23, 2015
The official account of Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., deleted a retweet of the official account of the prime minister of Israel, and repurposed the photo with a slight crop into his own tweet. The deletion came after just five seconds, but Politwoops caught the removal and tracked the social media appropriation seen to the left.
The official account of Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., which is run by the member himself, deleted his response to a Twitter user who referred to him as, “That pond scum nitwit asshole.” Cohen said, “so sweetly expressed,” but then deleted it after four minutes.
Finally this week, the official account for Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., shared a tweet of him wearing a black cowboy hat with the hashtag #blackisthenewblack and deleted it to change the hashtag to #StateOfCO.
I hope you have a great weekend and please let me know if you find accounts Politwoops is missing!
The Sunlight Foundation is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that uses the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency, and provides new tools and resources for media and citizens, alike.
Source: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/02/27/the-week-on-politwoops-hiding-campaign-connections-playing-coy-about-2016-and-more/
