The cautious political adviser would be wise to stress the need for some extreme self-vetting by elected officials when it comes to social media.
But maybe the public should push for more posts, not fewer. What a politician chooses to share on Facebook or Twitter — and how he or she reacts when a post draws criticism — can provide valuable information when judging someone’s fitness for office.
Republican Atlantic County Freeholder John Carman and Democratic Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo learned some hard lessons about social media recently. And the public gained some insight into the two men.
Carman was among a group of public officials across the country who got themselves in trouble with their comments about the Women’s March on Washington the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Carman wondered on his Facebook page whether the protest would be over in time for the women to get home to cook dinner. He says he meant it as a joke.
A lot of people didn’t find it funny, with a couple dozen showing up at the next freeholder meeting to confront Carman. He failed to apologize then, saying he was happy to have strong women in his life who looked at the post and weren’t offended. Two days later, he issued a statement saying he was truly sorry and acknowledged “it is obvious to me that I have hurt many people.”
A week later, Mazzeo, who is running for state Senate, took the spotlight off Carman by sharing a video on Facebook that showed men with ladders racing with exceptional agility up a wall and was captioned “Illegal Immigrants Training for the Trump Wall.”
The video was apparently intended to be a joke, but judging by the mean, ugly, racist comments it attracted, the effort apparently missed the mark. Mazzeo says he immediately deleted the item once he saw it posted to his personal page. He said he accidentally shared it because his vision for reading is very bad and he didn’t have his glasses on.
Republicans pounced, not on the inappropriate nature of the video but on the excuse Mazzeo offered. They said it showed he “lacks the judgment, smarts and maturity to be our senator.”
Not all social media gaffes are equal. Some are more offensive than others. And some apologies or excuses are more genuine than others.
They alone should not determine who people vote for, but they offer a glimpse into the character of a candidate that needs to be considered along with a politician’s stated policies and voting record.
In his eventual apology, Carman said, “It’s not about the amount of mistakes or the size of mistakes a person makes. It’s how a person responds to them.”
He’s wrong on the mistake part. They do matter. But he’s correct that the response can be very telling. Voters will eventually judge whether they think Carman is truly sorry and whether Mazzeo’s excuse is believable.
In the end, reckless use of social media is something that should be left to teenagers, online trolls and certain tweeting presidents.
The rest of us should be more thoughtful, not just to be politically correct, but because we should know that racism and sexism are not funny.
Although, if any more local politicians think they are, please post away, because that is information we would like to share.
