Turner said the comments upset her because she and Thomas have a 6-year-old son who is part Hispanic.
“Basically, it’s like he’s saying he hates his son,” Turner said.
The Twitter posting triggered cancellations by several local and statewide candidates and elected officials scheduled to speak at a Springboro Tea Party rally scheduled for Saturday, April 17, at North Park. However, some officials say this doesn’t tarnish the Tea Party movement as a whole.
“I don’t think it says anything about the movement per se,” state Sen. Shannon Jones, R-Clearcreek Twp., said on the same day Tea Party officials from around the country formed a federation to counteract perceptions that the groups are racist, unsophisticated and disorganized. Jones was the first elected official to withdraw from the event.
Thomas, an uncontested candidate for a seat on the Warren County Republican Party’s central committee, declined to comment about the controversy.
Rob Scott, founder and president of the Dayton Tea Party, said the national movement is focused on reducing taxes and government, encouraging the free market and respecting the U.S. Constitution — not immigration and certainly not racism.
“Even if we took on immigration as an issue, what was posted was way out of line. It’s classless,” Scott said.
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