I'm not sure McKenna is afraid of this story so much as hoping that if he and his staff ignore The Stranger you will go away. Hopefully all politicians are now on notice that in tapping into the vibrant enthusiasm of potential staffers they need to have a social media policy that includes "you must delete all potentially offensive content, recent or otherwise"

This over-sharing impulse, while lots of fun, is a political liability, and if you think it violates some free speech right, then you don't have to have the campaign work on your resume.

If he was really afraid of this story, he would have fired her right from the start, but instead suspended her and allowed her to resign.

This leaves people free to go through all the twitter and facebook logs of all his staffers (who are probably busy deleting their accounts) in hopes of finding some new dirt.

How do we know if she was actually suspended without pay?

Anyway, I'm sure the campaign can't be racist against Asian Americans--there was an Asian American on that Twitter roster!

It's hard what to make of this particular story.

Do we now go through the background of every single person who works for a campaign? That this particular staffer was young and stupid does not serve McKenna well(attention young people: everything you think or do does NOT have to be on Facebook or Twitter for it to be fun).

However, leaving aside how deep and how wide any news organization should go to find "dirt" what IS the story is found in the last two paragraphs.

McKenna's people have shown themselves to be prickly and unwilling to communicate with the media. And when you are Governor, yes, you have to communicate with ALL the media. That he allows his staff to continually put up barriers speaks volumes about what he would do as Governor.

This lack of transparency and willingness to be questioned is troubling.

I'm thinking Ehl's next job will be with an organization fighting "voter fraud"--she might be aiming to be the next Lori Sotelo.

OH NO

HOW CAN WE EVER KNOW IF RACISM PERSISTS WITHIN A REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN?

It shall forever remain a troubling mystery, unless we, you know, read the party platform.

Shut up and vote Inslee.

"It's always going to be an issue that he may have racist people on his staff," said Alan Sugiyama.

It's equally dangerous to just assume that "racism" (and I use that term VERY loosely because it's the most overused word in America these days) is prevalent on his staff. Apparently burden of proof is no longer needed in society. Crying "RACISM" is a tired, lazy accusation that has no repercussions because there's no response to such accusations that could ever satisfy the group that is supposedly offended. I don't blame them for not responding.

At this point, I'm just shocked Guy Aoki hasn't set up a base of operations in the International District.

The comment was dumb no question but is it racism or more just being insensitive?

@9

Well, if you ask her, I bet Ehl will tell you she's not racist at all, so I'm sure it must not have been racism.

@ 11 Doesn't matter what she thinks, I just think racism gets thrown around too loosely sometimes and sometimes its a stupid, insensitive remark but not racism.

Nice going Stranger, you got a new grad fired from a job for something she dumbly wrote before taking the position! All without ever talking to her. Then you speculate that McKenna's a racist! What cowards you are. (And I'm a Inslee fan.) Pulitzer hereby revoked, again.

@13 - Did you not read the post? The Stranger article got her suspended without pay. The protesting Asians are the ones who got her fired.

@8, yo, dipshit, as long as there are people being racist assholes, the word "racism" is not overused. Now, based on your position on the issue, I'm going to go waaaaaayyy out on a limb here and guess that racism has never been a problem for you. That being the case - it having nothing to do with you - you know what you can do, if you're tired of hearing about it?

SUCK IT UP.

Although by all means continue to whine to your real-life friends and family about how uppity minorities need to stop complaining, already. They deserve to know what kind of a person they're associating with.

@15 Oh of course racism has been a problem for him (cue crocodile tears about how the mean black guys in high school called him a cracker).

Where are the Asian writers at the Stranger? The Seattle Times managed to employ a few. Actions speak louder than words.

@11 Word.

I meant @17: word. But we cool too @11

I don't care if the gal was racist. I care if McKenna is so soft skinned he can't handle criticism and so politically tone-deaf he doesn't know how to manage a minor crisis quickly.

He let at least two new cycles get ahead of him before he did anything to control this story. So far this is his election to lose. If he's going to be such a bitch about tough questions and so unwilling to listen to his critics, he's going to make a shitty Governor.

Guess what McKenna: You know you need King County to win. The people in King County already don't trust Republicans. Why don't you give them a couple more reasons to assume the worst about you?

Sorry for the rant, but this is amateur hour politics. You could have won a weekend of positive blow jobs from the Times by firing her and making a statement about how your campaign won't tolerate the old ways of thinking.

You could have made her issue an apology via Twitter and turned this into a news story about how your internet persona can follow you for the rest of your life.

But you circled the wagons and acted like the Stranger was out of line for vetting your staffers. If there's any trait more annoying than the Republican I'm the real victim here posture, I can't think of one.