Fired for all the wrong reasons? Walker campaign may have had other motives

Friends of Scott Walker fire Taylor Palmisano...three years after racist remarks, one weekend after embarrassing email

A senior staffer from Gov. Scott Walker’s electoral campaign has been fired for racist remarks she made against Hispanic individuals.

Taylor Palmisano, who up to this week was serving as deputy finance director for Friends of Scott Walker (the official campaign arm of Gov. Walker), made derogatory (and violent) statements about individuals who were near her at the time.

Gov. Scott Walker / Taylor Palmisano

“I will choke that illegal mex in the library,” reads one tweet. “Stop banging ****ing chairs around and turn off your Walkman.”

Another tweet, again making reference to the documentation status of the people around her, echoed similar lines of intolerance.

“This bus is my worst ****ing nightmare,” it read. “Nobody speaks English & these ppl dont know how to control their kids”

The second tweet included the hashtags “#only3morehours” and “#illegalaliens.”

After her removal from the campaign, Walker’s spokesman, Jonathan Wetzel, was quick to point out the governor didn’t approve of these tweets.

“Both the Governor, and the campaign, condemn these insulting remarks which do not reflect our views in any way,” he said.

But is that the real reason for her departure? It’s hard to say. Palmisano was also the author of the now-infamous campaign email that asked contributors to forgo buying Christmas presents for their children in favor of giving to the Friends for Scott Walker campaign.

Instead of venturing into the cold this Black Friday, stay in and give your children a gift that will keep on giving.

...

Instead of electronics or toys that will undoubtedly be outdated, broken, or lost by the next Holiday Season, help give your children the gift of a Wisconsin that we can all be proud of.

So was Palmisano fired for the racist tweets? Or for the messed up email that caused national international embarrassment?

Consider this: the tweets that landed Palmisano in trouble were made almost three years ago. On the other hand, Palmisano was promoted to her position as deputy finance director this past July.

So, two years after she said she would “choke that illegal mex,” Palmisano got a promotion on the Walker campaign. Six months later, she writes an embarrassing email that paints Gov. Walker in a bad light, and she’s suddenly fired for tasteless tweets.

Seems a little...suspicious.

Don’t get me wrong: firing her was the right thing to do. The comments that Palmisano made are disgusting, and she was deservingly kicked off of the Walker campaign.

The thing is, Palmisano deserved to be fired a long time ago. Palmisano didn’t deserve to be on the campaign for as long as she did, much less to get a promotion five months ago.

For a governor whose administration did enough of a background check on a STUDENT that they would refuse him a position on the board of regents for signing a recall petition, you’d think his own campaign would do enough of a check on a potential hire to know that they have such extreme racist views.

And that’s why I’m skeptical Palmisano was fired for the right reasons.