After two days of hearing outrage from partisan opponents and members of the Asian-American community over a pair of offensive tweets, a policy aide to gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna has resigned from her position on his campaign.

Kathlyn Ehl was thrust into the spotlight when messages she sent from her Twitter account prior to joining the McKenna campaign were made public Monday on The Stranger’s SLOG blog.

In a release issued only moments ago, McKenna campaign manager Randy Pepple explained that the last two days have been spent making direct apologies to leaders in the Asian community and giving members of the campaign’s Asian-American supporters the opportunity to speak with Ehl about the gravity of the matter.

“I felt it was important to provide an opportunity for our Asian American Coalition leaders, who have spent countless hours over the last year working to advance our campaign in their community, to let Kathlyn know how hurtful her comments were to them,” said Randy Pepple, McKenna’s campaign manager.  “It was important for her to thoroughly understand their feelings and to apologize to them for her comments.

The question will be, does Ehl’s resignation come too late to preserve the inroads McKenna and his campaign staff have endeavored to build into key communities that could swing his election chances?

In a KING5/SurveyUSA poll of the race conducted in May, Asian-American voters statewide broke 41 percent to McKenna, 36 percent to Inslee, and 23 percent undecided. Asian-American voters represented 10 percent of the registered voters surveyed, and comprise approximately 7 percent of the electorate statewide. In a race as close as this one is expected to be, significant attention will be paid to primary results to see if McKenna’s favor among Asian voters was impacted.

The complete statement from the McKenna campaign reads:

On Monday, the Rob McKenna for Governor campaign learned of two offensive tweets sent by a staff person, Kathlyn Ehl.  Ms. Ehl started work as a campaign volunteer in April and, following her graduation from the University of Washington, became a paid policy assistant last month.  Pending an investigation into these actions, which took place before she began volunteering on the campaign, Ms. Ehl was suspended without pay.  Today, after facilitating an exchange between Ms. Ehl and the leaders of the campaign’s Asian American Coalition, her resignation was accepted.

“I felt it was important to provide an opportunity for our Asian American Coalition leaders, who have spent countless hours over the last year working to advance our campaign in their community, to let Kathlyn know how hurtful her comments were to them,” said Randy Pepple, McKenna’s campaign manager.  “It was important for her to thoroughly understand their feelings and to apologize to them for her comments.

“After consulting with the leaders of our Asian American Coalition, members of our Seattle Steering Committee, and several others I reached out to, I accepted Kathlyn Ehl’s resignation from our campaign this morning,” Pepple added.

“As the father of two young women, it pains me to accept the resignation of a young woman for a mistake which occurred before she had even begun her career. However, as we have said, and Kathlyn readily acknowledges, her tweets were offensive and insensitive. Kathlyn suggested, and I agreed after consultation with some of our campaign’s grassroots leaders, that her ongoing involvement on the campaign would be a constant reminder of her lapse in judgment.

“Life teaches us difficult lessons, and sometimes at a very young age.  My hope is that she will find some benefit from having learned this lesson now, as it will undoubtedly be a long-lasting one,” Pepple concluded.

Pepple’s decision came after a meeting had been arranged to encourage direct dialogue between Ms. Ehl and McKenna’s Asian American Coalition and Seattle Steering Committee leaders.

“My fellow volunteers appreciated hearing from Ms. Ehl and the campaign’s willingness to seek input from us,” said W. Walter Liang, McKenna’s Seattle-North King County Steering Committee chairman and Asian American Coalition co-chair.  “My colleagues and I are confident Ms. Ehl’s apology is sincere, but we also feel it is important to show the community that even an immature error cannot be overlooked when it has such a profound impact.”

 

[Correction: The original story cited survey data from a poll only of registered voters in the 1st Congressional District. The correct statewide polling information was inserted in this edited version.]

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