SD 56 GOP web video prompts call for ouster of district chair

Two developments on the story of the Senate District 56 GOP’s choice to embed a sexist video on its website. First the video was removed from the site, and now it’s been yanked from the YouTube account where the party unit found it. Also, the incident has sparked a group — which, according to its Twitter handle, claims to be made up of GOP women — seeking the ouster of Joe Salmon as the SD 56 GOP’s Basic Political Operating Unit chair.

The video, which compared the “hotness” of women from both major political parties, with Republicans getting far more flattering treatment, included music from Baha Men’s “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Universal Music Group, which owns the rights to that tune, had the video removed “on copyright grounds” from YouTube user Factsarestubbornthin‘s page, where the district GOP found it.

However the video remains elsewhere on YouTube; you can watch it embedded at The Week, which dubbed it “the most sexist political ad ever.” (It’s unclear who created the video, but contrary to some media reports, nothing suggests SD 56 GOPers or the Republican Party of Minnesota were involved.)

Last week, the choice to embed the video drew complaints from women’s groups, including EMILY’s List and the Women’s Media Center, and criticism from the district’s two GOP-endorsed women, candidates Kathy Lohmer (who called for the resignation of webmaster Randy Brown) and Andrea Kieffer (who called the video “juvenile“). They feature prominently in the new website targeting SD 56′s GOP chair, Joe Salmon Must Go. A Twitter account called MnGOPWomen declares Salmon “a misogynist who does not represent Republican values!” Both the Twitter account and site give contact information for Kieffer and Lohmer, as well as Salmon, but do not identify who’s behind the oust-Salmon effort.

“We also believe that any individual who so publicly attacks women of this nation and the State of Minnesota as as ‘dogs,’ should never be a BPOU Chair of SD 56 for the MN GOP,” the site states.

“Minnesota women and their families have sacrificed greatly for this nation and do not deserve to be demeaned in this manner by an individual who would demean women in such a way and then claim women need a ‘sense of humor.’”

That last bit echoes webmaster Brown’s comments to the Minnesota Independent about the humorous intent behind the posting of the video. “It wasn’t intended to be fair,” wrote Brown in an email. “It was intended to be funny.”

As for Lohmer’s calls for his job? Apparently unsuccessful: As of Saturday, he’s back posting on the SD 56 site.