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August 7, 2012

NJDC Condemns GOP House Candidate Agana’s Premeditated Comparison of Obama to Hitler

Listed in: Other Domestic Policy, Reproductive Rights, NJDC News, Press Releases

Boehner, Cantor, Sessions, Mandel, and Other GOPers Must Condemn Agana’s Deliberate Disrespect for the Holocaust

WASHINGTON, DC- The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) today condemned Ohio Republican House candidate Marisha Agana’s deliberate and premeditated use of abusive Holocaust rhetoric. NJDC President and CEO David A. Harris said:

“As we’ve said repeatedly, invoking the Holocaust to make a political point is never acceptable. But Republican House candidate Marisha Agana took abusive Holocaust rhetoric to new heights by having an orchestrated plan—as her own campaign manager admitted—to compare the President of the United States to Hitler in order to attract attention to her campaign. Agana’s actions are disrespectful and shameful, period.

“NJDC demands a full and real apology from Agana—and we implore House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chair Pete Sessions (R-TX), Ohio’s Republican Senate candidate State Treasurer Josh Mandel, and other leading Ohio and Jewish Republicans to denounce Agana’s offensive and deliberate actions.”

Agana’s behavior places her among an infamous club of Republicans who have shamefully abused the Holocaust to make political points. Club members include presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Governor Rick Scott (R-FL), Governor Paul LePage (R-ME), Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Representatives Allen West (R-FL), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and Trent Franks (R-AZ), WV Senate candidate John Raese, OH House candidate Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, and FL House candidate Adam Hasner - among others.

According to Politico:

An Ohio congressional candidate isn’t backing down from a controversial tweet in which she put President Barack Obama in the company of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Rather, she’s glad to finally get some media attention….

Agana was responding to the controversy over her tweeting on Sunday, ‘History has a way of repeating itself: Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung and now Obama!!!’ Replying to an angry Twitter user, she clarified on Monday morning: ‘@madest I am sorry if I made a poor choice of analogy but I was referring to his pro-abortion stance!’

Larry Nichols, Agana’s campaign manager, told POLITICO later on Monday that he’s ‘tickled that ... we’re finally getting attention in a race that hasn’t been getting a lot of attention.’

Agana runs her own Twitter account and ‘is a plain-spoken woman’ who ‘does not stutter, and she is not playing around,’ he said. The campaign had planned to associate Obama with Hitler, Stalin and Zedong two weeks from now, but Agana posted the tweet early—nonetheless, she ‘stands by it’ because she considers abortion to be genocide, he said.

Click here for the full article.