Vote for me because I am…white?
That seems to be the key campaign message of a woman running to be mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina.
In a Facebook post, 52-year-old mayoral candidate Kimberley Paige Barnette suggested voters should pick her because she is “REPUBLICAN & SMART, WHITE, TRADITIONAL.”
Barnette is running to be the GOP candidate in the party’s primary. And any within the Republican party in Charlotte are distancing themselves from her comments.
“This contest will not be decided based on the skin color [of] the candidates,” Robin Hayes, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, said in a statement.
“Any suggestion that a candidate is more or less qualified for political office based on their skin color alone, is offensive to North Carolina Republicans and we condemn it.”
As for Barnette, who has since apologized for the now-deleted post, she did not help herself when trying to better explain what she meant in her post:
“I’m not prejudice. I do not judge other people,” she wrote in a publication. “Other people judge me. What is the difference? I say I’m white. Others describe themselves as example transgenders. Are they labeling themselves? I’m also a divorced mother of two adult children. I accept others as who they are. I have traditional conservative views when it comes to family and friendships.”
We’ll see how far she goes with that message.