GOP Congressional Candidate Posts, Then Deletes, Endorsement From Mitt Romney
July 24, 2014
By Amanda Terkel
WASHINGTON — New York state Sen. Lee Zeldin (R) had big news this morning: Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney was endorsing him in his bid for Congress.
“Senator and Army Reserve Major Lee Zeldin is exactly the type of new blood Washington so desperately needs,” read Romney’s statement, which went up on the campaign site’s news feed at 10:15 a.m.
But an hour later, it was gone.
House Majority PAC, which aims to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives, detected the change using Squakr, a new tool that enables progressive candidates and organizations to track, capture and archive online content.
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When asked why the press release had been taken down, campaign spokeswoman Jennifer DiSiena simply replied, “I don’t know. I sent you the link, so that’s what we have out.”
“We sent it out today to our email list, and we put it up on the website,” she added. DiSiena said she didn’t know exactly when it went out.
The article was re-posted in the news section of the site at 4:30 p.m. — after The Huffington Post’s inquiry — and tweeted out at about the same time.
Romney’s endorsement comes just two days after Zeldin won a tough GOP primary against challenger George Demos, who had the backing of former New York Gov. George Pataki and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He is taking on Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) in the fall. Bishop defeated Zeldin in 2008 by more than 50,000 votes.