Ugly, disgusting social media posts just another of Ted Howze’s many missteps
“Disgusting” and “ugly.”
Those are the words congressional candidate Ted Howze chose to describe alarmingly hateful posts and retweets emanating from his own social media accounts, while simultaneously trying to deflect responsibility for them.
Caught once again in an embarrassing position, Howze once again decided to blame someone else.
When Politico asked Howze’s campaign about his provocative 2017 and 2018 posts and retweets, he released a statement claiming he didn’t write them. How could a 53-year-old seeking high and mighty office use social media to mock the survivor of a high school massacre? To call the founder of Islam a rapist and pedophile? To joke about Muslim men having sex with goats? To accuse Hillary Clinton of murder? To opine that Mexican immigrants are criminals?
“Like many folks in my middle-age group, I learned the very hard lesson to never allow anyone access to social media accounts or passwords,” Howze (pronounced hows) said in a statement. “I made the mistake of allowing others access to these accounts unknowingly.”
Middle-aged folks ought to find that explanation insulting.
Marbled as his incendiary posts were among other benign ones about family vacations, Howze’s claim that some unnamed soul wrote and retweeted the disgusting and ugly stuff strains credulity and requires one to abandon God-given common sense.
Let’s pretend for a moment that Howze’s explanation is actually true. Let’s imagine that he’s close enough to someone to grant access to his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts, and to allow that person to post and retweet — in Howze’s name — such disgusting and ugly thoughts. And that Howze, a former Turlock councilman, was fine with it — until the moment he decided to run for Congress the first time, in early 2018, when he suddenly realized they might come back to haunt him.
What does that say about Howze?
The offensive posts and retweets disappeared the day he became a candidate, says the political operative who saved screen shots of them. Confronted with proof of their existence, Howze has decided he didn’t write them after all.
When asked about them by The Modesto Bee, Howze sent his campaign manager to respond.
Howze shirks responsibility
This pattern of refusing to own his mistakes is disgusting and ugly. But maybe not surprising.
When a pedophile hoping to have sex with a child was arrested wearing a Howze campaign T-shirt in April 2019, and the arrest photo appeared on Lathrop police’s Facebook page, Howze pressured the San Joaquin County sheriff to do something to relieve Howze’s embarrassment, and he did. When it turned into a public relations problem, Howze refused to acknowledge any mishandling of the situation.
In The Bee’s memorable January debate at the State Theatre in Modesto, Howze wrongly told 500 attendees that his office had helped a 100-year-old World War II veteran get medical treatment after Rep. Josh Harder’s office wouldn’t. Then he wrongly said Harder’s office had likewise ignored “so many others,” when the truth was that Harder’s office had helped hundreds. The Bee’s Kevin Valine spoke with the veteran’s family and proved that Howze’s account was a lie. Howze’s explanation absolved himself of all responsibility as he threw a campaign volunteer under the bus.
Howze struggles with truth, and when confronted by it, he struggles with responsibility. His willingness to let others take the fall for him is not just troubling — it’s disgusting and ugly.
Disgusting and ugly, indeed
This is the man who brought two defamation lawsuits seeking a combined $12 million against Tom Mayfield four months after Mayfield beat Howze in a 2004 Stanislaus County supervisorial race. Mayfield’s supporters had said Howze berated a female referee and bullied young players and their parents at a 2003 youth soccer game.
This is the man who, early this year, refused to personally answer questions about whether he really lives in a house he owns in Turlock or in his home in an exclusive Stockton gated community outside the congressional district he wants to represent.
This is a man willing to dishonestly exploit an elderly veteran for political gain.
This is a man who has not apologized to Stanislaus County Chief Executive Officer Jody Hayes for referring to him as “she” in an April email to supporters. That was a curious and ignorant mistake, but not malicious.
Howze’s recently uncovered posts and retweets were malicious. They were disgusting and ugly.
Whether penned by himself or approved with a wink and a nod — until deemed a potential political liability, when they suddenly disappeared — matters little. They were hateful and inexcusable, and they speak to his character.
The people of the 10th Congressional District deserve better.
This story was originally published May 8, 2020 at 11:46 AM.
