Little Eric Dean's time on earth was spent in hell. His Stepmother is in prison for the rest of her life for her abuse that killed little Eric Dean. This is a horrible situation. This was a failure of government, especially at the county level to protect this child. Some say there is blame to go around at the state level for a new law that dealt with how multiple abuse claims were handled.
With a Democratic Majority and Governor Mark Dayton facing reelection, this sounded like the perfect tragedy for the Minnesota GOP and Republican Governor Candidate Jeff Johnson to capitalize on.
Family of Eric Dean calls on GOP to take down TV ad
In an emotional phone interview this evening, Yvonne Dean, the mother of Eric's father David, said Governor Mark Dayton was not to blame for Eric's death and was highly critical of the advertisement, calling it "unfair." Dean said the "system failed Eric at the county level...how could that be Governor Dayton's fault?"
Dean, who self-identified herself as Republican, said "I just can't believe somebody would use [Eric's death] for political gain," adding "I am awestruck that they have done something like this." Dean said "to use our family's tragedy, is crossing the line."
A picture of Eric is featured in the ad, but Dean said the family was not consulted or notified by anyone from the Republican Party of Minnesota that his image would be used. Dean said she "would not have allowed" Eric's image to appear in the advertisement, adding "a political campaign is not the proper place at all for those images to be used."
The Chairman of the Minnesota GOP is Keith Downey, a former GOP legislator.
He must be competing for GOP'r of the year with his Deputy, Chris Fields, who used the Robin William's death to try to get people to vote for his candidate in the GOP primary.
My cat's nickname is Nanu Nanu. The world is lucky Robin Williams was able to share his genius with so many.
— Ellen C. Anderson (@ellencanderson) August 11, 2014
Deputy GOP Chair Chris Fields responded
@ellencanderson how very 80's. Want an economy like we had in 80's under Reagan...Vote @Jeff4Gov tomorrow in the primary.
— chris fields (@ChrisFieldsMN) August 11, 2014
Chris Fields then went off on a 2 hour twitter rant defending his tweet. He apologized 2 days later and deleted his tweets after the story went national.
The Minnesota GOP is losing the Governor and US Senate race with two nameless boring candidates. No reputable poll has called the races close. However, the Minnesota GOP is poised to pickup the Minnesota House. The Minnesota Senate is not up for reelection and will remain under DFL control for at least 2 more years. The Minnesota GOP may very well be endangering their quest to pick up the Minnesota House with these their tone deaf campaign practices.
Despicable