The Desert Sun reports two candidates for Palm Springs City Council are being criticized by a former council member for associating with a local activist who messaged a Jewish author a picture of Adolf Hitler on Facebook.
“This is our moment Palm Springs — reject this kind of behavior now, before Nazi imagery becomes acceptable in our local political discourse,” former councilman Paul Lewin posted on Facebook on Sunday.
Lewin asked voters to reject Robert Stone and Judy Deertrack at the polls as they were “openly courting the support” of Barbara Beaty, who appears to have replied and tagged a picture of Adolf Hitler to a to Tod Goldberg, who is the administrative director of UC Riverside’s MFA Program, in a local Facebook Group.
Here’s Lewin’s post, which included screengrabs of the original message as well as a post from Beaty and Deertrack’s website.
Like most of you, my heart hurt when I saw Nazis marching in Charlottesville, VA this summer. Then my heart broke, when…
Posted by Paul Lewin on Sunday, September 24, 2017
Deertrack’s campaign website lists Beaty as a supporter and Stone cancelled a fundraiser at Beaty’s home after seeing the post. He told the newspaper his opponents were using this to cost him votes.
“My opponents have taken this really stupid and unintentional posting that is a year and a half old and used it to mount a smear campaign against me. That’s what’s going on and that’s all I have to say on the subject,” he said.
Beaty released a YouTube video to explain why she sent a picture of Hitler to Goldberg, who she calls “Ted”, in which she calls herself a “dummie” for “ever even thinking he was Jewish or that would be offensive.” She also says she has been support and praying for Israel for many years.”
She then goes on say that this all possibly has to do with a “real heated political time” in Palm Springs and a little has to do with her being a Republican and voting for Trump.
The Palm Springs election is Tuesday, November 7.
