Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley campaign’s continues to distance itself from a controversial minister, who said Friday that she stepped down from a position with the campaign due to time constraints.
Foley’s campaign maintained Friday that a mailing list mistake led to the brief appointment of controversial minister Barbara Sexton as the leader of an Independents coalition for the candidate.
Sexton’s appointment drew criticism earlier this week from Democratic Chair Nancy DiNardo, who said that the minister had written “racial missives all over the internet.”
The “racial missives” Democrats referred to stem from posts on Sexton’s blog. In one post Sexton claims, “All blacks voted for Barack, period. While I was not surprised, I know I was lied to by some close friends who said they did otherwise, but surely they ‘voted for the brother.’”
In another post Sexton insists that President Barrack Obama is a Muslim “masquerading as a Christian.”
A spokesperson for Foley said Friday that the Republican gubernatorial nominee did not agree with the statements that Sexton had made and that the minister may have had a conversation with a low-level staffer who had no authority to make her leader of the coalition.
However, Sexton said that she’s still working for the Foley campaign but in a different capacity.
“I am working for the Foley campaign,” she said, “just not as the Independent Coalition Chair because I quickly discovered that I simply don’t have the time to devote to it.”
But according to Foley spokesperson Liz Osborn, Sexton is a supporter who has no official role in the campaign.
In a recent posting on her blog Dear Ones Healing Ministry, Sexton responded to DiNardo’s criticisms and said she would forgive the Democrat for what she called political bullying. But the minister also alluded to forgiving the Foley campaign, saying, “So I forgive you, Nancy…even as I forgive Team Foley.”
When asked what she was forgiving the campaign for, she said it was for not removing her profile from Foley’s website quick enough after she decided she didn’t have the time for the role.
The difference between the two stories isn’t sitting well with Democrats. “It’s clear that [the Foley campaign] isn’t telling the entire truth here,” said Colleen Flanagan a spokesperson for the state Democratic Party. “She has acknowledged that she was the Independent Coalition Chair. They need to explain why they had her as chair to begin with.”