September 18, 2014 03:41 PM UTC

Don Suppes Thinks You're Stupid

• 11 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Earlier this week, we took note of the fact that Republican SD-5 candidate Don Suppes has suspended both of his Twitter accounts following disclosure of a Tweet from last May linking to a white supremacist website as an "interesting read." Suppes, who bills himself as the "most conservative mayor in Colorado," is already in hot water over crazy remarks he made in a recent debate against Democratic opponent Kerry Donovan–and Tweeting this kind of stuff plants Suppes firmly in the ranks of what we are calling the "WTF Gang" of disastrously nutty Republican legislative candidates. Suppes was already on the short list after his weakness United Nations conspiracy theories was exposed earlier this summer.

Yesterday, Suppes responded to the growing controversy over his now-disabled Twitter accounts. Unfortunately, it's almost certainly BS:

Candidate for Colorado Senate District 5 Don Suppes has suspended his Twitter account after noticing unauthorized activity. According to a press release from the Suppes campaign the Republican claims "The Democrats have utilized this opportunity to run a smear campaign"… [Pols emphasis] 

Campaign Manager Matt Soper said, "The account hacking had been reported to the appropriate authorities." Don Suppes is running for Colorado State Senate, Dist. 5.against Democrat Kerry Donovan. District 5 covers a vast section of south-central Colorado, ranging from Aspen, and Delta,  through the San Luis Valley to the New Mexico border.

There are two key things to understand here. The first is that Suppes maintains 2 separate Twitter accounts (@DonSuppes and @DonSuppes2014), both of which he has suspended — so he expects you to believe that BOTH of his Twitter accounts were hacked? The second is that the offending Tweet in question was posted months ago–all the way back in May — on @DonSuppes2014. It would be one thing if this was a recent Tweet, but the idea that Suppes would have simply let this sit in on his page for months without ever noticing it strains credulity to say the least. And if this was some kind of nefarious Democratic attack, why would they just post this one link with only the words "interesting read?" We have no idea how to go about hacking a Twitter account, but we assume it requires some effort–effort that would either be noticed in the form of "failed login" alerts from Twitter, or noticed because whoever would go through that much trouble would surely do much more damage.

Who would go through the trouble of doing this to a rural Colorado Senate candidate–months ago?

The last instance we can recall of a politician claiming his Twitter account was "hacked" after something untoward was posted to it was former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner. Weiner claimed his Twitter account had been hacked, and his infamous "dick pics" uploaded by someone out to get him.

Everybody remembers how that turned out, right?

Bottom line: the Tweets are bad enough by themselves. Suppes' belated cover story about their origin is next to impossible to believe. The most likely scenario is exactly what it looks like: Suppes, a far-right conservative, got caught Tweeting the kinds of offensive stuff far-right conservatives tend to Tweet. When caught, he realized that it looks bad, deleted everything in a panic, and then cooked up a cover story that probably sounds perfectly believable out in Orchard City.

Just not anywhere where people know how these things work.