Editor’s note regarding Phil Mitsch Twitter feed

Phil Mitsch, the 6th District Senate candidate who last week was the subject of a story on PolitickerNJ regarding off

Phil Mitsch, the 6th District Senate candidate who last week was the subject of a story on PolitickerNJ regarding off color Twitter messages he sent to a follower, has today disavowed the messages came from him, despite an admission last week that the messages represented his “dry humor.”

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First in nearly two dozen twitter posts and later in a release, Mitsch,  recanting his initial response, called the story “fraudulent” and claimed the messages did not come from him.

Mitsch blamed the Camden County Democrats and specifically the Democratic 6th District slate of Sen. James Beach and Assemblyman Lou Greenwald and Assemblywoman Pam Lampitt for fabricating the messages, saying they were “cobbled together” from other posts on his Twitter feed. 

“Comments attributed to me absolutely don’t reflect anything I would say,” said Mitsch.  “While I may have used some of these words in my 65,000-plus social media posts, they’ve been cobbled together in a way that I don’t even recognize as my thought process.

The 6th district Democratic slate has called for Mitsch to resign as a candidate.

I have spoken to the recipient as well as another source familiar with the timeline of the messages and the recipient’s release of them and I do not believe that the messages are fabricated. In short, I stand by our story unequivocally. 

PolitickerNJ reporter Max Pizarro spoke to Mitsch twice, on both Thursday and Friday, and at no time did Mitsch deny the messages came from him and in fact gave the reporter several quotes about them, even explaining that they were sent to a specific individual.  Mitsch went as far as to explain the humor behind one of the quotes.

Apparently today Mitsch changed his mind.

I spoke with Bill Macready, Mitsch’s campaign manager, earlier today and Macready told me he and Mitsch had discussed the context of the messages, including the back story on the individual they were sent to.

Three hours later Mitsch issue a release saying a screenshot of the messages had been fabricated.  Asked to explain the discrepancy in the stories, Macready said Mitsch is not denying that a conversation with an individual took place, only that the words as presented in the screen shot and as quoted in the story were not correct.  Neither Mitsch nor his campaign manager has presented any evidence to suggest this is true, instead offering as explanation that the follower who received the message was cheating on his wife, leading Mitsch to “mock him.”  The man is not married.

In the interest of preserving our reputation and clarifying the situation, I am linking to a screen shot of the messages sent to one of his followers on April 12 of this year. The screen shot has been cropped to exclude the name of the recipient. The Mitsch camp has asked that I be clear that the comments in question were sent as a direct message on Twitter to a follower and were not part of  Mitsch’s public Twitter feed.  The candidate and his campaign manager believe that because the message was sent to a follower, it is not relevant to the public. I disagree.

“I want to make it clear that these were not Tweets they were private messages and its only one half of the dialog,” said Mitsch Campaign Manager Bill Macready.  “Whoever supplied it did not supply his half of the dialog.”

Attached also is a screen shot of another Mitsch tweet, this one in the public feed, that purports to give relationship advice to both men and women, including guidance that in order to keep their man, women should remain faithful and be “whores” in the bedroom.  The tweet was posted twice in both August and September.

PolitickerNJ will no longer follow the candidate’s Twitter feed. 

Editor’s note regarding Phil Mitsch Twitter feed