If you haven’t heard the name Randy Rinaldo yet this week, you’re clearly not active on social media.
The Liberals’ newly declared candidate for Burnaby-Lougheed, Randy Rinaldo, has come under fire for some pretty offensive things he’s said in the past on his Twitter account. His comments on the Roma population are, simply, racist. And his remark that poor folks who have kids are irresponsible is just plain ignorant.
But should those comments have automatically disqualified him as a Liberal candidate?
The Liberals vetted him and decided to let him remain. And Rinaldo has now apologized for his contentious comments.
Social media has become a huge swamp of impetuous stupidity. It is also a wonderful network of caring, thoughtful people. The debate is often raucous and not for the faint of heart. For some on Twitter, it often appears to be a place to vent with little regard for who is reading the tweets.
For others, it is clearly a place for considered, cautious opinions. Participants’ character and judgment is bared in 140 characters or less. Jerks tend to tweet like jerks and nice folks like, well, nice folks.
What makes Twitter so compelling is that all of these approaches roll out cheek to jowl by the second. It’s a bit like watching 100 TV channels at once – only once in awhile one of those channels gets in the face of the other channel and beaks off.
When a tweeter, like Rinaldo, spits out something offensive, it’s just part of the stream – until he or she decides to run for political office. Then it’s news. As it should be.
And a year from now, unless the Liberal machine changes its tune, Rinaldo will be facing the voters and other political candidates in Burnaby.
His record of offensive tweets and opinions will be challenged, as they should be. The judgment of the Liberal Party will also be questioned for supporting him as a candidate.
The voters will be able to decide for themselves if Rinaldo’s comments were impetuous and whether he sincerely apologized, or whether he merely apologized to keep his running spot and avoid ongoing scrutiny.
We’re not sure if the Liberals should have allowed him to represent their party in the election, but we are sure that voters will and should have the final say on who best represents their values.
