RICHMOND, Va. — Tim Kaine wore a lapel pin during his speech Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention that provoked a confused, targeted comment from the North Carolina Republican Party’s Twitter account.
Kaine wore a lapel pin with a blue star on it, not a flag pin. The person handling the Twitter account tweeted it was “shameful” that Kaine wore a “Honduras flag pin on his jacket but no American flag.”
The Democratic Vice President nominee wore a Blue Star Service pin for his son Nat, a U.S. Marine with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines, who just deployed to eastern Europe, according to the Marine Corps Times.
Kaine mentioned him in the first few minutes of his national address from the DNC.
The tweet was deleted after WYNT reporter Ben Amey pointed out the reason Kaine wore the pin. He saved a screenshot of it as well.
The flag of Honduras is blue and white, with five blue stars.
On Thursday, around 3 p.m., an apology was issued on the Facebook page of the North Carolina Republican Party.
Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the political group, stated “We demand accountability from our elected officials and our government. Those standards apply do and should apply to us as well.”
The full statement is below.
As the Executive Director of the North Carolina Republican Party, we offer our sincere and unqualified apology for the mistake made on Twitter last night regarding Gov. Kaine’s lapel pin. The tweet was wrong on the facts, wrong in tone and should not have happened.
We would like to offer a sincere apology to Senator Tim Kaine, his family, and his Marine son who is honorably serving overseas.
The members of the staff that were invoked are facing severe internal sanctions and mandatory retraining.
When we learned of our mistake, we immediately took steps to rectify it. There are now procedural measures in place to make sure it does not happen again.
While I did not see or authorize the tweet, as the Director of our organization I take full responsibility for our carelessness.
Again, we are incredibly thankful for the service of Sen. Kaine’s son, and all United States military, past and present, who fight for our freedom.
We demand accountability from our elected officials and our government. Those standards apply do and should apply to us as well.
