Boise City Council member goes after media, McLean, critics in late night Twitter rant
It started with a reporter’s tweet.
Late Thursday, Boise City Council Member T.J. Thomson, an avid supporter of Mayor David Bieter’s bid for re-election, started tweeting about media coverage of endorsements in the Boise mayoral runoff.
It devolved from there, with Thomson tweeting out against everyone from City Council President Lauren McLean to those being critical of his tweets.
He began at 9:39 p.m. by retweeting with a comment a post by Idaho Press reporter Margaret Carmel. She had tweeted from Thursday’s mayoral candidate forum at Interfaith Sanctuary about McLean’s question to the audience asking where they’d like to be a year from now. The tweet was just a list of answers — Louisiana, Portland, Boise.
Thomson’s comment said “Yet, she has no support from a single colleague in 8 years in office. No one thinks this matters?”
He then replied to himself, tagging Carmel when asking “Why does no one cover this?”
Carmel responded with a single tweet about her coverage of the mayoral race. Thomson criticized it, saying that was “not quite the same as pointing out that not a single colleague she HAS EVER SERVED WITH wants her as Mayor.”
He followed up at 9:54 p.m., saying that “no one is covering this” but that he would leave Carmel alone.
Thomson said in a phone interview Friday that he felt the endorsement element was an important thing to point out. McLean and Bieter are facing off in a runoff election after no candidate got 50% of the vote during November’s election. McLean led the race with 45.7% of the vote, while Bieter came in second with 30.3%.
McLean, however, said the difference in endorsements is because “the current culture set by the mayor doesn’t encourage dissent or difference of opinion.”
“I knew that when I got into this race and I knew that I wouldn’t be running for public endorsements from elected officials; I would be running for Boise’s people,” McLean said in a text message statement.
Carmel said Friday that she had been covering endorsements sparingly because she wanted to focus on policy issues. The Statesman has taken a similar stance.
“Council member TJ Thomson did not agree with that, and that’s OK,” she said by phone.
Other people started responding to him. Rebecca De León, a marketing consultant, tweeted that his tweets, including ones “pushing around a young lady reporter on a public forum,” were bad optics. Thomson replied that Carmel could handle herself and that it would be nice if McLean would face Bieter in another public debate, which McLean has declined to do.
Anita Kissée, a spokeswoman for St. Luke’s Health System, tweeted from her personal account that she would be interested in a story like what Thomson described. Thomson replied by saying no one is more qualified or prepared than Bieter, but Kissée said that she thought there was more nuance than that.
“Would her colleagues support her even if it was not Mayor Bieter she was up against?” Kissée asked.
“I don’t believe so. No,” came Thomson’s quick reply.
Carmel commented on Thomson’s reply to Kissée, saying she thought it was interesting. Some of McLean’s supporters then entered the conversation. Caitlin Copple Masingill, who runs a strategic communications firm, asked why McLean’s colleagues had voted to make her the president of the Boise City Council.
De León responded that “maybe @TJThomson can mansplain it to you online as well.” Mansplaining refers to men talking down to women while explaining things.
Thomson responded by saying the term “made zero sense here.”
“I guess Now, men can’t debate any more,” he tweeted.
Copple Masingill sent a laughing emoji in response to De León’s optics tweet. Thomson then commented on that.
“If you get (offered) a new position in the city, if she wins, it will be heavily scrutinized by many,” Thomson wrote.
Copple Masingill responded that she liked her job and did not plan to leave it for a job with the city.
By Friday morning, Thomson had deleted his entire Twitter account, taking all of Thursday’s tweets with it. Online and off, people speculated whether Thomson’s tweets had been sent while he was intoxicated and debated why he opted to delete everything.
Thomson said Friday he hadn’t had anything to drink Thursday evening, but that he deleted his account because he’s “never been real good at Twitter” and that he wanted to take a break from social media.
“Sometimes, my emotions get the best of me,” he said by phone. “I’m passionate about our city. I’m passionate about our future — sometimes that comes out and gets the best of me.”
He said that he “certainly could always say things better” and said he would work to do that in the future. He also said he looked forward to working with whoever wins the mayor’s race. Thomson has two more years in his council term.
De León said that in supporting Bieter’s campaign so aggressively, she thought it was possible Thomson may have hurt it.
“I was really disappointed with the whole thing,” she said. “I think he was overstepping his boundaries.”
A spokesperson for Bieter’s campaign was not immediately available for comment.
The runoff mayoral election is Tuesday, Dec. 3. Early voting is underway.
This story was originally published November 22, 2019 at 1:04 PM.
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