Private email sent in 2011 by Jamie Johnson, Perry’s latest campaign hire, was leaked ahead of 2012 Iowa caucus when he was part of Rick Santorum’s staff

Rick Perry’s latest hire as a top campaign staffer was embroiled in controversy in 2012 over a private email which suggested children’s lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president, according to the Des Moines Register.

Jamie Johnson is a longtime Iowa Republican activist who was hired by former Texas governor and likely 2016 presidential candidate Rick Perry on Wednesday to organize conservatives in Iowa and other early primary states. Johnson is a member of the party’s state central committee and was a staffer for Rick Santorum’s caucus-winning campaign in 2012.

The controversial email, which Johnson sent to a friend in the summer of 2011 and which was then leaked to the Des Moines Register a few months later, included the question, the paper reported: “Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will ... to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?”

At the time his email was released, Peter Waldron, a Michelle Bachmann operative who later wrote a tell-all about the former Minnesota congresswoman’s fall from grace, claimed that it was part of “a sexist strategy” employed by Santorum’s campaign to win over social conservatives. Waldron said Johnson and other Iowa evangelicals were promoting “the idea that a female cannot be an elected official or a commander-in-chief”.

Santorum eventually finished first in the Iowa caucuses with just under 25% of the vote, while Bachmann ended up in sixth place on caucus night. After Iowa, Johnson did not work for Santorum in any other primary states.

In an interview with the Guardian, Johnson emphasized both that it was a private communication and that the email in which he wrote those words was taken out of context.

He said the email was “sent to one person, speaking as a pastor, to someone who is a personal friend of mine”. Johnson emphasized this was a “private message” and not intended to be shared publicly.

He contrasted this with the tweets posted by Liz Mair, a former digital strategist for Wisconsin governor and presidential hopeful Scott Walker, prior to her brief employment with the campaign that criticized ethanol subsidies and Iowa’s outsized role in the presidential nominating process. Johnson said those tweets, which quickly prompted Mair’s resignation, were intended to be public and she knew that. In contrast, he argued that his remarks came in private correspondence in his role as a pastor and was about “theological nuances”.

Johnson also made clear that he is comfortable with women in office, and he told the Guardian: “Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher have proven for a long time now that women can do anything that men can do and do it well.”

However, in light of Mair’s abrupt resignation from Walker’s campaign this week, Johnson’s sudden prominence raises questions about whether all remarks by political staffers are fair game.

One well-connected female GOP operative who declined to be identified for attribution told the Guardian that Johnson’s comments might not necessarily matter in the long term and could be perceived as “inside baseball”. However, she did note that, for operatives, “everything about you is fair game now”. The GOP strategist went on to point out that while she “vehemently disagrees” with Johnson’s email, his personal opinions don’t necessarily mean he’s the wrong person to do the job on that campaign.

Dave Carney, a top Republican political strategist who worked for Perry in 2012, said a hire like Johnson’s “really depends on the tolerance level that a campaign has for distractions”. He went on to note: “The vetting process for serious campaigns, particularly at this point, is fast and furious.” Further, he said the real question for a primary campaign is not how something looks in a general election, “but the next election” – in particular, whether “what an employee or supporter have may have said is offensive to your base and niche”.



“Americans are looking for an optimistic vision for the future and will judge candidates based on their records, not their genders,” said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Perry’s political action committee