Marisha Agana, candidate in Ohio's 13th Congressional District, which includes a large part of Trumbull County, ignited a firestorm over the weekend on her Twitter and Facebook accounts by comparing President Barack Obama to Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong.
The Republican tweeted Sunday morning, ''History has a way of repeating itself: Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung and now Obama,'' and after some outraged responses, she tweeted an apology and a bit of an explanation Monday for her ''poor choice of analogy, but I was referring to his pro-abortion stance!''
Later Monday, Agana, a pediatrician from Howland, offered more of a clarification on her campaign Facebook page.
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Dr. Marisha Agana
''I am 100% against abortion and I am excited that this issue has come to the forefront of my campaign. I know life begins at conception and therefore those yet to be born are actually living human beings and should be taken care of not killed,'' she wrote.
''I hope all of you understand my position on abortion better now and why I put national leaders that believe in and support abortion into a special group of leaders who have either committed or supported genocide. Because of this and the position Mr. Barrack (sic) Hussain (sic) Obama has taken on abortion directly as well as the use of Obamacare to provide contraception and abortifacient drugs I feel it is proper and important to have included him on the list I tweeted about.''
Agana's campaign manager, Larry Nichols, said they stand behind the tweet ''100 percent, 1 million percent.''
''What we are saying is, Hitler, Stalin, they killed millions of Jews, they committed genocide,'' Nichols said. ''Those national leaders that support abortion, especially those that support Obamacare and the parts relative to abortion in it, you are supporting genocide in her mind, her eyes, so we intended to show through this statement and her approach that she believes firmly, any national leader, Obama or whoever that directly support, through Marisha's eyes are supporting genocide.''
Agana's explanation on Facebook wasn't well accepted. One of the kinder posters called for Agana to immediately apologize. ''This is not how a person running for office behaves in this country,'' he wrote.