FYI:
Ever since neo-Nazis and Klansmen descended on Charlottesville for a deadly August rally, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and other Virginia politicians have described them as out-of-state troublemakers who needed to “go home” and never come back.
On Thursday night, the Republican running to succeed McAuliffe said they did not even have a place in political debate.
“They called themselves the ‘alt-right,’” former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, a Republican said at an NAACP forum a month after the rally. “They are not on any legitimate political spectrum of left to right. If on a scale of one to 10 — one is the most liberal, and 10 is most conservative — these people are a yellow. They’re not on the same continuum.”
Gillespie, who titled his political memoir “Winning Right,” was not just defending his side of the political divide.
Through his remarks, delivered at a university created for freed slaves, just blocks from a boulevard with grand monuments to Gen. Robert E. Lee and other Southern Civil War figures, Gillespie sought to separate himself from President Trump.
The president’s response to Charlottesville was criticized for not drawing a moral distinction between the white supremacist protesters and the counterprotesters who opposed them.
Gillespie, who needs both Trump supporters and moderate swing voters to carry purple Virginia in November, has tried to separate himself from Trump on issues without directly criticizing the president.
Gillespie appeared at the Virginia Union University forum immediately after his Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam. Both took questions for about an hour but were not on stage at the same time.
Northam drew warm applause as he recalled what he and McAuliffe (D) said after the violence in Charlottesville, where a man identified as a white supremacist plowed his car into a crowd, killing a young counterprotester. Two state police troopers patrolling the events by air also died in a helicopter crash.
“We told them in no uncertain terms to, ‘Go back to where you came from and don’t come back,’” Northam said.
The crowd applauded again when Northam noted Trump did not initially identify the hate groups by name.
“I regret that the president of this great country of ours did not call it out for what it was,” Northam said. “I’m proud that Governor McAuliffe and Attorney General Mark Herring and I did.”
The reality is that Gillespie is more fixated on Trump voters than moderate voters because he doesn’t want Trump supporters to remember his record on this:
“Who will keep your family safe?” begins the attack ad, blasting the Democratic candidate for casting “the deciding vote in favor of sanctuary cities that let illegal immigrants back on the street,” over the sound of police sirens.
That’s not an unusual tone for a GOP ad, especially in the Trump era. But the candidate it says will “get tough on illegal immigration” is surprising: Virginia gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie, who for more than a decade has been one of the GOP’s loudest champions for immigration reform.
The spot, Gillespie’s first negative ad ahead of this November’s election, is part of his dramatic rightward tonal shift on immigration issues. And it shows how difficult a balancing act Republicans face in swing territory, torn between a furious base and suburban swing voters who detest President Trump.
Not long ago, Gillespie was a leading voice pushing his party to embrace immigrants.
He chaired the Republican National Committee under President George W. Bush, playing a key role in pushing Bush’s failed efforts at comprehensive immigration reform. He was one of the masterminds behind Bush’s 2004 campaign that actively wooed Latinos — including the “Viva Bush” yard signs that popped up across the nation — and helped Bush hit the high water mark of recent GOP nominees with more than 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls.
As chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee, a group focused on state-level races, Gillespie laid out the goal of recruiting 100 Hispanic GOP candidates for the 2014 elections. And he was deeply involved in helping pro-immigration reform Republicans develop their message ahead of the failed 2013 push for comprehensive immigration reform, conducting message testing, polling and focus groups to figure out how to sell conservative voters on the issue.
“The more information about immigration reform [conservatives] get, the more likely they are to be supportive of it,” Gillespie said back in 2013.
Gillespie’s moderate tone on immigration (and a GOP wave election) helped nearly led him to a shocking upset against Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) in 2014 — he lost by just two points after trailing by double digits in late polls.
But things have shifted dramatically since then within the party. And while Republicans have moved right on immigration, Virginia has continued to drift left, driven by huge growth in Washington, D.C.’s diverse and well-educated suburbs, leaving Gillespie on unstable footing.
“The Ed Gillespie of 2014 had a wind at his back. The Ed Gillespie of 2017 has the wind at his face. It’s not over, but it’s getting pretty stratified pretty quick,” said former Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA).
Gillespie was nearly upset in a primary earlier this summer against an underfunded and underestimated challenger, barely defeating former Trump state director Corey Stewart, who’d spent his campaign railing against illegal immigration and defending Confederate memorials. Gillespie currently trails Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) by single digits in most recent public and private polls.
Gillespie needs to be defeated for siding with Trump and President Obama’s group is helping assure Northam defeats Gillespie:
A Democratic group backed by former President Barack Obama recently made its first campaign donation: $500,000 to the Democratic Party of Virginia to help elect Ralph Northam as the state’s next governor.
The contribution from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) is part of its mission to end Republican advantages in congressional and legislative redistricting after the 2020 U.S. Census.
The group, formed in January and led by former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., aims to elect more Democrats to statehouses and governor’s mansions so they can expand their influence when it comes to redrawing districts.
Virginia’s next governor will be in a position to sign or veto redrawn districts in 2021, shaping politics in the swing state for the next decade.
Obama has said ending gerrymandering would be one of his top political priorities after leaving office. He headlined a July fundraiser for NDRC, which raised $10.8 million across its affiliates during the first half of the year, and plans to stump for Northam.
“This first campaign investment marks the next stage of the NDRC’s work for fairer maps in Virginia and around the country,” Holder said. “Ralph Northam is the clear choice for fairer maps that better reflect the values of Virginia’s communities. Virginians deserve a political system that works for voters, not politicians.”
Let’s make sure we pull off some big wins this year in Virginia. Click below to not only get involved with Northam’s campaign but also with Justin Fairfax’s (D. VA) Lt. Governor campaign, Attorney General Mark Herring’s (D. VA) re-election campaign, and the Virginia Democratic Party so we can make big gains in the Virginia House of Delegates:
Ralph Northam
Justin Fairfax
Mark Herring
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