Virginia Re-elects Kaine, Throws Out Three Republicans

Virginia continues its transformation into a blue state as Tim Kaine handily defeats GOP extremist and Neo-Confederate Corey Stewart and three Republican members of Congress go down to defeat.  Elaine Luria sent Donald Trump puppet Scott Taylor into retirement, pro-Trump David Brat lost to Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, and Jennifer Wexton utterly crushed Barbara Comstock.  Following the calls to racism and  trends of other recent elections, Virginia's cities and suburbs voted heavily Democrat while its increasingly out of touch with reality, backwater rural regions voted against their own long term economic interest and allowed themselves to be duped by GOP calls to racism and hatred of others.  Thankfully, Virginia's urban and suburban areas - the economic dynamo of Virginia's economy - reject GOP efforts to create a new Gilded Age filled with discrimination and bigotry.  Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

Virginia voters reproached President Donald Trump for the second year in row as Democrats flipped three congressional races and scored a convincing victory in a U.S. Senate race.

Democrats won GOP-held districts in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and the Richmond area, boosted by suburban voters unhappy with the president. The Virginia victories helped put Democrats on track to take control of the U.S. House.  All three Democratic congressional victories were by women, two of whom are new to politics.

"We succeeded at the polls tonight because voters rejected the politics of hate, the politics of division and the politics of ideology," said Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer.  She knocked off Republican Dave Brat in a Richmond-area district. Brat was a tea party favorite who scored a major upset four years ago when he defeated then-U.S. Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a GOP primary.

In Hampton Roads, Elaine Luria defeated Republican Rep. Scott Taylor. Luria, a former Navy commander, had never run for office before, like Spanberger. A former Navy SEAL, Taylor was viewed by many as up and comer in the GOP who had potential for future statewide run.

Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, another rising star in the GOP, lost her Northern Virginia seat to state Sen. Jennifer Wexton.

Democrats controlled only four out of 11 congressional seats in Virginia prior to Tuesday. Now they are set to control seven seats to the GOP's four.

The strong showing by Democrats highlights Virginia's continued dislike of the president, particularly among suburban voters. Virginia served as an early indicator for anti-Trump energy during its 2017 race for governor. Democrats trounced Republicans in all three statewide races and won more seats in the state House than virtually anyone expected.

Health care and immigration were top issues in voters' mind in this election, according to a wide-ranging survey of the electorate. And nearly 7 in 10 voters said Trump was a reason for their vote.

One bright spot for Republicans was Denver Riggleman, who won an open seat in central Virginia against Democrat Leslie Cockburn in a district that Trump won by 11 percentage points.

With Corey Stewart's huge loss to Tim Kaine, one has to wonder when the Virginia Republicans will decide to come into the 21st century and stop nominating lunatic Neanderthals. 

Virginian Pilot Endorses Tim Kaine, Elaine Luria and Donald McEachin

Elaine Luria and Tim Kaine - the best choices on November 6, 2018

While be too soft on why Scott Taylor is not acceptable for re-election to the House of Delegates for the 2nd Congressional District, the Virginia Pilot nonetheless went on to endorse Tim Kaine, Elaine Luria and Donald McEachin for the U.S. Senate, 2nd congressional district, and 4th congressional district, respectively. In the case of the Republican candidates for Senate seat and the 4th congressional district, the Pilot properly notes that the GOP candidates are right wing whack jobs who would not properly represent the interests of Virginia and the 4th district.  In the case of the 2nd district, the Pilot correctly notes that Luria is the better candidate, particularly in light of Taylor's staff's involvement in felony level fraud in seeking to keep Shaun Brown on the ballot to split the non-Republican vote. Taylor's blatant dishonesty on his voting history and his unbelievable claims of ignorance about the effort to put Shaun Brown on the ballot in my view, disqualify him from re-election.  The following are excerpts from the Pilot editorial endorsements: 

 2nd Congressional District:

Taylor's opponent, [Elaine] Luria, also is a Navy veteran of 20 years, and a small business owner in Norfolk. She has never held elected office, but she seems to have a good sense of the district’s concerns, particularly when it comes to health care, the protection of social safety net programs, and the needs of veterans.

Taylor has tried through advertising to paint her as an acolyte of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Luria projects as a centrist Democrat, which is keeping in line with the moderate electorate in the 2nd District. And her insistence on improving the way Washington works — improving the process by which Congress governs — is an issue with particular resonance in a place that depends so much on federal budgeting and spending.

Both Taylor and Luria are capable candidates, and both could represent the district well. But Taylor’s involvement in the cynical effort to place Brown on the ballot, his inability to account fully for the behavior of his staff and his lack of understanding of how his decisions raise legitimate questions about judgment and trust is a disqualifying offense.

Voters can be confident that by replacing him with Luria, they will be in good hands for the next two years.

4th Congressional District: 

Democratic incumbent Rep. Don McEachin . . . . remains the best candidate, as his opponents cannot make a compelling case to replace him. 

Libertarian Pete Wells is a well meaning and earnest candidate, but he lacks detailed knowledge of the issues facing the district.

And Republican Ryan McAdams might have enjoyed a turn in the spotlight when Vice President Mike Pence came to campaign for him recently, but his refusal to endorse the science of climate change — along with his endorsement of the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris accord and his belief that carbon might not be the cause of global warming, in opposition to countless scientific studies over decades — is unacceptable in a district where sea-level rise is an existential threat.

The 4th District needs McEachin to be a more familiar face in Hampton Roads — but it needs him to be the representative, above all.

U.S. Senate:

Finally, for U.S. Senate, incumbent Democrat Tim Kaine faces Republican challenger Corey Stewart and Libertarian Matt Waters in what should be a straightforward choice for Virginians.

Voters might not know Waters, who is running a lightly funded, almost Republican-lite campaign on his party’s ticket. But they are probably by now familiar with the bombastic Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.

He came to statewide attention in 2016 as the chairman, for a time, of the Donald Trump campaign in Virginia before last year mounting an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

His time in the spotlight has done little to make him a palatable option to represent Virginia. The Minnesota native seized on the issue of preserving Confederate statues as a path to political relevance and has worked in the year since to distance himself from Jason Kessler, organizer of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, with whom Stewart appeared at a different 2017 rally.

In contrast with his GOP opponent, Kaine has conducted himself as a senator with the type of affable, common-sense professionalism that distinguished his four years as governor and his time as mayor of Richmond before that.

The 2016 Democratic Party nominee for vice president has been a pointed voice in favor of reasserting congressional authority on military engagement and on behalf of service members, veterans and their families, a great many of whom live and work in this region.

A former civil rights lawyer, Kaine advances policies promoting diversity and inclusion, rather than pushing the politics of division and bringing more anger into the public square. And he helped lead the effort to thwart repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the mechanism by which some 400,000 Virginians will soon have access to coverage through Medicaid expansion.

The Daily Press likewise endorsed Tim Kaine here.

Corey Stewart Aide Compared GOP Establishment to "House Negro," Disparaged Civil Rights Leaders

Lest we forget that not all insane Republicans are found in Washington, D.C., Corey Stewart's campaign is underscoring the extremism of both Stewart's agenda and how the Republican Party of old is dead and gone.  Specifically, Rick Shaftan, a spokesman and leading consultant for Stewart called "establishment Republicans" by the derogatory term of "house Negros" and then went on to attack leaders in the civil rights movement.  Like Stewart who is challenging Democrat Tim Kaine for one of Virginia's U.S. Senate seats, Shaftan makes little effort to hide his racial bigotry or his willingness to subscribe to far right conspiracy theories.  Here are highlights from CNN:

A top consultant and spokesman for Corey Stewart, the Republican nominee for US Senate in Virginia, has used the term "house negro" to criticize the GOP establishment and disparaged prominent Civil Rights figures John Lewis and Rosa Parks.

Rick Shaftan made the comments in tweets newly uncovered by CNN's KFile. The previously unreported tweets come on the heels of a report from the Daily Beast that he described majority-black cities as "sh**holes" and told his followers not to open businesses in black neighborhoods.

Shaftan's consulting firm, Atlantic Media & Research, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Stewart's campaigns for governor and Senate, according to election records. He previously worked on Stewart's gubernatorial campaign and for a super PAC that backed Paul Nehlen, a candidate for Paul Ryan's congressional seat who has made racist and anti-Semitic posts on social media. 

Stewart, who has faced scrutiny of his own for defending Confederate symbols and publicly associating with white nationalists in the past, is challenging Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine in November.

Neither Shaftan nor the Stewart campaign returned a CNN request for comment. In response to the Daily Beast story, Shaftan wrote on Facebook, "I must have said something worse than that in all these years! They need to look harder."

A closer look reveals that in a tweet on October 2014, Shaftan wrote, "There are a lot of parallels between the 'House Negro' and the GOP Establishment."

In September 2015, Shaftan again used the derogatory term, which refers to slaves who worked in the house of their master as opposed to in the fields, implying that the slaves' loyalty lay with the master rather than with their fellow slaves.

In September 2015, he suggested that he did not admire civil rights figure Rosa Parks, tweeting, "Rosa Parks. Give me a effing break. How about PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY?" Schlafly was a conservative political activist.

Shaftan wrote of Democratic Georgia Rep. John Lewis in January 2017, "So what has John Lewis done besides get beat up 50+ years ago? #PompousAss." In 1965, a then- 25-year-old Lewis was beaten badly by state troopers while marching for voting rights in Alabama.

In other posts, Shaftan referred to Michael Brown, the black teenager shot by white police officer Darren Wilson, as a "thug", saying that he "received justice at the hands of Officer Wilson" in August 2014. In response to the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following Brown's shooting, Shaftan tweeted, "Animals. #Ferguson" in November 2014.

In July of this year, Shaftan referred to New Jersey's attorney general, the first Sikh to hold the office, as "Turban Man," a term for which two local radio hosts were suspended last week.

In April 2017, Shaftan also hinted at the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, joking on Facebook, "You all know we never saw the REAL Obama Birth Certificate because it had Politically Incorrect 1961 language on it."Responding to a comment saying that he thought the birth certificate might have said "illegitimate," Shaftan wrote, "Or 'bastard', or 'colored', or 'Negro', etc."

Sadly, Stewart and Shaftan now represent the face of much of the Republican Party base. It is crucial that anyone who finds this version of the GOP offensive get out and vote for Tim Kaine in November.  Stewart needs to lose by the widest margin possible. 

Corey Stewart Met By Laughter Over Lie About Trump "Standing UP to Putin"

Corey Stewart with GOP supporters.

Corey Stewart is an embarrassment to the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I'd say he's an embarrassment as well to the Republican Party except for the fact that he is now the face of the Republican Party in Virginia.  In addition to running his campaign for the U.S. Senate as a Neo-Confederate (seemingly in favor of restore the Jim Crow laws), Stewart is pandering to the knuckle dragging base of the Virginia GOP through his unflinching support of Der Trumpenführer, including his willingness to state baldfaced lies in Trump's support.  During the debate between Stewart and incumbent Democrat, Tim Kaine, over the weekend Stewart came up with a real howler: he told the debate audience that Trump had stood up to Vladimir Putin.  The audience response? Loud laughter.  A piece in Yahoo News looks at Stewart's buffoonery.  Here are excerpts:

Corey Stewart, Virginia’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, wasn’t joking ― but the audience was laughing.

During a weekend debate against incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Stewart declared: “We have a president who is standing up to the Russians.”

That got a loud chuckle from Kaine ― and from people in the audience.

The Confederate flag-defending challenger tossed out the praise for President Donald Trump as he criticized Kaine for his response to Russian hostilities, including its takeover of Crimea, during the Obama administration.

Trump has been assailed by Democratic and GOP lawmakers for a disastrous press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, in which he gave credence to Putin’s denials that Russia intervened in the 2016 election.

“President Trump is caving to the Russians,” Kaine ― Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election ― said at the debate, according to Richmond.com. “He believed Vladimir Putin even over the hardworking and patriotic Americans who have concluded that Russia is attacking our election.”

Corey Stewart Brings Turmoil Virginia Republicans

Having a neo-Confederate white supremacist at the top of the state ticket this year has thrown the Republican Party of Virginia into chaos.  While some 55% of Republicans nationwide support Donald Trump/Mike Pence's cruel, inhumane policy of separating immigrant children from the parents, for many of the few remaining moderates I knew when I held a position withing the Virginia GOP, Corey Stewart's avoid racism is simply too much.  The irony, of course, is that they refuse to admit that the national party is little better except in the level of openness on the party's racism. When Stewart hopefully goes down to a humiliating defeat, one can hope that in Virginia the GOP may begin to realize that its base of Christofascist extremists and white supremacists is viewed with disgust by a majority of Virginia voters and the myth that "true conservative" candidates are the solution to the party's problems.  Here are excerpts from the Virginian Pilot:

Corey Stewart's Republican nomination for U.S. Senate from Virginia has prompted an identity crisis within the state GOP, with some donors and activists saying they are so turned off, they are willing to vote for his Democratic opponent, Sen. Tim Kaine.

Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, catapulted to the U.S. Senate nomination - and nearly won the gubernatorial primary last year - by celebrating guns and Confederate statues, lambasting illegal immigrants, and associating with white nationalist Jason Kessler and Paul Nehlen, a Wisconsin candidate barred from Twitter because of anti-Semitic and racist posts.

His perch on top of the ticket has roiled Republican circles inside the state. On Saturday, the head of the Virginia Republican Party resigned his post. John Whitbeck declined to say why he was stepping down. "Other political opportunities have arisen for me that I am thinking about pursuing," he told members of the party's governing board at a meeting in Richmond.

Two other party leaders have resigned, but neither will say why. . . . . The Washington Post talked to more than 50 Virginia Republicans about the Senate race and found Stewart's Trumpian antics thrill supporters but turn off traditional donors and outside groups.

Bobbie Kilberg, a northern Virginia fundraiser and veteran of three Republican presidential administrations, said she will not open her checkbook - or home - to Stewart. . . . "I don't have to agree on everything with the people I support . . . but they need to be people with whom I believe I can work, who are reasonable and rational and have a respect for others."

Kaine - with his long Virginia history as a former governor and lieutenant governor, flush campaign account, and national profile - was favored to win in November even before the GOP nominee was chosen.

But Stewart is likely to put the seat further out of reach for Republicans, extending a losing streak for a party that has not won statewide since 2009.  The trend line is startling for Virginia, where Republicans held one of its two U.S. Senate seats for 30 years and the other for a dozen years before they lost their grip.

There's already evidence Republican voters are opting out of the Senate contest. In the primary in the 10th Congressional District represented by Comstock, about 2,000 fewer voters - 4 percent - cast ballots in the Senate race than in the congressional race.

The National Republican Senate Committee and the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity both said they would not put any resources into the Senate race and the Republican National Committee is focused elsewhere. "Virginia is not high on the list at this point," said Garren Shipley of the RNC.

Stewart's elevation has some lifelong Republicans questioning their political identity.  "I am extremely disappointed that a candidate like Corey Stewart could win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate," former Republican lieutenant governor Bill Bolling tweeted on the night of Stewart's primary win. "This is clearly not the Republican Party I once knew, loved and proudly served. Every time I think things can't get worse they do, and there is no end in sight."

Richard Fox, 28, resigned as a regional chair of the Albemarle County GOP committee days after Stewart won the election, and will vote for Kaine or libertarian Matt Waters. . . . "Abraham Lincoln would be rolling over in his grave if he knew that's what the Republican Party has come to," Fox said.

Many of the party's most active Republicans won't support someone other than Stewart because, under party rules, they would forfeit their positions on the GOP's governing board or on local committees.

"We lost the governorship [in 2013] when we should have won it, and it's just been spiraling down," said former Republican congressman Tom Davis.

David Wasserman, a House analyst at Cook Political Report, said Stewart's message doesn't sell in what he termed "the new Virginia," where Trump lost by 5 percent.

"The new Virginia is diverse and professional and they see an economy that's working for them," Wasserman said. "They don't agree with the Trump Republican wing's dark portrayal of immigration. They don't have much use for Confederate monuments."

The only way to save the GOP, both in Virginia, is to crush it at the ballot box. Only then will there be a possibility for sanity to save the party or let it meet a much deserved death.

Neo-Confederate Cory Stewart Wins GOP Primary to Face Tim Kaine

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart with supporters.

The base of the Republican Party of Virginia has shown to the world just how insane it has become as neo-Confederate Corey Stewart defeats the "GOP establishment" candidate Nick Freitas in the Virginia Republican U.S. Senate primary .  One can only assume that Tim Kaine and Democrats are celebrating the Virginia GOP's selection of a true extremist as Tim Kaine's challenger in November.  Time and time again the delusional far right base of the GOP whines that the GOP loses elections by nominating "moderates" as its candidates.  If Stewart goes down to a devastating defeat, perhaps this myth will be put to rest once and for all at least in Virginia. Last year when Stewart almost defeated GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie for the nomination, he rain on a platform that included tax cuts for the very wealthy and a quasi-return to the Jim Crow laws.  Stewart is also a devoted supporter of Donald Trump who remains highly unpopular in Virginia. The Washington Post looks at this blow to the credibility of the Virginia GOP.  Here are highlights:

Corey Stewart, the Prince William County executive who shocked the GOP a year ago by nearly winning their party’s nomination for governor, won the Republican primary for the Senate seat currently held by Democrat Tim Kaine.

Stewart was running against Nick Freitas, a state delete and military veteran, and pastor E.W. Jackson, who five years ago shocked them by upsetting better-known (and less controversial) candidates to become their nominee for lieutenant governor.

Kaine has stocked more than $10 million for a race that rarely appears on GOP midterm maps.

The Virginian Pilot has more extensive coverage.  Here are excerpts:

A conservative provocateur and supporter of President Donald Trump won Virginia's Republican primary Tuesday in the U.S. Senate race, and he has promised to run a "vicious" campaign against incumbent Tim Kaine.

Republican Corey Stewart beat state lawmaker Nick Freitas and Chesapeake minister E.W. Jackson. Stewart had long been on the fringe of the state's GOP; now the win makes him the standard-bearer of a deeply divided party that hasn't won a statewide race in nearly a decade.

A one-time state chairman of President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Stewart nearly won the 2017 Republican nomination for governor, despite being heavily outspent.

The Prince William County Board of Supervisors chairman and attorney has courted controversy throughout his political career. He was fired from the Trump campaign after staging an unsanctioned protest at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee, which Stewart said wasn't sufficiently loyal to Trump during the presidential campaign.

Stewart campaigned heavily last year on preserving Virginia's Confederate monuments and is an immigrant hard-liner who boasts of the number of immigrants in the country illegally who have been deported from his county.

Several higher-profile Republicans floated the possibility of running against Kaine, but they did not follow through after Democrats scored huge victories in November in state-level elections. That left establishment Republicans to rally behind Freitas, a libertarian-leaning former Green Beret and two-term state House delegate.

Freitas largely ignored Stewart until the campaign's final days, when he criticized him for associating in the past with racists, including Paul Nehlen, a Republican challenger to U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan who has been suspended from Twitter after a series of racist and anti-Semitic posts.

None of the candidates raised much money, though Freitas was helped by large last-minute spending from a super PAC aligned with U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and the tea party group Americans for Prosperity.

Stewart embodies what the Republican Party has become: racist, isolationist, and extreme.  It is noteworthy that Stewart last almost all of the so-called urban crescent which is a key to carrying Virginia statewide.  Hopefully, he will suffer a crushing defeat that will make Ed Gillespie's loss in 2017 pale in comparison.   

Why Virginia Republicans Haven't Won Statewide Since 2009

The Virginia GOP's Three Stooges. 

I was a member of the Virginia Beach City Committee for the Republican Party for eight years.  During that same period, I was precinct chair for the Alanton precinct, historically a Republican bastion.  I left the GOP years ago and in my resignation letter stated that I could no longer remain in a party that failed to support the concept of separation of church and state. In the years since, the stranglehold of the Christofascists - especially those mobilized by The Family Foundation, Virginia's leading hate group - has only increased.  Indeed, now the Christian right extremists have been joined by white supremacists as the second pillar of the Republican Party of Virginia.  The result?  The Virginia GOP has not won a statewide race since 2009 and one can see why if one looks at the candidates for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate: a neo-Confederate, an unhinged (in my view) self-anointed right wing "bishop," and a largely unknown individual whose main appeal is that he isn't either of his opponents.  The Virginia GOP has become a study in insanity and with every loss, the lunatic base blames defeat on the party's candidates being "too liberal" rather than looking in the mirror and realizing that a majority of Virginians find the GOP base and its "values" frightening if not repulsive.  A piece in CNN looks at this years class of clowns and lunatics vying for the GOP Senate nomination,  Here are excerpts:

Republicans haven't won a statewide race in Virginia since 2009, and GOP leaders have all but written off their chances of changing that trend in this year's Senate race.

The state's Republicans will select their Senate candidate in Tuesday's primary.

The best-known candidate, Corey Stewart, built his brand on defending Confederate icons. Another contender is a minister who called gay people "perverted" and "very sick people" and warned that yoga leads to Satan. And a third, who has emerged as the establishment preference, is most closely aligned with Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee.

None, national and state Republicans admit, are likely to give Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine a serious race in November's midterm elections.

Party leaders point to Ed Gillespie's losses in the 2014 Senate race and the 2017 governor's race as primary reasons that stronger candidates didn't enter the Senate race.

"It's just a blue wave, and I think that scared some people off," said John Whitbeck, the chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia. "On paper, Tim Kaine has an incredible amount of money. You've got to have a lot of courage to take him on."

There's also the reality that allowed Democrat Ralph Northam to cruise to a 9 percentage point victory over Gillespie in the governor's race last fall: Northern Virginia's suburbs are rapidly growing and diversifying, and increasingly follow the trends of the national political landscape.

"I definitely think that we have to accept the fact that the state's changed dramatically demographically," Whitbeck said. "The issues have to be right. We need to be focused on the fiscal issues that we've always been known for."

The problem for the GOP is that none of the contenders in Tuesday's primary appear to meet those requirements.

Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, narrowly lost the GOP gubernatorial nomination last year to Ed Gillespie but is seen by national party leaders and strategists as an embarrassment after Stewart tied his political identity to icons of the Confederacy.

Also in the race is E.W. Jackson . . . who was the party's failed 2013 nominee for lieutenant governor.

And outside Republican groups have rallied around Nick Freitas, a little-known 38-year-old state delegate who hasn't raised enough money for his own television ads.

In the last week of the primary, Freitas also showed a new willingness to attack Stewart, making reference to his ties to Paul Nehlen, an anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim House candidate in Wisconsin, and his links to criticism of "both sides" in the wake of the Charlottesville neo-Nazi gathering and the killing of a counter-protester.

"If we are to continue our party's legacy, we must reject Corey Stewart's dog-whistling of white supremacists, anti-Semites, and racists," Freitas said in an email to supporters, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Though the outcome of the primary will get attention -- and the winner could prove a headache for the party nationally and statewide for the rest of the year -- Virginia Republicans are now wrestling with the bigger problem of how they can return to competitiveness in what was until recently a swing state.

Virginia has effectively become "two one-party states," voting like New Jersey in the northern suburbs and Alabama throughout its more rural regions, and the GOP has failed to adjust to meet that new reality, said former Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"They keep running Alabama candidates and Alabama campaigns, and they've just quit communicating with the northern Virginia suburbs," Davis said.

"The Republican base has migrated from the country club to the country," he said. "The problem with that is, your country club areas are the growing areas. But there's very little tolerance within the party for people who don't appeal to the country base."

Until the Christofascists and white supremacists are ejected from the Virginia GOP base, don't expect sanity to prevail - which I am sure warms the hearts of Democrats and progressives. 

The GOP Faces a Roy Moore-Style Humiliation in Virginia

Neo-Confederate Corey Stewart

The base of the Republican Party of Virginia has transformed in the years since I left the GOP.  One could argue that much of it is unrecognizable as sane and moderate people have fled the party, leaving the base with the appearance of the mental patients now running the asylum.  All signs are that things are not going to improve given The Family Foundation's - Virginia's leading hate group - efforts to whip up Christofascists and the neo-Confederates and would be white supremacists who seemingly predominate in rural regions. Any primary will bring out the most rabid crazies and make it very difficult for a traditional Republican to secure the party nomination.  As noted, the GOP primary to select a candidate to oppose U.S. Senator Tim Kaine already has all the makings of a three ring circus with two of the announced candidates, Corey Stewart and E.W. Jackson (a self-consecrated "bishop") almost guaranteed to give national Democrats sound bites and photos ops that can be used against the GOP across the country to highlight GOP extremism if not out right insanity.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the coming GOP nightmare.  Here are excerpts:

Primary campaigns can be testy, messy affairs. But few, if any, begin with one candidate accusing his opponent of having dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood and that opponent responding by saying his accuser was “off his meds.”

Such was the beginning of what promises to be an outrageous GOP Senate primary in Virginia, one that Republicans worry will further harm their national brand. Earlier this month, the party experienced as much in Alabama, with the remarkable loss of Senate candidate Roy Moore. Virginia is hardly a similarly Republican-leaning state. And none of the candidates running for the nomination there have quite the same amount of baggage as Moore, who was accused of sexually preying on teenagers.

Then again, few would describe them as non-extreme.

This past week, E.W. Jackson, a conservative pastor with a history of controversial remarks announced that he would be challenging Corey Stewart, former gubernatorial candidate and Trump acolyte, for the Republican primary which is roughly six months away. Jackson, previously the GOP’s 2013 nominee for lieutenant governor, has said in the past that people who want to be referred to by gender-neutral pronouns indicate that they are possessed by “multiple demons” and that gay and lesbian citizens are “frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally,” . . . . and that Planned Parenthood “has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.”

Stewart, meanwhile, is closely aligned with Donald Trump’s former top strategist, Steve Bannon, and helped shape a campaign on the preservation of Confederate monuments in Virginia, despite hailing from Minnesota. . . . . Stewart was fired from the Trump campaign for, as he put it, standing up against “establishment pukes” at the Republican National Committee when the Access Hollywood tape came out. Most recently, during his brief stint supporting Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, Stewart revived unfounded claims made by Trump that Obama’s birth certificate is fraudulent.

The two are vying for the right to square off (in all likelihood) against Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who will be running for re-election with high approval ratings and in a state where Democrats won sweeping victories just a month ago. Political observers say they wouldn’t be surprised if the national Republican Party avoided the contest altogether.

[B]oth local and national Republicans are frantically trying to recruit or prop up any other breathing human to run as an alternative to Jackson and Stewart. . . . . There is a path for victory in the Republican primary if the two most fringe candidates divide their base and essentially cancel each other out.

John Fredericks, a conservative radio host out of Hampton Roads, Virginia, noted that Corey Stewart remains the “clear favorite” owing to his recent, surprising, gubernatorial run. But he observed, “E.W. Jackson is really his worst nightmare that he could go up against. He’s going to be very difficult for Stewart to attack. Jacskon’s entry into the race strips away the evangelical base that would have probably went with Corey Stewart.”

“I think the Republicans in Virginia are on their way to losing yet another statewide race,” Fredericks predicted. “That would be 11 in a row. Now you become the Cleveland Browns of politics. They’ve got to find a methodology to win a race statewide.”

Republicans in the commonwealth are deeply aware of the demographic trends which make a statewide win such a tough challenge for the GOP. And putting up any candidates with limited appeal who align themselves with the deeply unpopular Trump administration is essentially a death wish.

But still, what the party is trying to avoid is another loss from a candidate like Moore who will serve as a weight around their necks in 2018.

“Either Stewart or Jackson would be perfect for national Democrats to use to show the Roy Moore face of the Republican party,” [Larry] Sabato told The Daily Beast.

The hope for Republicans is that a more respectable candidate with electoral successes would enter the race, at the very least to help save face in a challenging midterm environment. But that is a task easier said than done.

Quote of the Day: Some Virginia Republicans See a Blue Wave Coming

As noted in a prior post, so far the only announced Republican challengers to Senator Tim Kaine can easily be categorized as "far right," "extremists" and with other adjectives which will likely totally alienate moderate Republicans and independent voters.  The Virginia GOP base - nowadays largely comprised of Christofascists and thinly veiled white supremacists - will likely love these unhinged candidates.  As a post at Bearing Drift (which calls itself the "conservative voice of Virginia") notes, last month's Virginia election results combined with Alabama's shocker on Tuesday ought to have set off alarm bells and sirens within the GOP.  The piece then goes on to predict that the Virginia GOP will not get the message.  Here are the money quote:

[Roy Moore] lost a race in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide for over 25 years. He had the endorsement of the President of the United States, the off-and-on endorsement of the Republican National Committee, and he handily beat a primary opponent who also had the endorsement of the President and the RNC. Most of all, he had Corey Stewart and Cynthia Dunbar from Virginia in Alabama aggressively campaigning for him. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, what went wrong was that Roy Moore is behind the times.  He didn’t keep up with what is happening in the Deep South:

-Donald Trump is about as popular as loud flatulence in church.

-The Republican Southern Strategy is deader than Jim Crow.

-Democrats have an equal claim on God, guns, and family values in the South.

-You can’t balance the Federal budget by raising taxes on the middle class and cutting entitlements spending.

-Most voters are a lot smarter than the average politician thinks that they are.  That is why 40% of them are Independents and will not blindly vote for the Republican or Democrat without reason.

Yes, Roy Moore is behind the times and his political life is most probably over.  The same thing can be said of the Republican Party of Virginia if they don’t wake up and join the 21st century.

 I particularly like the "loud flatulence in church" comment - even though it is completely true!!

Alabama: A Warning to the Virginia GOP

Neo-confederate, would be Trump mini-me, Corey Stewart

One question for the Republican Party of Virginia is whether or not it learned anything from the defeat of extremist nut case Roy Moore in Alabama this past Tuesday.  At present, the two announce GOP primary candidates seeking to challenge Senator Tim Kaine are extremists and whack jobs much akin to Moore.  One is a neo-Confederate would be Trump mini me named Corey Stewart who is popular with the rabid dog Virginia GOP base.  The other is self-styled "bishop" E.W. Jackson who went down to a crushing defeat in 2013 to Ralph Northam in the Lt. Governor race. Jackson is a virulent homophobe and ,in my view, is utterly un-tethered from objective reality - something that makes him the perfect for Virginia Christofascists.  A column in the Virginian Pilot questions whether the Virginia GOP will nonetheless select one of these extremists or someone else far from normalcy to challenge Kaine.  Given the lunacy of the Virginia GOP base, it is very possible Kaine will be given the gift of a lunatic as his opponent in November, 2018.  Here are column highlights:

Roy Moore's defeat in ruby-red Alabama may spell trouble for Virginia Republican Senate hopefuls Corey Stewart and E.W. Jackson, both of whom, like Moore, have pursued platforms far from the party's establishment wing.

Both Virginia hopefuls entered the Republican primary campaigning to the right of fellow GOP candidates: Stewart as a self- professed mini Donald Trump who has voiced support for Confederate statues and Jackson a firebrand preacher who has called gay people ill.

After the results were tallied in Alabama - first-time candidate Doug Jones bested Moore by more than 20,000 votes - Stewart, who had stumped for Moore, sounded off against GOP leaders who he said "colluded" with Republicans to undermine the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Jackson, an African-American minister, tweeted: "The black vote did not turn out against Roy Moore because of the sex scandal, but because of alleged racially insensitive remarks & perceived disdain for black voters."

But experts say such attention-grabbing statements don't represent a version of the Republican Party that can topple Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., next year.

"Extremist messaging is problematic in Virginia, but it's even problematic in Alabama," said Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington. Of Virginia, he said: "An evangelical message or a nativist-focused message might get you a nomination, but it'll be toxic in a general election."

The Virginia GOP's craving for a not-so-extreme candidate could be why Del. Nick Freitas, Culpeper, an Army veteran and tea party-style conservative, is picking up early buzz as an alternative to Stewart.

An hour after the results in Alabama came in, Freitas chose to post on Facebook about a youth counseling program and not the election. He did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday.  

In a 2012 interview with the group Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, which has been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Jackson called gay people "perverted" and "very sick people psychologically and mentally and emotionally." Later in the same interview he called homosexuality a "horrible sin" that "poisons culture" and "destroys families."  

[E]arlier this week Jackson suggested Stewart had "some dealings" with the Muslim Brotherhood - a jab Stewart labeled vintage Jackson.

"He's a crackpot," Stewart said in a phone interview Wednesday from Alabama. "He's getting even crazier." Stewart said Democrats would not let Jackson off the hook despite his attempts to moderate his comments on gay and transgender people - and neither would he.

Stewart shows no signs of backing off his self-described anti- politically correct soapbox.  In a minute-long video on Facebook shortly after the results came in, Stewart promised to never surrender to the "Republican establishment," which "colluded together with the Democrats to undermine Judge Moore" and will follow suit in his race next year.

Extremist E.W. Jackson to Run for U.S. Senate from Virginia

Next year's Republican primary for the GOP nomination to run against Senator Tim Kaine is shaping up to be one of crazy versus crazy.  Failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart has already said that he will be running - most likely on a neo-Confederate agenda - and now self-proclaimed "bishop" E. W. Jackson is reported to be preparing for a run for the GOP nomination as well, in Jackson's case most likely as a Christian Taliban candidate.  The lunacy will no doubt be off the charts, but such is the nature of today's Republican Party of Virginia that sane and normal individuals are simply not welcome.  We last saw Stewart when he nearly defeated Ed Gillespie in the 2017 GOP gubernatorial primary.  Jackson, of course, lost resoundingly to Ralph Northam in the 2013 Lt. Governor contest.  Tim Kaine must be smiling if this is the best the GOP can field against him.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Jackson's insanity/ego driven announcement.  As for Jerry Falwell, Jr.'s, remarks, if there is a swamp that needs draining, part of it is located in Lynchburg and goes by the name of Liberty University.  Here are article highlights:

E.W. Jackson, a firebrand minister who says yoga leads to Satan and gay people are ill, plans to announce he is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) next year, according to Jackson’s finance director.

Jackson will announce his candidacy on Dec. 11 in the Chesapeake area, said Steven Thomas, who said he is raising money for Jackson’s campaign and filled the same role during Jackson’s 2013 losing bid for lieutenant governor.  A website registered to Jackson was updated Tuesday and announces “EW Jackson for U.S. Senate.”

Jackson has a history of controversial comments from calling gay and lesbian individuals “very sick people” to suggesting the practice of yoga invites Satan to possess one’s soul.

He will face Corey Stewart, the bombastic Republican official from Prince William County who ran for the GOP nomination for governor earlier this year in the mold of President Trump. Several other Republicans are weighing whether to jump into the race.

The Senate field is expected to solidify this weekend when Virginia Republicans gather for their largest annual event — dubbed the Advance — at an Allegheny Mountain resort in western Virginia.

In an interview on WAMU radio last week, Virginia GOP Chairman John Whitbeck said the party will remain neutral, but noted, “It’s not going to be just Corey Stewart in this race by himself.”

Stewart, who declared in July, on Tuesday announced the endorsement of Jerry Falwell Jr., the influential head of Liberty University and ally of President Trump. . . .  Trump needs Stewart “in the U.S. Senate to help clean up the swamp in Washington,” Falwell said.

In response to the endorsement, Stewart said,“Virginia’s awakening is happening, and Mr. Falwell’s endorsement is proof positive conservative Republicans will take back Virginia.”

In addition to Stewart, the only other candidate who filed federal paperwork to run as of Tuesday is Ivan Raiklin, an Army veteran who recently jogged an average of 22 miles a day to bring awareness to suicide among veterans and to kick off his campaign.

Republicans turned off by Stewart’s approach are looking to another candidate, Del. Nick Freitas (Culpeper), who said Tuesday he is considering a run for the nomination.

The two-term state lawmaker is former head of the Culpeper County GOP and moved to Virginia in 2009. He served in the Army special forces as a Green Beret and is currently a defense contractor.

John Norton Moore, an international law expert who has taught at University of Virginia School of Law on and off for a half century, is also considering a run, he said in an interview Monday.

Freitas, Moore, Raiklin and Stewart will host small parties in hotel suites at the GOP retreat, a sign to party activists that they are interested in running for public office.

Has Ego Thrown Uncertainty Into Virginia's Gubernatorial Race?

Lt. Gov. Northam

Seemingly out of nowhere a possible wrench has been thrown into Virginia Democrats' plan for an orderly, uncontested race for the party's 2017 gubernatorial nomination.  One term Congressman Tom Perriello, who only served from 2009 to 2011 before losing to a right wing ideologue due to his ultra-liberal voting record and less than effective campaign, is posed to jump into the race for the Democrat nomination.  It is difficult to adequately stress just how critical it is for a Democrat to succeed Terry McAuliffe as Virginia's next governor so that there is at least somewhat of the firewall against the most egregious initiatives of the Republican Party of Virginia  such as Del. Bob Marshall's horrific HB 1612 that seeks to out do North Carolina's infamous HB2.  None of this seemingly matters to Perriello who is basically unknown outside of his former district and certain liberal organization circles and could throw the Governor's mansion to the Republicans if he creates a contentious and money wasting contested primary.  The husband and I - and most LGBT activists we know - are firmly behind Lt. Governor Ralph Northam's candidacy as are leading Democrats in Virginia.  The New York Times looks at Perriello's apparently ego driven move to harm Democrats in 2017.  Here are highlights:

Tom Perriello, the former congressman from Virginia, is making a surprise entry into his state’s governor’s race, disrupting Democrats’ well-laid plans in what promises to be the most-watched election in the country this year.

Mr. Perriello on Wednesday telephoned Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam, who had been widely presumed to be the party’s nominee, to tell him he was entering the race, according to three Democrats directly familiar with the conversation.

Mr. Perriello, a State Department official who is close to President Obama, is expected to announce his intention on Thursday to compete in the June 13 Democratic primary. He did not respond to a voice mail and text message. Mr. Northam could not be reached, either.

By entering the race to succeed Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who is limited to a single term, Mr. Perriello will hinder Mr. McAuliffe’s effort to avert a contentious primary. Leading Democrats have sought to clear the field for Mr. Northam, hoping to give him a head start in fund-raising and organization, while at least three Republicans vie for the nomination.

A run by Mr. Perriello will expose the tensions between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party in Virginia, which is increasingly dominant in a once-conservative state. Much of the state’s Democratic leadership is already lined up for Mr. Northam, and Mr. Perriello’s unexpected move made them to scramble to respond.

A senior Virginia Democrat, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Wednesday evening that Mr. McAuliffe would emphatically reaffirm his support for the lieutenant governor. Aides to Virginia’s two United States senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, said they would not reconsider their support for Mr. Northam.

For decades, Virginia Democrats have taken care to distinguish themselves from their more liberal national party and present themselves as prudent centrists. But having carried Virginia in the last three presidential elections and controlling every statewide office, some Democrats are hungry to elevate progressives.

“Tom is a very capable and popular person who served in Congress very well,” said former Representative L. F. Payne Jr., who once represented the same district as Mr. Perriello and now backs Mr. Northam. “I think that Ralph, though, is well-prepared for the job, and Democrats feel good about him as our candidate. It’s awfully late for anybody else to think about getting in.”

Neither Mr. Perriello nor Mr. Northam is well known to Virginia voters. Mr. Northam would enjoy a substantial financial advantage and the support of Mr. McAuliffe, who is popular with Democrats. The governor, in fact, is hosting a fund-raiser at his Northern Virginia home this weekend for Mr. Northam.

But Mr. Perriello is well liked among some liberal activists and could gain support with the sort of highly engaged voters who show up in low-turnout summer primaries. To do so, though, he will have to fend off questions from the left about some of his stances on cultural issues. He was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in his 2010 campaign and cast some votes against abortion.

Republicans, meanwhile, have their own primary battle. Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman; President-elect Donald J. Trump’s onetime state campaign chairman, Corey Stewart; and State Senator Frank Wagner, from the Tidewater region.

Perriello needs to withdraw from the contest.  Meanwhile, our home is available to Ralph Northam any time he needs it for a fundraiser. 

Did Pence "Win" His Debate by Lying

Perhaps I am prejudiced since I have met and spoken with Tim Kaine, or perhaps I know too much about Mike Pence's virulently anti-LGBT track record and his desire to make right wing Christianity the de facto established religion in both Indiana and America as a whole.  Whatever, the thought process, I find it bot frightening and ironic that many have dubbed Pence the winner of vice presidential debate based on his composed demeanor while giving little weight to the fact that the man lied almost incessantly and denied Trump statements and actions that all have been documented on video.  Perhaps Pence's lying comes from having little option given the vulgarity and unfitness of his running mate.  Or perhaps it stems from his conservative religious beliefs that seeming motivate Christofascists to lie more than nearly anyone else.  Kaine's style may have been lacking, but what he said was 95% or more true.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Pence's supposed "win" that was won by lies and a denial of objective facts.  Here are highlights:

The Indiana governor’s background as a talk radio host helped. Bigly, one might say. He was a smooth and amiable happy warrior. Tim Kaine, embracing the attack-dog role that a running mate traditionally plays, came across poorly as he repeatedly interrupted and trained his fire on Donald Trump.

He acted incredulous when Kaine correctly pointed out that Trump has called Mexicans “rapists,” NATO “obsolete” and said women who get abortions should be punished somehow. Pence pointedly declined to defend Trump’s offensive statements about women or his racial attacks on a U.S.-born federal judge of Mexican descent, opting to change the subject.

Amber Phillips writes that “Pence spent most of the debate defending a Trump that doesn’t exist.”

National Review Executive Editor Rich Lowry argues that he won but with this caveat: “Pence evidently decided to pretend that he is on a ticket with an utterly conventional Republican … [and his] sidestepping of Trump is the big asterisk on his night.”
 And in a case of the pot calling the kettle black, Pence repeatedly attacked Kaine and Clinton for running “an insult-driven campaign.” But he did it with a smile.

On foreign policy especially, Pence’s talking points underscored just how far outside the GOP mainstream Trump remains. Pence said the United States should be willing to attack the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and he called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a small and bullying leader.”

As David Gergen put it on CNN, “Pence will not fare well with fact checkers, but his poise and polish played well with voters,” For better or worse, style counts a lot in these debates.”

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni might capture the zeitgeist best: “It wasn’t exactly a vivid performance, but it was an eerily consistent one, and it answered the question of how a man who supposedly prides himself on his virtue defends a running mate who is often bereft of it. He sets his jaw. He slows his pulse. He practices a bemused chuckle, perfects deafness to anything he prefers not to hear and purges from his memory anything he doesn’t want to own. That included the whole grotesque cornucopia of Trump’s slurs and bad behavior, which [Kaine] had studied up on exhaustively, knew by heart and kept throwing at Pence, pressing for the barest glimmer of shame or the slightest hint of apology. It was pointless — a point that Kaine himself made about an hour into this exercise in futility. Substantively, it was galling. Strategically, it may well have worked.”

In his own way, Pence is as morally bankrupt as Trump himself.