"This is an Earthquake": Virginia GOP Celebrates Democrats’ Implosion

Some Democrats - especially national level Democrats with oversize egos who ought stay out of state level politics outside their own states - continue to refuse to accept that they have been skillfully played by the GOP and its far right supporters as Virginia's political chaos continues.  A piece in Politico looks at the jubilation of the Virginia GOP as it watches the Virginia Democrats and national level busybodies tear their own party apart.  Indeed, the Virginia GOP sees its odds of success in the November 2019 Virginia elections improving markedly thanks to the Democrats self-driven implosion. Anyone who doesn't grasp that this was all carefully orchestrated and a key part needed for its success was Democrat stupidity.  The Democrats should have simply yawned at the Northam expose and perhaps the rest of the shoes would never have dropped.  But true to form, the Democrats acted just as expected and allowed themselves to be played for fools.

Democrats have grown bullish the past few election cycles about putting leftward-shifting Virginia permanently in their column. Then this week happened.

The scandals that engulfed the state government’s top three leaders have given Republicans renewed hope they can blunt the state’s leftward drift. It was no accident that this week Republicans decided to target Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the state’s most popular politician who was not thought to be at risk in 2020. They think several newly-elected Democratic House members bungled their response to the first sexual assault allegation against Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax by, in some cases, waiting days to react— creating an opening for the GOP.

And Democrats worry that the state’s top lawmakers won’t be able to raise money or campaign this year when all 140 seats in the nearly evenly divided legislature are up for grabs.

It’s a rare moment of optimism for Virginia Republicans at a time when their party is down and out nationally, still hurting from the midterm elections when they lost control of the U.S. House.

“They were facing generational political Armageddon,” said John Fredericks, a conservative radio host who served as chairman of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign in Virginia. “This all changed in eight days. This is an earthquake. It’s a unique opportunity for Republicans.”

In Washington, Republicans see potential to gain some ground in a state where they’ve become accustomed to losing. Democrats have held all five statewide offices since 2013, and in 2016 Hillary Clinton won Virginia by five points.

Top officials at the National Republican Senatorial Committee met on Wednesday to discuss Warner, a popular two-term senator and former governor who, like other Virginia elected officials, had to navigate the thorny misdeeds of his contemporaries this week.

“In Virginia today, as opposed to two weeks ago, the political climate is totally and completely different,” NRSC Executive Director Kevin McLaughlin told POLITICO. “Whereas two weeks ago it was a reliably Democratic state, today everything is in flux. There’s nothing worse than uncertainty -- that’s a dangerous place for Mark Warner to be.” Republican strategists and activists were abuzz about their chances this November, when the party’s slim control of both state legislative chambers are in jeopardy in Virginia’s off-year elections.

Republican have a two-seat majority in the Senate, which has flipped back and forth between the parties four times during the past decade. Four Republican seats had been considered vulnerable this fall, compared to just two Democratic seats.

In the House, Democrats made massive gains in 2017 and nearly took control. They were favored to make more gains in the House, where Republicans hold a three-seat majority with one vacancy.

“The entire executive branch of Virginia is apprised of Democrats and all of them are embroiled in their own respective scandals at this point so yes, that has obviously done damage to them,” Republican House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert said. Still, he added, “The damage this has done to Virginia is a much larger issue than these secondary political implications.”

Even if they hang on, the three top leaders won’t be of much help to down-ballot Democrats. Normally they would be among the most powerful Democratic surrogates to appear at campaign rallies or raise money.

After this week, Republicans said they expect to recruit more formidable candidates, while Democrats wonder who they’ll have to run for statewide races in in 2021, the next time the seats are up. Fairfax and Herring had both been expected to run for governor.

Some Democrats dispute the consequences, saying the focus will quickly turn back to Trump and national politics.  “Six months from now, everything is going to be in the rearview mirror and the focus on D.C.,” state Sen. Scott Surovell said.

Other Democrats lamented they had only hurt themselves by acting so quickly on Northam, who said he was in his yearbook photo then reversed course, but did admit to donning blackface on another occasion.

“I’m sure there is some regret and remorse at what happened,” said Ward Armstrong, a longtime Democratic legislator who served as House minority leader.

Second Woman Accuses Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax

The damage from the political tricks of far right Republican operatives against Virginia's top Democrats continues as a second accuser has come forward alleging to have suffered sexual assault at the hands of Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax.   The timing of this and the first accusation, to me is suspect given that the assaults allegedly took place 115 and 19 years ago respectively.  Where were the accusers in 2017 when Fairfax was running for office?  The other irony is that the Legislative Black Caucus - which lead the rush to judgment against Ralph Northam as it salivated at the prospect of a black governor in the form of Fairfax if Northam resigned - now finds itself calling for Fairfax's resignation. Would any of this rolling catastrophe have continued to unfold if the Democrats had used calm, reasoned analysis and understood that they had been played by the right wing when the photos in Northam's yearbook had first been floated?  We will never know for certain, but I suspect ALL of the accusations against Northam and Fairfax were carefully pre-planned, with the far right counting on the Democrats to self-destruct.  And by Democrats, I mean numerous Virginia elected officials and national figures, including would be presidential candidates (all of whom will never receive my support), not the men and women on the street who seemingly have not leaped on the rush to judgment train wreck.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post: 

A Maryland woman said Friday that she was sexually assaulted by Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) in a “premeditated and aggressive” attack in 2000, while both were undergraduate students at Duke University. She is the second woman this week to accuse him of sexual assault. Fairfax forcefully denied both allegations.

Democratic Party leaders quickly called for Fairfax to resign, including the influential Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. Many who had withheld judgment after the first allegation this week said they could no longer stand by him, including most of Virginia’s Democratic congressional delegation and national Democrats with presidential aspirations.

While Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.) said Fairfax should resign if the allegations were true, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) offered no such equivocation. “The allegations against him detail atrocious crimes, and he can no longer effectively serve the Commonwealth,” Kaine said in a statement. “We cannot ever ignore or tolerate sexual assault.

Meanwhile, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) told senior staff that he would serve out the remaining three years of his term and would not step down amid his own scandal involving a racist photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook.

It was a head-spinning turn in a spiraling week of chaos in Virginia. Only a week ago, Fairfax, 39, was preparing to take over as Virginia’s second African American governor when it looked as though Northam, 59, would be forced out over the racial issue.

The new accusation against Fairfax came from Meredith Watson, who said Friday in a statement through her attorney that she shared her account with several classmates and friends immediately after the alleged assault occurred. Watson did not speak publicly Friday, and her lawyer did not make her available for an interview.

Democratic U.S. Reps. Gerald E. Connolly, Don Beyer, Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton, in a lengthy joint statement, called for Fairfax to resign. National Democrats piled on, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) — who said “it is no longer appropriate for [Fairfax] to serve” — and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)

Republican leaders in the Virginia state Senate called for criminal investigations while Democrats in the Senate and the House issued a joint statement calling for Fairfax’s resignation.

Fairfax’s statement said he would not step aside. “I demand a full investigation into these unsubstantiated and false allegations,” the statement said. “I will clear my good name and I have nothing to hide. I have passed two full field background checks by the FBI and run for office in two highly contested elections with nothing like this being raised before.”

Where it all ends nobody except, I predict the GOP will retain control both houses of the Virginia General Assembly which is why all of these crises were deliberately ignited.   The GOP is playing three dimensional chess while the Democrats have continued their circular firing squad. 

Democrats Grapple with Fairfax Assault Accusation

UPDATED: A reader spells out what the GOP is up to in all of this:

Understand and see their end game. Third in line is the Republican President pro tempore of the Senate - Steve Newman.

Mark Herring had best hope they find no skeletons on him.

As noted in the prior post, Virginia Democrats have set the stage where any accusation no matter how old or questionable now has the potential to derail elected officials' political careers.  The tempest over Ralph Northam started by a right wing GOP outfit now has spread to Justin Fairfax. A piece in Big League Politics looks at the accusation here:

Last night after Big League Politics released the bombshell report that Stanford University Fellow and Professor Vanessa Tyson allegedly accused Democrat Virginia Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax sexually assaulted her at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. She did not use his name in the initial release, and Big League Politics did not receive confirmation from Tyson that she wrote the post.

However, this changed late last night when Tyson confirmed to independent Virginia media outlet RVA Dirt that she made the allegations, and enlisted a friend to help spread the story.

Do I believe the story?  Not really given that the Washington Post supposedly looked into it and found it untrue and because I view this all asa coordinated effort to severely harm Democrats in the lead up to the 2019 Virginia elections.  Is it a coincidence that the same outlet , Big League Politics, that first attacked Northam is behind the Fairfax story?  I doubt it.  It's all part of an agenda to set the stage for the Virginia Democrat Party to implode, something it seemingly is working very hard to do.  Right wing Republicans must be ecstatic at the Democrats willingness to tear themselves apart. The problem for Virginia Democrats simply put is that now they have set the stage where no one is safe from such accusations and there is no limit on how far back in time one will be judged. A piece in the Washington Post looks at this second nightmare for Virginia Democrats:

The day after Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) denied allegations of sexual misconduct, Democrats grappled with how to respond without betraying a rising star in their party or abandoning victims in the #MeToo era.

Nearly all Democrats at the state and federal level swiftly called for Gov. Ralph Northam (D) to resign over a racist photo from his 1984 yearbook that became public Friday.

But lawmakers and party officials interviewed took a more circumspect approach to the allegation against Fairfax, which surfaced Monday, just three days later.

Although Democrats at the state and national level have been quick to say women should be believed and that all allegations should be investigated, they say they are resisting a rush to judgment. . . . . Virginia Democrats privately note the accuser in the Fairfax case has not yet offered evidence she says corroborates her claim.

The dilemma shows the trouble they have enforcing a policy of zero tolerance.

“I have so many different things going through my head right now,” said Monique Alcala, chair of the state Democratic Party’s Latino caucus and a Fairfax supporter since he first made a splash in state politics by nearly winning the 2013 Democratic primary for attorney general.

Quentin Kidd, the director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, said Democrats are in a bind. “The silence is deafening from Democrats,” he said. “They may be thinking, ‘We don’t want to throw our lieutenant governor under the bus while we’re also trying to throw our governor out of office.’ Republicans are probably eating all the popcorn they can find right now. It’s quite a show.”

Democrats almost uniformly took their cues from the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus {which lead the attacks on Northam], which Monday evening released a statement saying lawmakers take all allegations of sexual assault or misconduct “with the utmost seriousness.”

“Given the recent allegations regarding Lieutenant Governor Justice Fairfax, the VLBC will continue to assess this developing situation as more details become available,” the statement continued. The state party released a nearly identical statement.

Most Republicans have been content to let Democrats’ problems unfold uninterrupted. “What’s going on with the lieutenant governor?” Del. Steve Landes (R-Augusta) said coyly before adding: “I don’t have any comment, thanks.”

This insane zero tolerance policy - despite its good intentions - will be the death of the Virginia Democrats in the near term.  I predict the GOP will retain control of the General Assembly after November and if the Democrats want someone to blame, they best look in the mirror.

GOP Operatives Succeeding in Causing Virginia Democrat Party to Implode

Tuesday's Wall Street Journal reported today as follows:

The website [Big League Politics] that broke the story of the racist yearbook photo that is imperiling the governorship of Virginia Democrat Ralph Northam is a scrappy, pro-Trump outfit backed by Republican operatives, part of a growing wave of low-cost, ideologically driven news publishers.

The same site reportedly leak a story about Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax alleging he was involved in a sexual assault some years back.  

The goal of both stories?  To send the Virginia GOP into chaos and weaken the party before the crucial elections in November, 2019, which will determine which party controls the the Virginia General Assembly.  So far the gambit has worked amazingly well.  Rather than taking a deep breath and taken the time to know all of the facts, the political correctness obsessed Democrats from Mark Warner and Tim Kaine on down have by played like trained circus dogs and have done exactly what the far right elements of the GOP wanted. They have rushed to judgment and demanded Northam resign and some have wondered out loud if Fairfax has a problem as well.  

Sadly, the knee jerk rush to judgment has not been confined to elected officials.  A number of self-styled leaders of the Virginia LGBT community - e.g., Equality Virginia and locally the LGBT Life Center - have joined the stampede of lemmings and signed an anti-Northam statement notwithstanding that Northam has been one of the strongest allies they have ever had.  And never mind that many in the LGBT community still strongly support Northam and do not want him to resign. 

Long term, this apparent from conception forward "zero tolerance"standard is going to make it very difficult for the Democrats to recruit candidates in the future.  Anyone who has anything in their history that might offend someone in one of the Democrats' special preferred classes is on notice that they can be drummed out of the party should that information ever surface.  

As the Washington Post reported, some seem to be realizing that the rush to judgment has been ill-advised and may have consequences those rushing to jettison Northam failed to take into consideration.  Here are key quotes:

But there is also a quieter concern that the party has come to react too quickly. Some of Franken’s supporters are still bitter over how the end of his career played out, and several senators have said they regretted pushing him to leave office.

The new atmosphere can catch even the most seasoned politician off guard. The accused feel denied any sense of due process. Supposed allies quickly turn into enemies. And, they argue, Republicans are refusing to play by the same rules.

I think there’s a rush to judgment that is unfair to him,” Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee, said Monday on CNN about Northam. “One, he says he wasn’t in that picture. Two, I think we ought to fairly ask him, did he know the picture was on his page of that yearbook. And then three, really, he ought to be judged on the context of his whole life.”

“I think he deserves a chance to prove what really is his essence,” he added. “Not to rush him out of office, unfortunately for political reasons.”

But Lieberman is in the distinct minority in a party newly animated by women and nonwhite candidates and voters, who have provided the ballast for swift decisions.

Yet a party that is moving swiftly to oust anyone with suggestions of racism or sexism could soon confront more questions: Virginia’s Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would take over if Northam resigns, held a news conference on Monday to deny allegations that he sexually harassed a woman in 2004.

I believe the Democrats have opened a Pandora's Box for themselves and that in their eagerness to pander to one group of voters, they are alienating many others.

I left the GOP years ago because of what I saw is the unfairness and ruthlessness of the Christian Right and those who pandered to them.  Now the Democrats are acting just as bad but on the opposite end of the spectrum.  The husband and I are definitely rethinking who we support and what candidates and organizations deserve our financial support.   By their rush to judgment on Northam, a number of would be Democrat presidential candidates have shown they do not have the calm and steady analysis for the White House.

Hypocrisy and Backstabbing on Display in Northam Controversy

Like many in Virginia, the ongoing drama surrounding Ralph Northam has been  on my mind throughout the day yesterday and today.  I spent part of the day yesterday with a political insider who likewise supports Northam and are disgusted by the hypocrisy and rush to judgment on display. One point of interest seemingly missing among the LGBT community, is the fact that this controversy was ignited by far right anti-abortion extremists who somehow dug up the 1984 EVMS yearbook.  These people are not only seeking to destroy Northam, are also the principal opponents of LGBT rights in Virginia and have made sure that the Republican controlled House of Delegates kills every pro-LGBT bill every year. Gays and supposed LGBT allies jumping on the anti-Northam bandwagon are unwittingly aiding their own enemies.

Like so many others, the husband and I watched Northam's press conference yesterday afternoon.  Frankly, our hearts broke seeing Pam Northam, who we adore, looking so devastated. Through it all, my thoughts are that the uproar is not really about possible transgressions 35 years ago, but rather (i) political hypocrisy, (ii) a dangerous demand for lifelong ideological purity, and (ii) politcal backstabbing. 

Ironically, Northam has been one of the strongest advocates pushing for the restoration of felons' voting rights which would disproportionately benefit black Virginians since years of Republican control of the General Assembly has seen blacks disproportionately prosecuted and convicted thanks to draconian laws. One reader summed the situation well: "Same people calling for his head are the people who believe in restoration of voting rights and second chances." 

As for the new cult of life long ideological purity, another reading was on point and commented: "What the Democrat Party is now saying is that there is no room for those who have canged their views and norms of past times Once in black face always in black face . . . you are not welcome in our "big tent." Good luck winning elections with that." The writer is on point, in my view, and in their rush to judgment on Northam, Democrat elected officials may have just ensured that the Republicans will retain control of the House of Delegates after the November 2017 elections.   Newport News Mayor McKinley Price has been one of the few with common sense:

“I think if people are true to what they will admit, everybody has had some bigotry or racism in their life,” Price said Friday. “I think this should be looked at as an opportunity for us to do what, quite frankly, we haven’t done, and that’s (having) an open and frank discussion about bigotry and its effects."

Surprisingly, Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax has not yet demanded Northam's resignation.  Sadly, the black caucus in the Virginia General Assembly has shown no such moderation and seems most motivated to force Northam out of office so that they can have a black governor in the form of the Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax who has never held elected office until being sworn in in January 2018.  This motivation also seemingly holds for at least one senior individual in the Virginia Democrat Party who is has demonstrated an active, anti-white racism (this will be the subject of a future blog post with documentation).   I have two worries about Fairfax should Northam be forced to eventually resign: (1) his inexperience, and (ii) his failure to convince me that he is a real ally to LGBT Virginians.  Should Northam resign, LGBT Virginians will lose the most powerful ally they have every had in Richmond and find themselves with a replacement who is an unknown quantity and perhaps more vulnerable to pressure from anti-gay black pastors who are regularly cynically manipulated by the anti-gay and white supremacist descended Family Foundation . 

On the backstabbing from, many Virginia Democrats now rushing to denounce Northam and call for his resignation include a number of those elected to the House of Delegates in 2017 who owe their election to the efforts of Northam's ground game.  Leading this list is Danica Roem who has lost all of my respect.  Roem, however, is not alone.  In his rush to call for Northam's resignation, Mark Herring has lost our respect and I have already withdrawn our previous promises of money and hosting a fundraiser in our home for his gubernatorial campaign.  Tim Kaine and Mark Warner have likewise lost my respect. What disturbs me most is the fact that the truth and what Northam has done over the last three decades doesn't matter to these politicians who are posturing, in my opinion, to (A) appease the  black vote and (B) appease the strident ideology police of the Democrat left.  What they are seemingly ignoring is that some of us want elected officials who are honest and stand by principle not political expediency.  This year, Virginia Democrats seeking money from us will go away empty handed. 

The winners in all of this?  The anti-abortion extremists and Virginia Republicans who are likely salivating at the thought of the inexperienced Fairfax as governor and the reality that he would likely be unable to win re-election in 2021.  Closer at hand, the Virginia Democrat Party is tearing itself apart and will now go into the 2017 elections deeply divided. While these Democrats may curry favor with the black voters, I suspect some white voters in the critical urban crescent of Virginia may sit out the election and guarantee 2 more years of Republican control in the legislature.