Out, proud, and in the fight.

by Gordon C. Morse

“Virginia’s embattled Republican nominee for lieutenant governor,” The Washington Post now calls John Reid.

The paper might have called him “bewitched, bothered and bewildered.” That would have been more fun, but “embattled” will probably do.

There are photos. Re-posted on-line and by Reid, so claimed.

His? Not so, says Reid. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“This is the new way that politics is played,” Reid said over the weekend. “The politics of personal destruction are coming right home to everybody who runs.”

New? Tell that to the Founding Fathers. That will give their spirits a chuckle or two.

Personal attacks and character assassination have been present in American politics since the nation’s founding. The highly charged and often vicious rhetoric of the 18th and 19th centuries included personal smears, rumors, and public shaming.

The presidential campaigns of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1800 were marked by slanderous accusations and deeply personal attacks and, if you doubt that, go find what Abigail Adams wrote to Jefferson years later.

By means of the written word, Abigail sliced and diced TJ a new one. The letters are vivid and unflinching. TJ wanted to make nice and eventually John came around. Abigail forgot nothing.

Years ago, I sat outside a Williamsburg coffee shop interviewing a would-be candidate for something or other and he casually mentioned an automobile accident and that he’d killed someone. His wife sat beside with a contented look on her face. It was all resolved, they assured me.

“Yes. Okay.” I replied, while trying to appear unjudgmental. “But, possibly, perhaps, in the way these things go, that could still come up as an issue in your campaign.”

They both appeared genuinely surprised. Why would anyone do that?

They always do that. There’s always someone who’s willing. Know it’s coming. Inventory your life before you file your candidacy. Prepare. Anticipate. Purchase a hard hat.

Governor Glenn Youngkin moved quickly on Friday. He urged Reid to abandon his bid. Go away.

Why so quick to lower the boom? Here’s a plausible a line of thought:

There are people within the Republican coalition who make stern moral judgments in circumstances that others would shrug off. The GOP is, after all, the principal repository of opposition to abortion rights – an opposition that is, at its core, an expression of moral values. It’s a mere mental hop, skip and a jump for these same people to take a dim view of John Reid and his sexual preferences.

Would Gov. Youngkin lend a sympathetic ear to those people? Only guessing, but I think the answer is yes. To think otherwise, you’d have to ignore most everything Youngkin’s emphasized over more than three years.

There’s also this: John Reid’s candidacy for lieutenant governor is not about the office he immediately seeks. It’s the next one. You run for lieutenant governor in order to run for governor. It’s a given. You try to open one door in order to have the opportunity to open another.

So, the question is not about John Reid presiding over the Virginia Senate. The question is whether you want to position him to run the state.

Even so, did Youngkin get out of the gate too fast on ditching Reid?

Well, if you’re a governor in the last year of your term, do you really want to have one of your party’s statewide candidates out with his middle index figure raised in the direction of Richmond?

There may be no avoiding it. Reid is indignant and suited up. His vulnerability is not the immediate thing, but the next thing. Whatever that might be. He’s issued unequivocal denials. He will soldier on. The table has been set.

The real loser in all this hubbub?

Virginia. We’ve reached sight of summer with everything suddenly wrapped up in matters extraneous and irrelevant. We owe it to ourselves to get the focus back on the future and the choices we face.

“Boy, it’s been a rough 24 hours for me,” Reid told the crowd in Abingdon and looking, well, embattled.

It could be a rough six months for all of us.

Gordon C. Morse has been writing commentary and speeches in Virginia since 1983. This column his republished with permission from his Substack account Heart’s Desire.