by Paul Goldman

I see where my good friend Doug Wilder is calling for more kindness in Virginia politics. A most appropriate wish for sure. But Doug didn’t make history running for Lieutenant Governor in 1985 by emulating Pope Leo. He won by playing the hardball required. I know because he usually needed me to throw the pitch. Dwayne Yancey wrote a book about how history got done titled When Hell Froze Over. But as Jack Nicholson might say, don’t read it if you can’t handle the truth. Particularly Democrats. They like to maintain their miss about 1985 and 1989. 

So, let a hardball player give Democrats some tough love about racism, sexism, and elitism. Democratic Attorney General nominee Jay Jones had been a sure winner before Dem gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger unnecessarily pushed him to the back of the bus… then threw him under during her recent televised debate. 

Back in 1985, as Doug’s campaign manager, I faced a situation with analogies to what confronts the Jones team. The leader of the Democratic Party — Governor Chuck Robb and his staff — held me, along with Doug, in maximum low regard as the saying goes in politics. His people were attacking Doug for keeping me on as campaign manager, saying they likely would not help him unless he made a change. They needed, of course, a scapegoat to justify letting him twist in the wind. Governor Robb himself publicly criticized our campaign. His campaign staff circulated letters about me they knew were not true. 

As with Jones right now, they feared that getting too close to Doug could hurt the Democratic ticket. Admittedly, Doug trailed by 25 points while our ticket-mates had double digit leads in the polls. A special grand jury was investigating Doug’s management of property. The National GOP had been ginning up a campaign claiming Doug unfit for the job based on some stuff being circulated. 

 We had basically no money compared to Jay Jones. The party establishment wanted us to lose. They wanted to run Democratic Attorney General candidate Mary Sue Terry, seen as a sure winner in 1985, for Governor in 1989. Read Yancey’s book. 

They wanted to throw us in the back of the bus too. 

But in hindsight we had one advantage Jones apparently doesn’t have: Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Bailies and his staff didn’t want to be remembered as the folks who threw the Black guy under the bus. They understood the advantage in having a Democratic LG. They understood the state’s political history. 

Bailies and his campaign team had come up the hard way in VA politics. They knew Doug’s struggles. They knew my history of opening up Democratic statewide politics to women, Jews, and civil rights advocates. Admittedly, the polls said we didn’t have a chance to win. But they had a big lead in their gubernatorial race. They didn’t need to kneecap us to win. Mary Sue the same way.  They might lose some votes backing us openly. But we had been chosen by Democrats to be on their party ticket.

Jerry was the ticket leader. He made clear to me not to worry about his public support. He and Mary Sue respected the hopes and ambitions of Black people. They knew Doug deserved his chance. Even if they thought it all but impossible. They also knew this: we knew how to play hardball. Black Virginians had been waiting for this chance for over three centuries. 

But this left the Big Guy: Governor Robb. I had already been the emissary sent to get the conservative Democratic Speaker from Southside to back Doug. Let’s be honest: Goldy from Brooklyn and A.L. Philpott from Byrd country couldn’t have been more different in more political ways. But we both had one thing in common: we understood leadership. So, when I called him, he was way ahead of me. He volunteered to put on a spectacular political breakfast highlighting his support for Doug despite knowing his key local constituents didn’t want Wilder to win. Back then, we campaigned amidst Confederate Flags. I got called names for helping Doug. But A.L was a Democrat. He would give a fair chance. 

This left Chuck Robb. Everyone assumes it was Mark Warner or Jay Shropshire or whomever who went to see Robb. Truth is, I went to see Chuck to ask him to help us. He and Doug had tangled but always careful not to go too far. Like A.L., the Governor was way ahead of me. He volunteered to do a TV ad endorsing us. Indeed he didn’t like my script, he had his own. A lot better than mine, actually. 

As I said in my book, it was only years later I realized we would not have won without his open, full, widely publicized support. Even with Jerry winning by 10 points. The coattails would not have been enough. We need Baliles with us openly. But even more was Robb’s astounding 85% approval rating. Baliles and Terry voters needed to Robb vouching for us given all the negative stuff. Yet even with all that, we won only narrowly. 

I have no recollection of ever talking to Jay Jones. I knew his dad from politics. A great guy. But don’t recall ever talking to Jay. Moreover, from what I know, some of his advisors have treated me most unfairly over the years. The point being: I have no personal or financial stake in his winning. 

So, I write today as a political commentator, a former Washington Post columnist on state politics. My professional opinion is this: Jay Jones will win if Abigail Spanberger and the Democratic leaders back him the way they ultimately came to back Doug 40 years. 

The fact is Jones was chosen by the Democrats of this state to defeat the Trump MAGA loyalist opposing him on the Republican ticket. The state attorneys general around the country may be the last line of legal defense against Trump’s weaponizing of the DOJ. While I thank President Trump for stopping all the bloodshed in the Middle East — Nobel Peace Prize level leadership — this doesn’t obscure the war against democracy he is conducting here at home. 

I have previously done several radio interviews chastising Mr. Jones for his texts. In all honestly I can’t imagine anybody on LSD sending such things. They are unacceptable. He has struggled to make the right kind of apology. He has struggled to make the right kind of promises in that regard about his never doing it again. But at the same time, Democrats can’t fall for the blatantly insincere anti-Jones rhetoric from the MAGA crowd.

Not long ago, President Donald Trump stood to give a eulogy at the funeral of Charlie Kirk. Mr. Kirk was assassinated while exercising his first amendment rights. There are a few things more dangerous to our democracy than fearing a bullet or a federal indictment every time you dare to express a controversial opinion. Prior to Trump speaking, Mr. Kirk’s widow stood at the rostrum and publicly forgave her husband‘s killer. In all candor, I don’t think I could’ve ever done anything like that in a similar situation. A most remarkable thing to do. 

What was Trump’s response? He stood where she stood, turned to her and said he didn’t agree… then faced the audience saying he wished the worst for his political opponents. I don’t claim to be able to read the President’s mind. But I am confident he wasn’t talking about having sent a text several years ago. 

Fact: The race for Attorney General comes down to those who are going into the voting booth to support Abigail Spanberger. The idea she or any other Democrat could somehow get otherwise GOP votes by throwing a Democratic nominee overboard as a sacrifice to MAGA is strictly without any statistical or logical support. 

The truth: Spanberger is the first VA Democratic candidate for governor who didn’t come to the nomination after having spent many years in VA state politics as opposed to federal politics. Accordingly, she doesn’t necessarily appreciate at the gut level the struggles Black people, women and others previously have made to begin to achieve equality in state politics. When Wilder in 1989 adopted my strategy to make women’s health the top issue in his gubernatorial campaign, it was the national women groups who fought us publicly and asked us not to do it. 

That Jay Jones is a privileged son of the black political elite in our state is a truism. He won his seat in the legislature due to the success of his dad. Otherwise he wouldn’t be running for AG this year or likely any year.

But at the same time, it is a wonderful thing because there is now in our state a black political elite. I remember helping to draft Louise Lucas’ senate district in 1991. I was state Democratic Party chair. The White party establishment was furious at me. There were only two Black majority Senate district at the time. Governor Wilder and I wanted five. Those White guys never forgave me. Threw me off the State Council of Higher Education as punishment.

When I started out helping Doug Wilder and Henry Howell, this was part of our dream, and it seems to have come true in my lifetime. 

That I am disappointed at never having been able to get the Democratic leaders to back my constitutional amendment to guarantee equal educational opportunities to poor Black and White children Is an understatement. It totally baffles me. That Jay Jones never showed any interest is likewise true.

But here in 2025, like it or not fair or not, there are only two people running for attorney general. One is the hand-picked choice of Trump Republicans. The other the choice of Democratic primary voters across the state.

It all candor, I never imagined a Democratic nominee for governor throwing a Black Democratic AG candidate under the bus at this moment, given the totality of circumstances facing our state and nation.

Perhaps there will be in the future additional revelations about Mr. Jones. If so, we can deal with them at that time. But likewise, there may be revelations starting tomorrow about his GOP opponent. The future is unknowable.

So, we can only make decisions today on what we do know. What I know is, the Democratic nominee for governor, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, and the key leaders of the Democratic Party either come out and help the struggling Democratic nominee for AG the way they should. Or he will lose to his Trump-backed opponent. 

That’s the issue facing Democrats. Mr. Jones and his Republican opponent are debating on Thursday.

This gives Democratic leaders time to unite to do the right thing for our state. Or indulge themselves in some fantasy about showing how evenhanded they are in hopes of pleasing those out to wreck our democracy.

Hopefully, someone in Jay Jones’s campaign or in the Democratic Party knows how to play political hardball. I understand people forty years later still haven’t forgiven me. But helping Doug make history was then, is now and will always be the right thing to have done for this state and  this nation. 

Paul Goldman is former Chair of the VA Democratic Party, a former candidate for mayor of the City of Richmond, and author of “Remaking Virginia Politics.”