by Kerry Dougherty
Here it is. Another sign of Democratic desperation.
I’m talking about this parade of out-of-state lefties coming to Virginia to demand we vote for Terry McAuliffe.
While Glenn Youngkin goes from overflow crowd to overflow crowd with a positive message for the future of Virginia: no grocery tax, more money for education, no CRT in schools, no return of parole, an increasingly frenzied McAuliffe screams two words over and over: “Trump” and “abortion.”
It’s ghoulish. And it’s as if he’s written off independents and centrists. McAuliffe is appealing to his base.
For instance, former President Barack Obama was in Virginia this weekend and in his peculiar sneering way lectured us about a “phony” culture war:
“We don’t have time to be wasted on these phony trumped-up culture wars, this fake outrage the right-wing media peddles to juice their ratings.”
Phony?
Apparently, Obama believes that a girl being raped by a boy wearing a dress in a high school lavatory is not a problem. Parents protesting sexual attacks are the real threat.
Oh, and the fact that it appears a suspected sexual predator was quietly moved to another high school where he could attack more unwitting girls is something being ginned up by overly concerned right-wing parents.
What a heartless man.
I remember when Obama got all teary-eyed about Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was shot to death in Florida in 2011.
“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” Obama said at the time. “When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids.”
Last time I checked, Obama has two daughters. Odd that he doesn’t empathize at all with the parents of the girls who were attacked at school and choses instead to insult those of us who think schools should be safe spaces for all kids.
Go back to Martha’s Vineyard, Obama. You’re out of touch.
One of McAuliffe’s relentless complaints is that Trump refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election. Yet he’s been palling around with Stacey Abrams, the imaginary governor of Georgia. Abrams still hasn’t conceded the election she lost in 2018 and McAuliffe supports her “Big Lie.”
Hypocrisy anyone?
One of the worst governors in America, Gretchen Whitmer, was scheduled to parachute into Virginia to try to help a foundering McAuliffe campaign, but withering criticism from Michigan Republicans who reminded her that she was supposed to be bringing an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to solving a serious drinking-water problem in Benton Harbor caused her to cancel on McAuliffe.
What exactly was McAuliffe trying to do? Does he really believe that Whitmer moves the needle for him in Virginia?
One African-American politician weighed in on McAuliffe’s pathetic campaign this weekend: Former Gov. Doug Wilder. What the Democrat had to say about Youngkin was mighty close to an endorsement. And what he had to say about McAuliffe certainly wasn’t.
Wilder mocked McAuliffe’s bringing in out-of-staters to campaign with him:
”Surrogates are not going to determine the outcome of this election. People will,” he said. “Knock on somebody’s door and tell them Stacey Abrams said they should vote, or the former mayor of Atlanta — Keisha Lance Bottoms. They’re going to say, ‘Who?’ Do they know Virginia? Do they know the status of our schools?”
Wilder praised Glenn Youngkin’s promise that, “[a]s Governor, every budget I sign will include direct funding for all five Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”
Wilder said voters notice.
“When Glenn Youngkin says that it’s a high priority, there are people who won’t forget it.”
While higher education is a critical issue in the race, so is K-12 schooling. Parents balked when McAuliffe said last month that he did not think parents should be weighing into the classroom.
McAuliffe’s words could hurt him with black voters, Wilder said.
“When the [prospective next] governor of Virginia says, ‘I am not going to allow parents to tell schools what to teach,’ You say, ‘My God,’” Wilder told the Washington Examiner. “Parents vote to have something to say about the education of their children.”
Wilder did not offer an endorsement, but he made it clear that he is not pleased with the Old Dominion party he once led. And he is not surprised that McAuliffe is struggling to nail down the support of the Democratic Party’s most reliable constituency.
Virginians “are independent-thinking people,” he said. “And you see what the polls are showing as it relates to independents: Youngkin is leading with independents as they crossover.”
Indeed, polls show McAuliffe’s support with independent voters collapsing in a neck-and-neck race Democrats expected to win handily.
Asked why black Americans may be reluctant to support McAuliffe, Wilder responded, “The better question would be: ‘What reasons do they have to turn out?’
“No Virginian running for statewide office is going to be elected without strong black support,” he said. “And what has anybody done in Virginia to merit that?”
Good question, Gov. Wilder. Maybe it’s time for a change in the Governor’s Mansion.
This column has been republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.
