Add Rep. Dave Brat (far-right R, VA-07) to the long list of Virginia Republicans who simply won’t answer the simple question of whether or not they’ll campaign with neo-Confederate Corey Stewart, the Virginia GOP’s U.S. Senate nominee. Check out the following audio, in which Brat is asked that simple question, and in response rambles for five minutes about how he’s not into “personality horse race contests”/”personality drama,” how he doesn’t “endorse in primaries” (huh?), how questions like this are just “clickbait” (alrighty), blah blah blah. Finally, the interviewer – perhaps exasperated at this point – asks Brat whether he’s comfortable being associated with a guy (Corey Stewart) who has been “photographed with Nazis, white supremacists, that whole Charlottesville thing.” Brat’s response:
Well of course, I went to Princeton Seminary, training to be a minister…I followed the systematic theology of Martin Luther King, who had a PhD in theology. Fascism, I utterly reject. I’m a free-market, limited-government, small-government person. Fascism requires a total state, right? If you want a huge state, the Democrat [sic] Party wants a huge state moving towards socialism, now with the Cortez victory…and I want a small state. I never get into the drama…I of course reject any sort of bigotry, discrimination, etc. in any way, shape or form…
So, should we take that as a “no, I will NOT campaign with Corey Stewart?” Or is that a “who the hell knows?” Or what? Got me, other than that Virginia Republicans “downballot” from Corey Stewart are not feeling too comfortable explaining their views on having a neo-Confederate who hangs out with anti-Semites and white supremacists heading up their ticket this year. Sad, eh? No wonder why VA GOP Chair John Whitbeck bolted!
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