UPDATE 6:22 pm – Speaking of not normal, how about Winsome Earle-Sears mixing up the Virginia Tech Hokies and UVA Wahoos? I’m sure Hokies and Wahoos alike are thrilled about this – not! LOL
Putting the morning news clips together, one article really jumped out at me this morning – namely, this one in the Cardinal News, by its editor Dwayne Yancey. Now, if you’ve read Blue Virginia for a while, you may recall that I haven’t exactly been a big fan of Yancey’s work – I’ve seen him as doing the typical “both sides”/false equivalence thing, for sure, plus numerous articles that were pro-Republican/anti-Democratic (e.g., this one; or see here, here, here, etc). So I was surprised this morning to see his new piece just ripping the you-know-what about the Winsome Earle-Sears campaign. As Sam Shirazi says, it’s a “tough but fair analysis” – fair, in that it’s accurate, and also 100% the result of the Earle-Sears campaign’s own choices. So check out the article, as well as a few highlights, below:
- “Since Earle-Sears was in Roanoke on the evening of Monday, Sept. 22, for the fundraiser, it sure looks as if she could have spared 15 minutes to talk to the truckers — which is about the amount of time Spanberger spent with them. This fits a pattern: Earle-Sears still has yet to meet with Virginia FREE, a pro-business group that typically meets with all the candidates. Spanberger has.”
- “Very little about the Earle-Sears campaign is normal, and this could come back to haunt the whole Republican ticket.”
- “Throughout the campaign, Earle-Sears has avoided many interactions that might lead to her being seriously questioned, be it by a business group or the news media. Earle-Sears has rarely done interviews outside what seem to be ‘safe’ news outlets.”
- “With fewer journalists, there are fewer people asking the candidates questions about what they’ll do in office — and more opportunities for candidates to insulate themselves from questions that don’t fit whatever message they’re trying to convey. Earle-Sears has taken this to an entirely new level, except it’s not just the news media she’s not talking to — it’s business groups as well. I repeat: This is not normal.”
- “By contrast, Spanberger has talked with Republican business leaders who may not support her campaign, but are businesspeople before they’re Republicans and want to make sure they’ll have their concerns heard if she’s governor. “
- “Here’s why Republicans ought to be concerned: Earle-Sears is not doing the things a normal candidate for governor would do. I can’t say she’s not working hard because I don’t know what she’s doing; I just know that when it comes to the public part of the campaign, there’s just not much to see.”
- “We know quite clearly how she feels on transgender issues. I don’t want to disregard the strong feelings that many people have regarding those issues, but that is just a single detail out of the thousands that a governor will face. What about the others? We really don’t know.”
- “…both agreed to take questions in writing — so our staff put together 25 questions for each candidate….Earle-Sears’ campaign has yet to respond — or even acknowledge receipt. Seven inquiries have gone unanswered.”
So what on earth is the Earle-Sears campaign doing exactly? One thing is posting relentlessly on its Facebook page about how trans people are evil, how supposedly Spanberger wants MEN IN GIRLS’ LOCKER ROOMS (that’s a flat-out, wild lie of course), etc. I’m not going to link to it, because it’s disgusting, but if you go there, you can see for yourself. Other than that, there’s some random bashing of another right-wing bogeyman, namely undocumented immigrants (who they dehumanize as “illegals”), fear mongering on crime, how much they hate the car tax (which funds local government, meaning that getting rid of it would decimate those local governments, unless a substitute for said car tax were found), etc. But other than that…not much.
Is any of that normal? On one level, definitely not. But on another level, YES, it’s the “norm” these days – hence, “normal” – for the MAGAfied, Trumpified, extremist, fact-free, fear mongering, delusional Republican Party. And it’s most definitely not something we should ever want in charge of Virginia, that’s for damn sure!
