Believe it or not (believe it), there are still Republicans in this day and age who oppose the Violence Against Women Act. But while they oppose it, they don't necessarily want you to know that, because, while common, violence against women is not widely popular, and the Violence Against Women Act does have widespread support. Steve Benen
rounds up two key cases of VAWA evaders: Virginia attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Responding to the ad [above], Cuccinelli's campaign called the criticism "petty and false." So does that mean Cuccinelli actually supports VAWA and Democrats are falsely suggesting otherwise? In an interesting twist, he refuses to say and will not take a public position on the law. As a report from Bloomberg News put it, "In a statement ... Cuccinelli touted his work to combat sexual assault, human trafficking and child pornography, without detailing his position on the Violence Against Women Act."
It's not rocket science to figure out that if a candidate says he's against violence against women, yet won't say he supports the law addressing violence against women, he has a problem with the law and just doesn't want to be quoted opposing it.
Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, is trying to avoid people knowing about his opposition to the Violence Against Women Act by flatly lying, claiming that "I voted for a much stronger version of the Violence Against Women Act than the one that ended up passing the Senate." No, no, you didn't, Sen. McConnell. That's because there was no stronger version. The version that passed, with bipartisan support, was the strong version. Could it have been stronger? Yes. But making it stronger, making it cover more groups of people, increasing funding—these are not things that would make a Mitch McConnell vote more likely. Quite the opposite.
Ken Cuccinelli and Mitch McConnell oppose the Violence Against Women Act. The fact that they're trying to pretend otherwise shows just how extremist their opposition is to begin with.