The ad takes aim at current Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s program restoring convicted felons’ right to vote. Virginia is one of four states where a person loses the franchise entirely after they are convicted of a felony-level offense. McAuliffe first tried to use his pardon power to restore the rights of 200,000 Virginians in one blow. Republican lawmakers successfully challenged the en masse order in court, so the governor began signing the orders individually, totaling more than 168,000 to date. McAuliffe’s move stands out as perhaps the boldest concrete step to reverse mass incarceration’s effects on individuals’ agency that the country has seen so far.
At the same time, the policy’s breadth left it open to narrow attacks like the one made by Gillespie. Here’s the first half of the ad’s narration:
Last year, Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam instituted the automatic restoration of rights for violent felons and sex offenders, making it easier for them to obtain firearms and allowing them to serve on juries. One of these felons, John Bowen, had his rights restored two months after being found with one of the largest child-pornography collections in Virginia’s history. Forty-three prosecutors—Republicans, Democrats, and Independents—opposed Ralph Northam’s reckless policy. Now, Virginia law enforcement has endorsed Ed Gillespie for governor.
This part of the ad somewhat obscures Bowen’s timeline: The Times-Dispatch says McAuliffe restored the rights he lost from a previous conviction, and that Bowen had only been arrested and not yet convicted of the new offenses when the restoration happened. But the overall aesthetic evokes the tough-on-crime ads that dominated campaigning in the 1980s and 1990s: If you vote for my opponent, your family will be less safe.
In that sense, Gillespie’s new ad isn’t surprising, echoing its predecessors from all levels of American elections, with the infamous Willie Horton ad standing out in that dismal field. While the antagonist in this spot is white—unlike Horton, a black man George H.W. Bush’s campaign spotlighted in 1988—Gillespie’s campaign hasn’t shied away from appeals to racial animus, especially in the context of public safety. He maintained his support for Confederate statues after the white-nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August. And he’s run multiple ads portraying Northam as too soft on MS-13, a Latin American gang and a political specter frequently invoked by the Trump administration.
But what’s truly unusual about the ad is how the message changes in its second half. From the transcript:
Virginians who have paid their debt to society and are living an honest life should have their rights restored. But Ralph Northam’s policy of automatic restoration of rights for unrepentant, unreformed, violent criminals is wrong. As governor, I’ll be both compassionate and protecting of Virginia families. I’m Ed Gillespie, candidate for governor, and I sponsored this ad.
The tonal shift is accompanied by an even more jarring visual one, as the ad cuts away from dark juxtapositions of Northam and an alleged child-pornography collector to a smiling, well-lit Gillespie at home. This is not a traditional closing pitch for tough-on-crime ads, to say the least, with Gillespie modifying the tried-and-true formula and conveying actual nuance in his policy prescription.
First, he endorses the general aim of McAuliffe’s policy, even if he says he wouldn’t apply it as universally as the current governor does. Second, he emphasizes that his interest in the issue goes beyond punishing criminals. Gillespie isn’t promising to drop the hammer; he wants to be “compassionate and protecting of Virginia families.”
Not only is the ad blatantly racist and misleading, it doesn’t give a real sense of where Gillespie stands on the issue of criminal justice reform. In fact, Gillespie’s criminal justice reform proposal sounds less like Donald Trump and more like a watered-down version of Lt. Governor Ralph Northam’s (D. VA) proposals:
Republican gubernatorial nominee Ed Gillespie on Wednesday called for criminal justice reform that goes beyond what the GOP-controlled state legislature has so far been willing to embrace, including raising the state’s felony threshold to $500 from $200 and softening marijuana enforcement.
Speaking at a black-owned barbershop and surrounded by a number of local pastors and social workers who deal with people returning to the community from prison, Gillespie said he wants a system that is “just, fair and redeeming. I believe in redemption.”
Gillespie also cast his proposals in economic terms, pointing out that the state spends more than $1 billion a year on incarceration.
While he said he opposes decriminalizing marijuana because it “sends the wrong signal” to young people, Gillespie said he would favor a three-strikes approach for simple possession: The first two arrests would not carry criminal charges, but a third would.
By then, he said, “you really should know better.”
The Republican-controlled legislature commissioned a study of decriminalization earlier this year, and Gillespie said he would be interested to see its findings. Gillespie also said he supports “limited, tightly regulated” use of marijuana for treatment of some medical conditions.
His opponent in the governor’s race, Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, supports decriminalizing possession of marijuana and legalizing the medical use of marijuana.
Gillespie’s reform plan aligns with Northam’s proposals in other ways: Both favor raising the state’s standard for what constitutes felony larceny. The current level of $200 is among the lowest in the nation, making theft of an iPhone, for example, a felony that can deprive someone of the right to vote.
So it’s clear Gillespie is being misleading about his “law and order” stance in his ad. To shed some more light on this, Governor Terry McAuliffe (D. VA) released an op-ed on Huffington Post calling out Gillespie’s racist dog-whistling:
McAuliffe also points out that both his predecessor, Governor Bob McDonnell (R. VA), and hir former opponent, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R. VA), supported AND campaigned on restoring voter rights to felons who had served their time. So just like everything else about Gillespie, he isn’t sincere and authentic which is why he’s trying to have it both ways with traditional Republicans and Trump voters:
Ed Gillespie, the Republican nominee in the hotly contested Virginia governor’s race, is trying mightily to appeal to supporters of President Donald Trump with fear-mongering ads about the dangers of undocumented immigrants and the threat posed by the MS-13 gang. But this week, Gillespie will take a break from wooing Republican base voters to raise campaign cash at the home of a vocal anti-Trump activist who sought to block Trump from receiving the GOP nomination at last year’s party convention and her husband, a Koch brothers operative.
According to an invitation described to Mother Jones by someone who received it, the hosts of the Gillespie fundraiser are longtime Virginia political activists Anne and Kevin Gentry. Anne was an at-large delegate to the 2016 GOP national convention where she and several other Virginia Republicans fought to keep Trump off the ticket. She attended the convention in support of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Kevin, her husband, is a senior executive in the political and philanthropic network funded and organized by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch. (During the 2016 election, the Koch brothers withheld their support from Trump and largely sat outthe campaign.)
Vice President Mike Pence, a supporter of the Kochs, is scheduled to headline the event, according to the invitation.
Reached by phone, Anne Gentry said, “This isn’t a good time,” and hung up. A spokesman for Gillespie declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Pence did not respond to a request for comment.
Raising money at the home of a prominent Trump critic could cause headaches for Gillespie. He has walked a tightrope when it comes to Trump: keeping a distancefrom the president in the more Democratic-leaning suburbs of northern Virginia, but at the same time appealing to voters in Virginia’s rural and semi-rural counties that Trump dominated last year with a distinctly Trumpian anti-immigration message. Despite Trump’s endorsement-by-tweet of Gillespie, the president has yet to appear in person on behalf of the Republican gubernatorial candidate, and it is unclear if Trump will stump for Gillespie before election day.
Two of the Republican Party’s highest-profile Latinos are stumping for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie at a time when the Republican is fending off criticism from Latino and immigrant groups, who blast his ads about MS-13 gang violence as fear-mongering and racist.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will campaign for Gillespie in northern Virginia next Monday, headlining a get-out-the-vote rally in Sterling, a D.C. exurban town in swing Loudoun County. The event is free and open to the public.
It will come days after New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R), the nation’s first elected Latina governor, is scheduled Thursday to appear with Gillespie at business roundtables and a luncheon in northern Virginia.
“Senator Rubio and Governor Martinez are strong, conservative leaders and I am thrilled to welcome each of them back to the Commonwealth in the closing weeks of this critically important election,” Gillespie said through a spokesman.”
Their appearances on the campaign trail come as Gillespie tries to lock-up support from Republicans, moderates and independents in vote-rich northern Virginia, where Democrats have sought to drive up margins of victory in order to win statewide. Gillespie faces Democrat Ralph Northam on Nov. 7.
On Tuesday, Latino groups announced they would air Spanish language radio ads in Virginia urging voters to support the Democratic ticket.
“It is important for the Latino community to understand the major differences between the candidates,” said Julio Lainez, state director for America’s Voice Virginia. “The hateful campaign being run by Gillespie and the Virginia Republican Party aims to divide Virginians.”
Rubio carried northern Virginia counties in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, though he narrowly lost the state to Donald Trump. He has continued to be critical of the president — a divide that Democrats played up.
Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post’s conservative columnist, I have to admit, has been doing an excellent job calling out Gillespie pathetic Trump tightrope walk:
The reason Gillespie has transformed himself from a pro-immigration reform moderate Republican to a fire-breathing nativist is not hard to discern. He wants to energize Trump voters, hoping they turn out in force while Democrats stay home. It’s not clear, however, that Gillespie is convincing enough voters in the red enclaves of Virginia that he’s a Trumpian at heart.
The Associated Post reports:
People in Virginia’s coal country still love President Donald Trump, but not his pick to be their next governor.
Ed Gillespie is a Washington insider and Trump’s choice as Virginians prepare to go to the polls. The president promised southwest Virginia voters in a tweet, “Ed Gillespie will never let you down!” . . . But Gillespie is about as un-Trumplike as a candidate can be, and generates much less interest. Williams said he’s doesn’t know much about who is on the Nov. 7 ballot or what they stand for.
He’s no Roy Moore (the GOP Senate nominee in Alabama), which for Gillespie’s target audience in coal country is a bad thing. To them Gillespie may come across as a Washington politician playing them as fools. Is Gillespie still the Gillespie from his days a Bush adviser, an advocate of immigration? Or is Gillespie now a committed nationalist, a dogged defender of Confederate statues? Maybe both — or neither.
One can almost imagine the old Gillespie remarking on the sort of campaign he’s now running. C’mon, folks. This isn’t 1967. Virginia’s a modern, inclusive state. We should want every immigrant who wants to work hard in our state. Put away the race-baiting and scare-mongering. A lot of people in moderate Northern Virginia (the biggest population center) might have voted for that Gillespie.
While Gillespie has struggled to truly be himself throughout this campaign, Northam has remained true blue to who he is:
Virginia has elected some high-octane Democrats, from the voluble McAuliffe to Sen. Tim Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate last fall, and Sen. Mark R. Warner, who is helping lead the probe of Russian influence in U.S. elections.
Northam is different. An Army veteran from an old family on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, he built a successful medical practice in Norfolk and was a prominent community volunteer before entering politics a decade ago.
Local Democrats realized Northam had just the right qualities to challenge a vulnerable Republican state senator in 2007, launching him on an unlikely new career. He rose rapidly from state Senate to lieutenant governor and now the top of the ticket, aided by good timing, powerful mentors and a glittering résumé.
But he is playing on a different level now, in a world of career politicians and a time of vicious partisanship. It’s unclear how his quiet bedside manner, his warbly waterman’s accent or his reputation for bipartisanship will translate in the era of President Trump. His supporters hope an exhausted electorate will welcome that more soothing tone.
“He may not be your typical rah-rah politician,” said former longtime Norfolk mayor Paul Fraim, a Democrat. “But he’s very thoughtful, and I think that translates well. He’s a different type of politician.”
But at the end of the day, it’s the economy, stupid:
Republican Ed Gillespie and Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam opened the final debate of the governor’s race by clashing on a single topic: Virginia’s economy.
It may seem odd that the economy is a matter of debate in a state where the unemployment rate has fallen to 3.7 percent, among the lowest in the country and below the national rate of 4.2 percent. And almost 7 in 10 Virginia voters said the economy in their home region is either “excellent” or “good” in a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll.
But that same poll showed that the economy and health care are the issues likely voters are most concerned about this year. And only 44 percent said the state is headed in the right direction, the least-positive assessment in more than two decades of Post polls.
Gillespie regularly hammers Virginia’s economy, painting a picture of a state that sounds like it’s about to collapse — slow-growing, losing residents, with policies that “take us in the wrong direction.”
Even Northam, who defends the legacy of Terry McAuliffe (D), the current governor and his chief patron, has said that “it’s time to get the paddles out and shock rural Virginia back to life.”
The truth is that the top-line numbers for Virginia don’t paint the full picture. A state that had seemed immune to typical cycles of boom and bust has been vulnerable since the financial crisis of nearly a decade ago. Government work, long the prop for Virginia’s economy, is no longer reliable in an era of shaky congressional budget deals, sequestration and slimmer defense spending.
Even worse, the demise of legacy industries — coal mining, tobacco, textiles, furniture-making — has left regions of the state facing a generations-long challenge to rebuild. And because of changes in technology affecting companies all over the country, new employers don’t bring as many jobs or pay as well as the old industries.
“People are working, but at the end of the day their paycheck doesn’t feel larger compared to what they were. The sense of many voters is that they are essentially working harder to stand still,” said Robert McNab, an economist at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
That dynamic also helps explain how politically disparate Virginia has become. The urban areas that are doing well — especially Northern Virginia and Richmond — are increasingly blue, tilting toward Democrats in statewide and national elections.
But suffering rural areas are not only red; they also went dramatically for Donald Trump last year, in part because he spoke to their economic desperation. Voters in coal country know they’ll never see the thousands of jobs of decades past, but Trump’s vow to loosen coal regulations offered at least a shred of relief.
And believe me, the attack ads are going to keep on coming:
Bob Denton, an expert on Virginia politics at Virginia Tech, says from here on out, you will be seeing a lot more of these attack ads.
“It’s a base race and so the messaging now is going to be much more targeted toward the core constituency for both Democrats and Republicans,” Denton said.
Denton isn’t surprised that the gloves are off, especially since the race is so close.
“So if I’m a candidate and I’ve given you my issue positions and I have presented my resume. I’m not at 50 percent. Then I’ve got to get you to vote against the other person,” he said.
Polls show that neither candidate is polling at 50 percent, but that the candidates are polling in the 40 to 45 percent range. And because of that, Denton said he’s not surprised it’s such as close race.
In 2013, McAuliffe won the governor’s race with just barely over 2 percent, Denton said.
“And in 2014 Gillespie almost pulled off an upset within 1 percent.”
That was in the U.S. senate race against Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.
But Denton says third-party money means there will be many more nasty ads.
“That’s why we’re going to see an intensity of the attack ads certainly in the next couple weeks by these outside groups.”
So let’s not take anything for granted and get our folks out to vote. Click below to donate and get involved with Northam, the whole Democratic Ticket, and the state party to usher in a big blue wave:
Ralph Northam for Governor
Courtney Lynch
Tim Kaine for U.S. Senate
Justin Fairfax for Lt. Governor
Mark Herring for Attorney General
Virginia Democratic Party