“It’s a much more poisonous atmosphere. I don’t know if there’s causality or correlation, I leave that for others to determine. But I could not honestly say to someone that I like and think is a halfway decent human being, ‘Yeah, you ought to run for office’.”
— Ed Gillespie, quoted by the Washington Post, in his first interview after losing the Virginia gubernatorial race.
New York Times: “A Republican victory in Virginia would demonstrate that the president has not become a liability in off-year elections. In addition, given Gillespie’s post-primary strategic shift to Trumpian themes, a Republican win would serve to demonstrate that the issues of immigration, crime and race continue to win elections, even in a state where Democrats have been thought to have the upper hand.”
“If painting Northam as a friend to violent Salvadoran gangs and pedophiles seems like a stretch, that’s American politics in 2017. We used to think that however grotesque they were, there was still a difference between overt declarations and explicit racial politics on one hand and dog whistles and implicit racial politics on the other. That distinction seems to be fading, if it is not gone altogether. Whether the Gillespie-Trump brand of Republicanism sells to the Virginia electorate this year will tell us a lot about where American politics stand a year after the election of President Trump — and the outcome will also offer tantalizing hints about where we are headed in 2018 and 2020.”
Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie (R) will run for Virginia governor in 2017, Bearing Drift reports.
“Ed Gillespie, who nearly pulled off an upset in Virginia’s Senate race, conceded the battle Friday to Democratic incumbent Mark Warner. The former Republican National Committee head also told Politico this week that he isn’t planning to run for governor, despite predictions he would do so if he failed to reach the Senate.”