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Eugene

(61,900 posts)
Sun Feb 3, 2019, 10:07 PM Feb 2019

Ralph Northam will 'put Virginia first' and resign as governor, Democrat says

Source: The Guardian

Ralph Northam will 'put Virginia first' and resign as governor, Democrat says

• Former governor Terry McAuliffe: ‘Ralph is a good, moral man’
• Press conference and Michael Jackson story add to controversy


Martin Pengelly in New York
Sun 3 Feb 2019 18.42 GMT

Ralph Northam will “put Virginia first” and resign as governor, a predecessor and friend of the embattled Democrat said on Sunday, two days after the release of a racist photo from a college yearbook pitched the state into chaos.

“Ralph is a good, decent, moral man and may have made a mistake,” former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe told CNN’s State of the Union. “Ralph will put Virginia first and I think he will do so soon.”

The picture is from Northam’s page in a 1984 yearbook from Eastern Virginia Medical School. It shows two men, one in blackface, one dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and it was released by Big League Politics, a website founded by former employees of the far-right Breitbart News.

On Friday, Northam said he was in the picture although he did not know which man was him. On Saturday, at a press conference in Richmond, he reversed and said he was not in the picture and had never seen the yearbook before its release this week.

-snip-


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/03/ralph-northam-kaine-warner-trump
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Response to Eugene (Original post)

Jarqui

(10,126 posts)
3. That is an older story from this morning
Sun Feb 3, 2019, 10:14 PM
Feb 2019

He was meeting with staff to determine what he was going to do this evening.

The meeting has wrapped up but no conclusion has been reported that I've seen yet

Maybe soon ...

 

manor321

(3,344 posts)
4. I hope so. Let's not have a third press conference where he remembers some KKK cosplay.
Sun Feb 3, 2019, 10:15 PM
Feb 2019

And he gives out laundry tips on how to keep the sheets looking their whitest.

That would be about as bad as what he did yesterday.

lunasun

(21,646 posts)
7. Finally . Apologized and then walked it back with I don't think that's me in the picture ??
Sun Feb 3, 2019, 10:35 PM
Feb 2019

And seemed like he was priming us for some Michael Jackson blackface that could come out
What a mess. He knew his base and expected the lame prove it was me excuse to go over . Insulting at the end
Close to 60 % of whites in the state voted R, over 85% of blacks voted D

Kos had a good editorial on how the heck could anyone rationalize this ?
Xxxxxxx
But beyond that, our fucking country is at stake. Virginia is a must-win presidential state for Democrats. Yet how can our nominee campaign in the state with Northam’s toxic presence casting a pall?

We have an excellent chance to take control of the Virginia legislature this year, but how can down-ballot Democrats campaign without having to answer questions about Northam daily? How can they work to win over crucial black voters if the party thinks it’s okay for Northam to remain on the job?

I see lots of white people saying they “forgive” Northam. But it’s not white people’s forgiveness that Northam needs.

Aside from the morality of the situation, it’s a political death sentence to the Virginia Democratic Party, in a state in which 20 percent of the population is black. White voters voted for the Republican candidate for governor 57-42. It was black voters—choosing Northam 87-12—who elected him governor. Same story in the 2016 presidential election: White voters opted for Trump 59-35, yet black voters opted for Hillary Clinton 88-9.


Even if you’re so tone-deaf on race that you don’t realize how damaging the facts of this case are (and too many of you distressingly are), then at least be motivated by the simple need to actually win in Virginia, both this November and in next year’s presidential contest.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/1/1831572/-Why-in-the-hell-would-anyone-try-to-rationalize-racism

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