(Deroy Murdock, Headline USA) The Nov. 2 ballot’s highest-profile contest—the battle for Virginia’s governorship—has become a referendum on the Big Government approach of the out-of-touch, Democrat Left.
As Virginia’s chief executive from 2014 to 2018, former Democrat National Chairman, and consigliere to the Clinton crime family, few people epitomize establishment socialism better than Terry McAuliffe.
Glenn Youngkin, McAuliffe’s ascendant opponent, is a quintessential Republican office seeker. This successful outsider aims to harness his private-sector success and rein in a runaway public sector that has betrayed its citizens. Youngkin was co-CEO of the Carlyle Group financial house before this, his first race.
McAuliffe and Youngkin are tied at 46% each, according to an Oct. 16-19 Monmouth University survey of 1,005 registered Virginia voters (margin of error: +/- 3.1%).
While 91% of Democrats backed McAuliffe, 94% of Republicans supported Youngkin, as did 48% of independents versus 39% for McAuliffe.
Just 6% of blacks favored Youngkin; 80% picked McAuliffe. But 32% of Hispanics stood with Youngkin versus 58% with McAuliffe.
This showdown previews 2022’s pivotal mid-term elections: Will Democrats hold Capitol Hill and, with the presidency, maintain their grip on Washington’s levers of power? Or will disappointed voters—increasingly appalled by Biden’s mumbling, stumbling, tumbling performance—dispatch the donkeys to the glue factory?
McAuliffe stepped into it, big time, in a Sept. 28 debate with Youngkin. Asked to address parental complaints about sexually explicit books and curricula, McAuliffe said: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Within hours, Team Youngkin made McAuliffe’s quote world famous, via TV ads, social media and widespread news coverage.
After McAuliffe’s torpedo tore open his own hull, he claimed in an ad—what else?—“Glenn Youngkin is taking my words out of context.”
The context could not be clearer: McAuliffe expressed his beliefs. A Youngkin spot soon showed McAuliffe, on video, repeatedly stating the same position:
- “You don’t want parents coming in in every different school jurisdiction.”
- Regarding school agendas: “First of all, this is determined by the State Board of Education and local school boards. And that’s where it should be.”
- “You do not want 25 parents picking books.”
- “We have a Board of Ed, and we have local school boards who make the decisions about teaching.”
- “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision.”
- Youngkin disseminated this televised exchange, via Twitter. It drove the fatal spike into McAuliffe’s “out of context” lie:
“So, did you misspeak during that debate?” asked WJLA’s Nick Minock.
“I was talking about what we need to do, bringing people together. We have the state boards. We have the Board of Education, and we have the local school boards who are all involved in this process.” McAuliffe soon stormed off, halfway through the 20-minute interview format that Minock offered both contenders.
This controversy has converted parents enraged by Democrat educational malpractice into the core of Youngkin’s broadening base.
White mothers and fathers hate Critical Race Theory teaching their sons and daughters that they are genetic racists who must apologize for being born Caucasian.
Some black parents loathe CRT for deeming their children eternally oppressed by Whitey and, thus, doomed to failure.
These parents have packed schoo-lboard meetings to excoriate CRT, counterproductive mask and vax mandates, gender studies, and more. All of this has driven parents and other voters into the streets.
An overflow crowd of some 1,000 people lined up to see Youngkin on Tuesday night in suburban Burke, in Fairfax County.
This once conservative northern-Virginia locale lately has slithered Left, thanks to incoming Democrats. Youngkin’s crowded rally saw him rising at just the right time.
Glenn Youngkin is the new face surging in the Old Dominion. As he told Fox News: “This is no longer a campaign. It’s a movement.”
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.
