Virginia's Republican nominee for governor reportedly told supporters at a fundraising event in June that he couldn't reveal his true position on abortion rights until after he's elected.
His reasoning: He needs the independent vote to ensure his victory in November.
Glenn Youngkin, the venture capitalist running as a Republican in Virginia's gubernatorial race against former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, made the comments to Lauren Windsor, who runs The Undercurrent, a self-described "grassroots political web-show" funded by the liberal advocacy group American Family Voices.
The American Independent obtained the video footage from Windsor, who also shared it with MSNBC.
In the video, Windsor begins speaking with Youngkin about her feigned support for things like "getting a fetal heartbeat bill here like they did in Texas, or defunding Planned Parenthood."
A man who identifies himself only as "Pete" also appears in the video, though his full identity is not immediately clear.
Youngkin responds by telling Windsor that she's "on the right path," adding that he initially wants to work on abortion issues he says a "majority of Virginians" support, including to "stop using taxpayer money for abortions" and banning "abortions all the way up until the last week before birth." (Taxpayer money is not used to fund abortions.)
When Windsor pushes him more, Youngkin says that he's unable to speak much on the issue for fear of losing the independent voters he says he needs to win Virginia's gubernatorial contest in November.
"I'm gonna be really honest with you, the short answer is, in this campaign, I can't," Youngkin says after "Pete" asks him whether he plans to "take it to the abortionists."
"When I'm governor, and I have a majority in the House, we can start going on offense," he continues. "But as a campaign topic, sadly, that in fact won’t win my independent votes that I have to get. So you'll never hear me support Planned Parenthood, what you'll hear me talk about is actually taking back the radical abortion policies that Virginians don't want."
A couple of observations:
One, Democrat Terry McAuliffe is going to win by double digits over this clod. There's no bigger sin in Republican politics than admitting the culture war con is just that. Not only does Youngkin admit he needs to deceive moderate voters, but he's tacitly admitting that he needs to deceive Republican cultist base voters too, because politics is all about getting into power. Actually showing the people how the sausage gets made makes you a ham-fisted loser in the era of Trumpian showmanship.
Two, there are no moderate Republicans in 2021. They're all cultists if they're in the party, and half the ones that "left" are just independents who want to self-delude into thinking they're cool hipsters or something. Youngkin I think really falls into this latter category, and that's the second-biggest sin in GOP politics.
He's done, folks.
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