Virginia Democrat Ralph Northam’s gubernatorial campaign suffered another embarrassment yesterday when it was revealed that they circulated fliers supporting the Democrat ticket in Virginia that excluded the party’s lieutenant governor nominee, Justin Fairfax. While Northam and Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring were prominently pictured on the fliers, Fairfax was nowhere to be seen.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Northam left out his running mate at the request of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, whose spokesman claimed that Fairfax “wasn’t supporting us on the issues.”
Not only does this debacle raise serious questions about the Democrat ticket’s unity three weeks before Election Day, but it further proves just how beholden Northam is to big labor. Northam has already refused to say that he will protect Virginia’s Right-To-Work laws after taking massive contributions from unions. And if big labor can force Northam to distance himself from his own Democrat running mate, what else could they make him do if elected?
Here’s more from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
The campaign of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam printed some fliers that excluded a picture of ticket mate Justin Fairfax to accommodate a union that has endorsed Northam but not Fairfax.
The fliers appear similar to other fliers that include all three Democrats on the statewide ballot Nov. 7: Northam; Fairfax, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor; and Attorney General Mark R. Herring. The fliers are handed out by canvassers knocking doors.
In the Fairfax-free flier created for the Democratic friendly Laborers’ International Union of North America, all references to Fairfax – including his picture – are gone. Those fliers have been used in Northern Virginia.
The union requested a flier that did not include Fairfax, said Brian Petruska, general counsel with the LIUNA Mid-Atlantic Region Organizing Coalition, because Fairfax did not complete their questionnaire and ‘wasn’t supporting us on the issues,’ he said.
Among those issues: Two controversial natural gas pipelines, the EQT Midstream Partners’ Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Dominion Energy-led Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which are proposed to cross Virginia. Fairfax is among the environmentalist Democratic base in Virginia that’s opposed to the pipelines. Northam does not oppose the pipelines.
Reactions to Northam’s “Flyer-Gate” were pretty unified on Twitter. See below.
