Terry McAuliffe’s campaign logo says “Putting Jobs First”. Which makes the last two days of attacks against Ken Cuccinelli look even more desperate.
Yesterday the Democratic Party of Virginia and Terry McAuliffe tried to paint Ken Cuccinelli as extreme on life because Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, dared to make a value of life statement by using slavery as a point of reference when talking about the pro-life movement. The McAuliffe campaign, directly questioned by the Washington Post on their stand on abortion on demand, declined to respond:
“The SBA List believes in protecting the human rights of mothers and children,” she said. “On the other hand, Terry McAuliffe supports a platform of abortion on-demand at any time, for any reason, paid for by Virginia taxpayers. That means he supports a platform of sex-selective abortion, late-term abortion, partial-birth abortion, and abortions on teenage girls without parental consent – all paid for by Virginia tax payers. In sync with the extreme abortion lobby, he is utterly out of step with Virginia taxpayers.”
McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin declined to say whether Dannenfelser had accurately represented McAuliffe’s position on abortion.
Instead of answering the question, the McAuliffe campaign doubled down on this asinine argument by trying to capitalize on a video from last summer and insinuate that Ken Cuccinelli was somehow insensitive to racial issues because he dared to make an absolutely correct statement on the ability of Americans to acknowledge truth and come to the right side of history:
“Over time, the truth demonstrates its own rightness, and its own righteousness. Our experience as a country has demonstrated that on one issue after another. Start right at the beginning — slavery. Today, abortion,” Cuccinelli said in remarks recorded by a Democratic Party tracker at a Family Foundation event on June 14, 2012.
“History has shown us what the right position was, and those were issues that were attacked by people of faith aggressively to change the course of this country,” he said. “We need to fight for the respect for life, not just for life but for respect for life. One leads to the other.”
What is wrong with Ken Cuccinelli’s statement?
Nothing at all.
But the McAuliffe campaign wants to say it’s insensitive and is calling on people to demand Ken Cuccinelli apologize for stating what all of us Americans should be proud of: when we find an absolute truth in the face of a moral wrong we fix it.
Virginia Black Conservatives came out strongly in Cuccinelli’s defense this morning, pushing back on McAuliffe and DPVA’s playing of the race card:
“It is obvious that those who are attacking the Attorney General, obviously do not know him. I have learned that he is a man of honesty and integrity and a lover of liberty that many should sit down and learn from, ” said Terrence Boulden, president of VBC. “The members of the Virginia Black Conservatives Forum continue to stand behind Republican gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli. We reject the latest attempts by Democrats and the media to portray the Attorney as an ideological extremist. From his work on the restoration of rights for ex-felons to his attempts to exonerate those unjustly imprisoned to his fight against human trafficking, Ken has been willing and eager to lend a hand to all Virginians, no matter their race”
Keep in mind, this is the same Terry McAuliffe who was offended at the idea of civil disobedience in the face of an immoral law. As Mike Fletcher tried to remind McAuliffe back in January:
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., who was himself arrested some five times for civil disobedience, spoke to some 200,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
A few years before that, King had written in a Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor who worked to overthrow Hitler and who was martyred just days before the end of World War II said:
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.
I understand, Terry, that you won’t miss an opportunity to call Ken Cuccinelli an extremist, and that you’ll try your darnedest to use it to raise money. After all, we understand that we’re more excited about your candidacy than most of the people in your own party.
Still, it seems you don’t, or at least didn’t, have a problem with protests since you participated in an abortion rights march in 2004.
Terry McAuliffe and the Democratic Party of Virginia are taking a historically and morally accurate statement and twisting it to their demands. And the media is culpable in helping them make that case.
The people of Virginia deserve better.
Terry McAuliffe and DPVA owe Ken Cuccinelli and all Virginians an apology.
UPDATE: Terry McAuliffe was for slave comparisons before he was against them. Free Beacon reminds us that in 2008, Terry McAuliffe defended then Sen. Hillary Clinton’s comparison of delegates not being allowed to vote to slavery:
McAuliffe’s defense of Clinton’s statement came in response to a question from “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace:
WALLACE: This week Senator Clinton compared the decision to strip Florida and Michigan of all of their delegates to slavery, to the election in Zimbabwe where a dictator is trying to hold onto power, to the recount in Florida. Does she really see parallels there?
MCAULIFFE: What she sees is 2.5 million people who went to polls, who voted, who were certified at the county and at the state level. We are not a nation of 48 states. We’re a nation of 50 states.
We have to make sure — they have already paid a price, these two states. The rule worked. Other states didn’t move up. We got to protect the sanctity of Iowa and New Hampshire. They paid a huge price. Nobody campaigned in their states.
Now we need to look toward the November election. We have to win Florida and Michigan. These are key states for us in the electoral college. We can’t have 2.5 million people who went and voted.
Click here for the audio of McAuliffe’s comments.
How times have changed for Terry McAuliffe…
