Just when you think Corey Stewart might be sobering up, the campaign does something utterly classless — like this:
#AbortionEd [1] Gillespie thinks supporting late term abortion will win him votes in VA. Let’s prove him wrong. We are 100% pro-life! #Prolife [2]
— Corey Stewart (@CoreyStewartVA) January 26, 2017 [3]
This coming from the guy whose zeal for attacking Hispanics is only matched by his disdain for Catholics [4], Corey Stewart has decided to lash out and label presumptive GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Ed Gillespie as — get this — a guy who backs late term abortions.
What the what?
Here’s something you guys might want to know — in every pro-life fight, on every issue where the dignity of human life was at stake, in every instance where the dignity of the human person required every voice, in every time I have ever seen Gillespie called on to defend the most defenseless in our society? Gillespie has answered the call.
…and not just when he was asked. As a Catholic, Gillespie goes out of his way to defend life. Need a case in point? Go look at the pro-life presence at The Catholic University of America, where Gillespie served on the Board of Trustees — I can tell you that Fr. Schlageter used to be the high water mark of the March for Life (and hopefully, he’s still at Campus Ministry being awesome). There is a culture of life — a true culture — that is only fostered by those who from the top down value its presence.
Corey Stewart’s heavy lift for the pro-life movement? A tweet… attacking pro-lifers.
The 2017 March for Life is a day for unity, where pro-lifers from across the country unite under one banner in the longest running civil rights march in the history of the United States.
It is not a day for johnny-come-lately politicians to slam fellow pro-lifers for political advantage.
Shame on you, Corey Stewart. You knew better… you know better.
Go find a priest. Join the March for Life on the ground with the marchers (rather than in a nice warm office sipping coffee and admiring the plebes). Then come back and try this rhetoric of division.
59 million lives and the tragedy of human abortion is not a political gambit, sir. Gillespie knows that… because Gillespie is one of us.
Shame on you, Corey. Absolute shame.
UPDATE: Steven Brodie Tucker over at The Bull Elephant — not exactly known for their pro-life sentiments — is perhaps more outraged than I am [5]:
I’m not sure we need to ask anymore questions of Corey Stewart. He’s done. This is one of the most disgraceful attack videos in Virginia’s history – and I’m not even a Gillespie supporter. I do think that honesty and integrity should at least count for something amongst those seeking to represent us in Richmond.
That’s a backbreaker, folks.
UPDATE x2: So what is the source of this scurrilous attack? A Richmond Times-Dispatch article from this morning [6]:
Corey Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, who says he would sign the bill, which is pending in the General Assembly, plans to attend the march and to rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Two of his rivals for the Republican nomination, Ed Gillespie and Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, say they back the concept of a ban after 20 weeks, but that they would not sign such legislation unless it contained certain exceptions.
…which makes total sense, because without those exceptions it is widely believed that any European-style ban on abortion would not pass constitutional muster.
Duh.
Now how you get from what is a sound-if-debatable constitutional position to “Gillespie supports baby carving!” is beyond me, folks.
UPDATE x3: …and now, the offending video over at Facebook [7]. In front of a Hobby Lobby. In the wind.
I just am having a hard time understanding how Ed Gillespie could call himself a conservative, could call himself a Catholic, how he could call himself frankly a good man. Somebody who is in favor of late term abortion should not — should not be governor and definitely not be given the nomination for the Republican candidate for governor…
Corey mentions the term “late term abortions” five times in his 90 second statement. Would have been fine if Stewart quibbled over the exceptions in a 20-week ban… but late term abortions??
Sorry… these are 59,000,000 babies we are marching in remembrance for, not 59 million political footballs.