3/21/2013
This week Virginians got their best look so far into the extreme agenda that Ken Cuccinelli would bring to the Governor's mansion and the extensive lengths to which his campaign is going to try and keep that agenda out of public view until he is elected.
Remarks Cuccinelli made last year comparing his career-long effort to restrict women's health care rights to the historic fight to abolish slavery drew statewide newspaper and television coverage and showed Virginia voters how far outside the mainstream Cuccinelli really is.
Also this week a Washington Post editorial revealed how Cuccinelli's campaign is hoping to paper over Cuccinelli's radical agenda, not by shifting his policy positions but by seeking to hide them from the public. As the Post reported, Cuccinelli's response to a growing bipartisan consensus over immigration reform was to simply remove the "Immigration Issues" page from his website, a page which used to feature stances on immigration that are far more extreme than even the Republican mainstream today.
As the coverage roundup below demonstrates, Cuccinelli's efforts to hide his true policy agenda are clearly a reaction to the widespread negative attention his extreme views receive when Virginians are given the opportunity to examine them. The Cuccinelli campaign knows its greatest liability is the candidate's extreme agenda, so they're doing their best to distract Virginians from what he would do if he's elected in November.
Associated Press: Cuccinelli compares slavery abolition to anti-abortion movement
Nearly eight months before election day the Democratic Party of Virginia released video from last June that shows Cuccinelli addressing a small gathering of religious conservatives meeting in Williamsburg. It continues the Democrats' strategy of portraying the socially conservative attorney general as too extreme for a swing state."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.
Richmond Times-Dispatch: 2012 Cuccinelli video prompts dust-up over abortion
Washington Post: Va. Democrats put focus on Cuccinelli's antiabortion views
WCYB: Cuccinelli Slammed for Slavery Statements
WJLA: Cuccinelli links fights against slavery, abortion
WDBJ: Cuccinelli compares fight against abortion to fight against slavery
WRIC: Controversy Brewing Over Cuccinelli Slavery Comments
WRIC: Cuccinelli compares fight against slavery to fight against abortion
NewsChannel8: Cuccinelli links fights against slavery, abortion
Huffington Post: Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia Attorney General, Compares Outlawing Abortion To Abolishing Slavery
Mother Jones: Virginia Gov. Candidate Ken Cuccinelli: Outlawing Slavery and Outlawing Abortion Are Part of the Same Fight
Washington Post: Ken Cuccinelli's Airbrushed Policies
"As recently as November, Mr. Cuccinelli's campaign Web site boasted of his uncompromising positions on illegal immigration, including opposing tuition subsidies for undocumented students (even if they grew up in Virginia), firing state contractors who employ illegal immigrants and stepping up deportations and employment verification.
"But clicking Tuesday on a link to the campaign site's immigration policy page brought up the following: "This is somewhat embarrassing, isn't it? It seems we can't find what you're looking for."
"More likely, Mr. Cuccinelli's views on the issue, suddenly out of sync with the GOP's swiftly shifting stance, are no longer politically suitable."
MSNBC: Cuccinelli's website gets a touch up
Talking Points Memo: Ken Cuccinelli Takes Down His 'Immigration' Issues Page
http://www.vademocrats.org/news/press/week-cuccinellis-extreme-agenda-revealed-despite-campaigns-effort-mask-it
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