http://wtop.com/prince-william-county/2017/04/confederate-flag-costs-stewart-colleagues-support-in-race-for-va-governor/




11:50 am, April 28, 2017
77°






Five elected Republican officials in Prince William County are not endorsing their colleague Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart, but instead have thrown their support behind one of his competitors in the party’s primary race for Virginia governor.

Two of those county officials, reached by WTOP, said they will support front-runner Ed Gillespie because of Stewart’s focus on symbols of the state’s Confederate past, and the use of the battle flag at rallies and events.

“I honor one flag and that is the Stars and Stripes,” said Supervisor Ruth Anderson, who represents the Occoquan District. “The Confederate flag is very painful for many people and it needs to be respected as part of our history, but certainly not celebrated as a main priority of a gubernatorial campaign.”

Anderson, who called Stewart a friend, along with fellow Supervisors Pete Candland, Jeanine Lawson and Martin Nohe joined with Sheriff Glendell Hill to endorse Gillespie.

“We’re very focused on the economy and bringing jobs to the county. That’s what I want my governor to do,” Anderson said.

The five officials’ backing only adds to the support for Gillespie in Stewart’s home county, where the former national party chair won a Republican straw poll last month.

Stewart, who was fired as Donald Trump‘s campaign chair in Virginia, has championed preserving the state’s Confederate symbols, like statues of Robert E. Lee and the Confederate flag, as part of his campaign.

He held a rally in Charlottesville in February calling on the city to keep its statue of Lee. Stewart also attended an event in Danville called the “Old South Ball” and posted a video on his Facebook page showing the candidate speaking below an enormous Confederate flag next to men and women dressed in antebellum-style clothing.

Last week, a Stewart supporter flew an airplane with a Confederate flag banner over the annual political event Shad Planking in Wakefield.
That was the last straw for Anderson, she said.

Gillespie’s campaign announced the county officials’ support the next day, including Hill’s, who had once backed Stewart.

“Today, I am pulling my endorsement of Corey Stewart for governor. He is a friend, but his campaign has become more focused on division rather than the unifying values and the history the Republican Party,” Hill said in a statement released on Saturday.

Both Anderson and Nohe heard concerns from constituents about the local lawmaker’s positions, especially regarding the Confederate flag, they said.

Nohe said he’d hoped to stay neutral out of professional courtesy to Stewart, but the candidate’s attendance and speech at the “Old South Ball,” changed his mind.

“Corey Stewart I think has just taken his campaign in the wrong direction and away from the values that we hold dear here in Prince William County. It was the right time to speak up,” said Nohe, who represents the Cole District.

Stewart’s campaign didn’t respond to WTOP’s request for comment. But in a statement, Stewart defended his position.

“The banning of historical symbols is about out-of-control political correctness that shames people for celebrating their ancestry and heritage,” the statement reads.

Stewart has rebuked Gillespie repeatedly for not protecting Virginia’s historical monuments, even releasing a radio ad to spread that message last month.

Gillespie has said that the removal of Confederate monuments should be left to local officials to decide. Still, he doesn’t believe that they should be taken down.

Such a campaign platform might have made sense a quarter century ago in a Virginia primary. But in modern state politics, a Confederate-centric message is unlikely to attract voters, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington.

“In fact, it’ll generate a lot of antipathy particularly where a lot of votes are cast in Northern Virginia and the suburban areas of Richmond and Hampton Roads,” Farnsworth said.

State Sen. Frank Wagner is also seeking the Republican nomination in the June 13 primary.

No surprise there. Support for anything Confederate these days is anything but politic.


Cry, wail, scream and caterwaul about PC all you will, people vote how they vote and these days a lot of people don't like things Confederate.

So don't sweat it..

DAJAX

Corey Stewart actually looks like a slave trader.

Corey Stewart is so fucking desperate to win statewide or federal office he will say anything, He tried to ride the Trump train but they fired him from the campaign. This whole Rebel Flag, Southern heritage routine is pathetic. He is from Duluth, Minnesota!

He's better than the alternative. The last gun show I was at Ed Gillespie was there. When he tried to talk to the crowd of buyers and exhibitors....nobody listened. I mean, NOBODY! In fact, people just wanted him to stfu.

The City Council in Alexandria tried to get rid of the Confederate Soldier statue on Washington St. As far as I know the State Legislature in Richmond nixed it. Good. That statue should stand as a reminder of our past.

Pretty soon they'll be trying to remove the statues of and change the name of all schools with Slaveholders names, not just Confederate symbols, including the ones from well before the Civil War.

Lee HS, JEB Stuart HS, Beuregard St, Pickett St will all be gone.

Then, they'll move on to Thomas Jefferson HS, GW University, etc. Washington DC will be renamed - no, I doubt they'll go that far.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2017 02:26PM by phelpsmarc.

ggggg Wrote:
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> Corey Stewart is so fucking desperate to win
> statewide or federal office he will say anything,
> He tried to ride the Trump train but they fired
> him from the campaign. This whole Rebel Flag,
> Southern heritage routine is pathetic. He is from
> Duluth, Minnesota!

You are absolutely right about Corey Stewart being from Minnesota. However, I would rather have a carpetbagger who respects our traditions and Embraces them run for public office in this state, then a self-loathing, pandering, self-righteous, politically correct liberal who hates everything about traditional culture who is from this state...

Without a doubt, if he was running for governor of Mississippi this platform would certainly bode much better for him. However, there are a lot of people who are really sick and tired of all of this political correctness that has been the norm over the past eight years.
Who knows, maybe he will be a dark horse that comes up with an upset victory.
And whether you like Confederate monuments or not, it is refreshing to hear a politician not be afraid to take a stand on this issue, unlike wishy-washy moderate ed gilepse or Barbara comstock. Contrary to what many people believe, Virginia is more than Fairfax, Prince William, and Arlington County...

His strategy will bode well in places like the
Shenandoah Valley and the Appalachian region.

What's the difference between ISIS and American liberals? They both erase symbols of the past, and they both destroy statues.

Black people actually have a legit beef with that flag any white person bitching about it is pretty much a douche.

Ive always wanted to hear a dude named muhamed bitching about the flag then id point out he needs a name change if he dosent like slavery.

"IN 1984, WHEN DOUG WILDER announced his candidacy for Lieutenant Governor, he stood in the State Capitol beneath a large oil portrait of Harry F. Byrd Sr., the former United States Senator whose name is virtually synonymous with old-style Southern segregation. That gesture would have been impossible for many blacks in politics, but for Wilder it was just part of the process. Coming from a senate district that was predominantly black, Wilder knew that to win a statewide office in Virginia he would need to reach out for white votes, and there was no more revered political figure in the Old Dominion than Byrd, who led the "massive resistance," Virginia's abortive struggle against desegregation in the 50's.

But Wilder did not stop there. Later in the campaign, he permitted himself to be photographed in front of Confederate flags and ran a television ad in which a burly white rural sheriff endorsed him."

He doesn't stand a chance in hell. Republicans are getting wiped out for the foreseeable future.

Gerrymanderer2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> He doesn't stand a chance in hell. Republicans are
> getting wiped out for the foreseeable future.


In nova, yes. Outside of our region it's a bit different...