Ed Gillespie Remains A Class Act

David Axelrod defines Ed Gillepsie’s 2017 Virginia gubernatorial campaign as a coda.  We could not more heartily disagree.

Knowing that the 2017 gubernatorial contest was uphill, Gillespie chose to storm the hill anyway.  Knowing that the 2014 U.S. Senate race was uphill, Gillespie chose to storm that hill as well (and very nearly took it).

Public service isn’t defined by the fights you win, but the fights you choose.  Gillespie has always fought the fights worth fighting — allowing victory the best chance to flourish and catch fire.

If you want to get to know the man?  Listen to this.  

In this hour-long podcast, Gillespie sets the record straight, slams the media narrative, and shows the depth of character that anyone who comes to know the man will instantly respect.  It’s the stories you don’t see printed in public that are always the most impressive ones… and for all of Gillespie’s hard work and sacrifice to the party?  A truly heartfelt thanks is deserved.

For that reason, Gillespie will continue to have a role in Virginia Republican circles for as long as he desires to pitch in and help the conservative movement — against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Not a coda; just an intermission.

UPDATE:  Here’s where it gets kinda upsetting… and the transcript here at about the 1:11 mark of the podcast is, well, sobering in the extreme… though quite helpful to the political left.  Ignoring the civil war between liberals and progressives while painting even reasonable conservatives into the “racist and bigot” box sure does help drive a narrative.  Question is, is the Democratic Party the vehicle for the Washington Post or vice versa (because it sure feels like vice versa):

GILLESPIE:  “I did not take positions that I do not believe in, you know… so on immigration.  I think there’s a big difference between sanctuary cities and the DREAMERS.  I’m not for deporting the DREAMers and I’ve made that clear, and I know we can be a welcoming commonwealth and a welcoming country and… and I don’t think that these people should not be punished for decisions made by their parents.  Like I said, my father was brought here when he was 8 years old; he didn’t make that decision.  But at the same time we shouldn’t have sanctuary cities — that’s my position.  I don’t believe that, um… you know, it’s the right use of local taxpayer dollars to spend the money to take down the Civil War statues all across the commonwealth and by the way there’s hundreds of them, it’s not just the ones in Richmond but there’s hundreds of them and I would rather they be put in historic context and that we erect new statues when we’ve been on the right side of history.  Doug Wilder is the first African-American governor elected in the history of the country; we should have a statue to Doug Wilder in Richmond.  We should… Dred Scott and Booker T. Washington in Virginia; we should have statues to them, that’s what I feel like but I don’t think we should have the city spend the money to take down the states.  And on restoration of rights, I know we can be compassionate but at the same time discretionary.  Now, are those the issues I would have chosen to run on?  As opposed to the tax cuts and, you know, frankly, even the criminal justice reform?  Innovative proposals I put forward in that regard?  That’s where I’d, you know, rather the race would have been about, but it wasn’t… those weren’t what was indicating what were going to move numbers and help win…”

AXELROD: “And has the president created an environment which it’s harder to run on those issues you wanted to run on rather than some of these more…”

GILLESPIE:  “Well a couple of things.  Those issues have been… you know… they reflect a more polarized environment.  I think there’s no doubt about that.  And has the president contributed to a polarized environment?  I think, probably.  The other thing is that… my bigger concern, David, is that it makes it harder to have a discussion about an issue like sanctuary cities and there is the “FOX effect” to a certain extent.  So, FOX News talks about sanctuary cities and it gets magnified there and there’s almost this reaction then to marginalized it elsewhere, and it’s a legitimate concern there in my view.  I think we should co-operate with federal authorities and and I’m pro-immigration and the son of an immigrant, but I don’t– I think we should enforce the laws.  But it does make it harder to have a conversation about those issues…

AXELROD:  “Would you–”

GILLESPIE:  “…and I would say that even, you know on, on statues, you know, I never talked about defending heritage because that’s not how I see the issue or view it.  And I see the flag, the Confederate flag, a whole different way than I see the statues, and by the way so do most Virginians, in our city squares and at the county courthouses.  But when the president tweeted about it, himself, he tweeted about heritage, and that injected it into the discussion in a way that I would not and never did because to me it’s about, you know, are you going to spend the money on bringing down the statues or put them in a historical context.  That’s a better conversation to have around the commonwealth, and actually would be a healthy conversation to have — the conversation about historical context would be good for us… um, but that tweet contributed to that, the, you know, polarized it even more that was a 60-30 issue even in the Washington Post…”

AXELROD:  “Is it, is it… is there room for an Ed Gillespie, you know… is there room for a reasonable man in this environment?  Are you done with this now?  Are you done with running for public office?”

GILLESPIE: “I am done with running for public office.”

AXELROD:  “Would you encourage others to run for public office?  Knowing what you know and having gone through what you’ve gone through.”

<pause>

GILLESPIE:  “Probably not.”

AXELROD:  “That’s a sad statement.  Coming from a guy who, I know, is so deeply… I mean, you’ve spent your life in this, you know, democracy…”

GILLESPIE:  “Yeah, I just, you know, I think that… and look, this gets to a broader discussion too… the way the media world is, there’s no… you know, there are no… well that’s not fair to say there are no… um, because the nature of how the race was covered in Northern Virginia versus the rest of the commonwealth was very, very different and way that… look… the national media environment and the, you know, they come in and they kinda pick up these issues in a state where in a — and even into a locality — and nationalize them in a way where they don’t have the context and they don’t have a proper understanding.  People outside Virginia would not understand that the statues that people actually care about in Virginia?  Are the ones that are over 100 years old generally in their town square or at their courthouse, not Robert E. Lee in Richmond, that’s not the one — and certainly not the one in Charlottesville.”

AXELROD:  “…but there’s no room for nuance.”

GILLESPIE:  “There’s no room for nuance!  There’s no… there’s… and so everything gets cast in… and, you know, there’s… you got to pick as side and the way people characterize you and the shorthand to get the clicks and that kind of thing what drives clicks… I mean, you’re from the news business originally and you know it was always the case that the product was not the paper but you — and the advertisers, you know, were selling you.  Now we’re selling clicks, and it has a very debilitating and I think cynical and corrosive effect on the ability to have an actual conversation about serious issues, and a lot of times the effect is just to try to shut down the conversation and I think that’s one of the things I can tell you right now having run, that is one of the things that activates that Trump electorate… but I can tell you that they are a lot of people who feel like they are not just being disagreed with, they are being disdained, and that their legitimate concerns about things are, you know, stifled and diminished and marginalized in a way that frustrates them.  To the earlier conversation I think you see some of that in the debate around Roy Moore and whether or not he wins or loses in Alabama.  That will be a significant factor in the mentality there, because people [Trump supporters] feel as if they are being marginalized and demonized for having concerns by an elite who doesn’t understand their concerns.