Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) is now flip-flopping on his call for Governor Ralph Northam (D) to resign from office following racial scandal. Warner was one of the first high-profile Democrats to tell Virginia’s governor to step down from office.
On February 1, a photo was released reportedly showing Northam in his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook dressed either in blackface or in Ku Klux Klan robes. He first confirmed that he was in the photo – not saying which one – then backpedaled the day following at a very odd press conference, which included an attempt to “moonwalk” in front of reporters and his wife, Pam, telling him “inappropriate circumstances.”
Moreover, a photo was released of Northam from a yearbook when he was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute in the early 1980s, with his nickname, “Coonman,” a racial epithet, featured below his head shot.
In the two months following, he has refused widespread calls for his resignation, even from potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Northam then embarked on a “racial reconciliation” tour which led to his first stop at Virginia Union University being cancelled after students were infuriated with the governor.
Nevertheless, Governor Northam has remained adamant that he is not leaving the Executive Mansion.
Warner and other Democrats, including former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) have also reneged on their calls for him to step down from office.
“He’s been very clear that he’s going to continue his term, and I hope he can do so successfully, and I think he’s going to be more successful when he lays out how he’s going to try to bring about a healing process here in Virginia,” Warner said in a report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
This is in stark contrast from what Warner said in early February. He joined in with Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-3) in calling for Northam’s resignation on February 2.
“After we watched his press conference today, we called Governor Northam to tell him that we no longer believe he can effectively serve as Governor of Virginia and that he must resign. Governor Northam has served the people of the Commonwealth faithfully for many years, but the event of the past 24 hours have inflicted immense pain and irrevocably broken the trust Virginians must have in their leaders. He should step down and allow the Commonwealth to begin healing,” the statement said.