The Unconscionable Loss of Conscience for Virginia Democrats

"The stakes couldn't be higher," Jay Jones, the Virginia Democrat running for state attorney general, said Monday in an X post. It was an ironic post, coming 10 days after National Review reported numerous violent text messages Jones sent to a colleague in the legislature about a Republican lawmaker. Jones fantasized about urinating on the graves of political opponents as well as shooting then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert with "two bullets to the head."

He also texted that he hoped Gilbert's wife, Jennifer, would one day hold one of her children as they died.

He followed that post with the same tropes used against all Republicans about "saving our democracy" and accusing incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares of being someone "who takes directives from Donald Trump."

Is it character? There is none evident here. How can he tell voters he has the comportment to govern?

And how hard is it for Virginia Democrats to demand that he face consequences for his behavior? Where are Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA)? Gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger and lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Ghazala Hashmi? Yes, they have tepidly called Jones' texts inexcusable. As for consequences? Well, they all still endorse him.

One Democrat they didn't support after a major scandal was former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. They tried very hard to drive him out of office in 2019 when it was unearthed that he appeared in blackface in a college yearbook in the 1980s.

At the time, Warner and Kaine said in a joint statement, "We no longer believe he can effectively serve as the governor of Virginia and that he must resign."

So did every major national Democrat, from Kamala Harris to former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to Joe Biden. Yet there is no call for Jones to exit the race.

Perhaps it is because Democrats know it is too late to replace him on the ballot. Early voting has already started, and perhaps they don't want the Republicans to score a win in the off-year cycle. Or, perhaps, and this is the worst possible scenario, the Democrats are secretly OK with what Jones texted.

Jones has a host of other problems as well. He was stopped by law enforcement in 2022 for going 116 mph in a 70-mph zone, an infraction that could have resulted in jail time for reckless driving. Instead, his lawyer and the commonwealth's attorney worked out a deal by which Jones was only required to do 1,000 hours of community service, the bulk of which was performed by Jones for his own political action committee in lieu of jail time.

Virginia Democrats come across looking as though murder and gaming the system are not issues that deserve consequences. They aren't going to stick their necks out to make Jones leave the race.

This story has totally blown up the race. However, the lingering question remains about the mindset of the Virginia Democrats, and indeed the mindset of national Democrats.

This looks like the left looking for a "both sides do it" excuse to diminsh the Jay Jones crisis.

The difference, as usual, is that when the left does it it's by people in power, and when the right does it it's people who are not.

As I recently reposted regarding the Virginia 2019 election, the Democrats were all for calling for Democrat candidates to step down when they believed another Democrat would take the seat, but once it became apparent that a Republican would become Governor, all calls for resignations stopped.

Character and fitness for office became secondary to party control of the government.

That's why the Democrats will always be about situational ethics, which makes their moralizing about Republicans fall on deaf ears.

This is shaping up to be a repeat of the Ralph Northam / Justin Fairfax / Mark Herring situation in 2019.
Northam was mid-term in 2019 when a college yearbook photo showed either him or the person next to him wearing blackface at a costume party. The other person was dressed in a KKK costume. Northam denied that he was either of the people in the photo, after admitting that he was one of the people in the photo the day before.
Calls for Northam to resign began, including from his Attorney General Mark Herring and the state's Senator Tim Kaine. However, a few days after calling on Northam to resign, Herring himself was forced to admit that he, too, dressed in blackface while in college. This shocked the Virginia Democrats, and they at first were frozen in inaction regarding how to react to both the Governor and Attorney General admitting that they wore blackface in college.
While thesse scandals were brewing, Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax was preparing for Northam to resign and ascending to the Governor's position when he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman, Vanessa C. Tyson, an associate professor at Scripps College and fellow at Stanford University, a hotel at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax denide the sexual assault, but not the sex. He said it was consentual and that he was being targeted as a black man about to become Governor of Virginia.
However, five days later a second woman came forward, Meredith Watson, claiming that Fairfax raped her in 2000 when they were both students at Duke University. Calls for Fairfax to resign began.
Now, this is where the hardball Democrat Party politics came into play. The line of succession in Virginia is Governor -> Lt. Governor -> Attorney General -> Speaker of the House. At the time, the Speaker was Kirk Cox, a Republican. If Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax, and Mark Herring all resigned over these scandals, a Republican would become Governor just as the 2020 primary season was beginning. This was unacceptable.
Therefore, nobody resigned, everybody toughed it out, and nobody took responsibility for anything. Northam was term-limited, Herring ran for reelection and lost to Republican challenger Jason Miyares, and Fairfax ran for Governor and lost to Terry McAuliffe.
Now we see the same dynamics again: Jay Jones finds himself in the position of toughing it out or resigning and handing the AG office to a Republican, but this time Kaine is defending him.

-PJ

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