Ouch:
The man who rallied Southwest Virginia to vote for Donald Trump last year quit Republican Ed Gillespie’s gubernatorial campaign this week, offended by a personal snub and exasperated by the campaign’s highly cautious stance toward the president, according to three Republicans familiar with his decision.
Jack Morgan’s departure follows a half-empty Gillespie rally headlined by Vice President Pence on Saturday in Southwest Virginia, a coal country region that voted overwhelmingly for Trump in November.
Gillespie hired Morgan, a colorful evangelical preacher and former 9th Congressional District GOP chairman, as his ambassador to Trump country after nearly losing the June primary to a rival who had run in the president’s bombastic, populist image.
But Gillespie’s campaign did not let Morgan help plan or speak at the rally — over the objections of another GOP candidate who employs Morgan, state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, who is running for lieutenant governor and wanted him to introduce her.
Morgan’s wife was so offended that she refused to drive John Whitbeck, chair of the Republican Party of Virginia, to the airport for his return trip, according to the three Republicans familiar with the matter. And in an area of the state that Gillespie needs to turn out in force to overcome Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) on Nov. 7, activists took to social media to vent their outrage.
“I will guarantee you all this,” Republican activist William Totten, the Smyth County director for Vogel, wrote on Facebook, “should Ed ever run for anything in politics again I will work my every waking moment to make sure he loses the primary.”
Blunter still was activist Patricia Bast Lyman. “Ed showing his elitist butt to the 9th was a MONUMENTAL error from which he will not recover, ” she posted on Facebook.
We’ll see if this brings about any serious backlash. Meanwhile, let’s not forget this is happening tomorrow:
President Barack Obama will hit the campaign trail on Thursday to rally black voters behind candidates for governor in Virginia and New Jersey amid stern warnings that African Americans may not come out in force on an Election Day that is just three weeks away.
Mr. Obama’s appearances on behalf of Virginia’s lieutenant governor, Ralph S. Northam, in Richmond and the financier Philip D. Murphy in Newark — two white candidates in predominantly black cities — come as Democrats struggle to inspire African-Americans to vote this year. While Mr. Murphy appears comfortably in the lead in New Jersey, the race in Virginia is close.
And in Alabama, where voters go to the polls on Dec. 12, Doug Jones, a former prosecutor, is running a surprisingly competitive race for the Senate against the firebrand social conservative Roy S. Moore.
“There is not one person in Birmingham who disagrees we need Doug Jones,” said Randall Woodfin, the newly elected mayor of Alabama’s largest city, which is predominantly black. “The issue is motivating them to come out and vote for him.”
Black voters need to get out and vote big time in order for us to win big. So let’s make sure they do. Click below to donate and get involved with Northam, the Democratic Ticket and the state party to usher in a big Democratic wave:
Ralph Northam for Governor
Tim Kaine for U.S. Senate
Justin Fairfax for Lt. Governor
Mark Herring for Attorney General
Virginia Democratic Party