The Virginia governor’s race between Democrat nominee Terry McAuliffe and Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin is in a dead-heat with less than a week to go before voters take to the polls.
The signs of desperation in McAuliffe’s campaign and his surrogates, including those in the mainstream media, are apparent. There’s the ridiculous accusation last week about Youngkin that he displayed “anti-Semitism” by criticizing billionaire Democrat backer George Soros, as well as the oft-repeated claim by McAuliffe himself that parental concern over, among other things, the implementation of Critical Race Theory in public classrooms is a “racist dog whistle.”
In other words, the typical “victim” cards we expect to be played from Democrats and their allies in the press are indeed being thrown out there in an 11th-hour bid to manipulate voters in an effort to turn McAuliffe’s campaign around.
McAuliffe has been in a freefall ever since a blunt admission he made during a late September televised debate about how “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Instead of retracting his comments after the backlash that ensued, McAuliffe has doubled down while only sending a tiny smattering of overtures here and there about how “of course” parents should be involved with giving input on the public school curriculums taught to their children.
But you wouldn’t know that if you’d watched CNN’s coverage in the closing days of this race. On Tuesday, CNN reporter Eva McEnd gave an assist of sorts to the McAuliffe campaign, asserting during a New Day segment that McAuliffe’s remarks on public education from that debate “[have] sort of been spun out of control.” Worse, she sounded at points like a campaign surrogate for McAuliffe, proclaiming “now, that is not the case” in response to Youngkin’s characterization of McAuliffe’s stance on parental involvement in their child’s education (bolded emphasis added by me):
“You know, Glenn Youngkin has landed on this closing argument that it is a fundamental right in Virginia of parents to be engaged in their children’s education and that his opponent, Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe doesn’t believe that. Now, that is not the case. A comment McAuliffe made at a debate in September has sort of been spun out of control. Here’s what McAuliffe actually said, he said he was not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision and that he didn’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. Now, he has said he is running a Virginia focus campaign, Youngkin, that is, but has latched on to the national implications of this issue.[…]Now, Youngkin does seem very comfortable with this narrative. When you go to his rallies, I’ve been to many, it’s filled with parents and grandparents animated by this ‘parents matter’ message. It’s unclear, though, if this is getting him new voters or people in the conservative base who would have likely voted for Youngkin anyway.“
Watch McEnd frantically spin for McAuliffe below:
Notice what McEnd and CNN didn’t do during that report? Play the actual clip of what McAuliffe said. While the back and forth between McAuliffe and Youngkin at that debate was in part about explicit books in public school libraries, McAuliffe’s comment about parental involvement was separate. Watch:
Had he left it at “I don’t think parents should be yanking books from school libraries” or something like that, it would be different – still entirely debatable, of course, but still a different animal than the unequivocal declaration that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Plus, as noted earlier, McAuliffe has repeatedly doubled down on what he said during that debate since then, telling one interviewer “no” when asked if he “misspoke” during that debate. And literally the day after that infamous debate, here’s what he told another local news station:
“Listen, we have a Board of Ed, working with the local school boards to determine the curriculum for our schools. You don’t want parents coming in, in every different school district saying this is what should be taught here and this is what should be taught there.”
Over and over again, Terry McAuliffe has made it a matter of public record that he believes what’s taught in public school classrooms should be up to educators – and with no parental input. CNN can run interference all they want to on his behalf, but it’s his own words – not CNN’s generous massaging of them – that tell Virginia voters the true story.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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