A picture from Democrat Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook from 1984 surfaced on Friday showing two men, one in a KKK hood and robe and one in ‘blackface’ on the same page as Northam.
Friday’s revelation that Northam was either dressed in blackface or a KKK robe in his medical school yearbook brought up an old controversy from his 2017 gubernatorial campaign.
As TGP previously reported, Ralph Northam, then-Lt. Governor and the democrat nominee for Governor, printed up and mailed out thousands of campaign flyers that make no mention of Northam’s ticket mate for Lt. Governor, Justin Fairfax. These mailers were specifically targeted to union members in Northern Virginia.
Justin Fairfax, a black man, was omitted from the campaign flyers.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports:
The fliers appear similar to others that include all three Democrats on the statewide ballot Nov. 7: Northam; Fairfax, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor; and Attorney General Mark R. Herring. The fliers are handed out by canvassers knocking on doors.
In the Fairfax-free flier, created for the Democratic friendly Laborers’ International Union of North America, all references to Fairfax — including his picture — are gone. Those fliers have been used in Northern Virginia.
The union requested a flier that did not include Fairfax, said Brian Petruska, general counsel with the LIUNA Mid-Atlantic Region Organizing Coalition, because Fairfax did not complete their questionnaire and “wasn’t supporting us on the issues,” he said.
Among those issues: Two controversial natural gas pipelines, the EQT Midstream Partners’ Mountain Valley Pipeline and the Dominion Energy-led Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which are proposed to cross Virginia. Fairfax is among the environmentalist Democratic base in Virginia that’s opposed to the pipelines. Northam does not oppose the pipelines. The union also has endorsed Herring, according to Herring spokesman Adam Zuckerman.
John Whitbeck, Chairman of the Republican party of Virginia tweeted out a photo of the mailers side-by-side with a caption, “Is this true @fairfaxforlg? @vademocrats seem to have dropped you from their lit with 3 wks to go. Paid for and authorized by @RalphNortham”
Is this true @fairfaxforlg? @vademocrats seem to have dropped you from their lit with 3 wks to go. Paid for and authorized by @RalphNortham pic.twitter.com/AlaDcHmHQS
— John Whitbeck (@JohnWhitbeck) October 17, 2017
Featured photo via John Whitbeck Twitter
This article was originally published in 2017 by TGP contributor Brock Simmons.
