Larry Sabato: Yes, Virginia, This is Chaos
This story that has rocked the Democratic administration in Richmond does not really begin with the report from conservative news site Big League Politics that Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D-VA) medical school yearbook page contained a picture of two men, one dressed in blackface and the other in a Ku Klux Klan outfit. No, it really started with a speech by state Delegate Kathy Tran (D) in which she was advocating a bill dealing with late-term abortions that many Republicans argued was instead a defense of infanticide. Northam, on Wednesday, entered the fray on the bill, leading to a round of criticism from Republicans. The point here isn’t to litigate this abortion dispute: Rather, it’s just to acknowledge that it seems likely this was the match that lit the fire. Without the abortion controversy, it seems probable that none of this would be happening now.
Big League Politics told the Washington Post over the weekend that the abortion comments spurred the public emergence of the yearbook: “The source of the tip appears to have been a medical school classmate or classmates of Northam who acted as a direct result of the abortion controversy that erupted earlier in the week, according to two people at Big League Politics.”
As bigger outlets confirmed the authenticity of the photo, Northam released a statement Friday, and then a video message, taking ownership of, and apologizing for, the photo — though he never said whether he was the one in blackface or the individual in the Klan hood. Less than a day later, he reversed course and said he was not in the photo at all, that he had never seen it before, and that its placement on his yearbook page in 1984 had been a mistake (or a prank) of some sort. Yet Northam offered, without prompting, that in the same year, he had appeared in a form of blackface as he wore a Michael Jackson costume during a dancing competition. Asked by a reporter if he could still “moonwalk” like Jackson, Northam appeared ready to demonstrate the dance move until his wife, Pam, whispered that it would be inappropriate to do so.
Even before the press conference, in-state and out-of-state Democratic leaders vied to be among the first to call for Northam’s resignation. A half-dozen or more 2020 presidential hopefuls wasted no time on Twitter in urging Northam to give up his office. Following the press conference, Northam’s rapidly diminishing support further collapsed, as Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner (D-VA), the other top two Democratic officials in the state, called for his resignation. So did his patron and predecessor, ex-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, as well as former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation’s and Virginia’s first elected African-American governor. As best we can tell, there really is only one truly major Democrat who has held elected office recently who has not weighed in against Northam: former President Barack Obama, who campaigned for Northam in 2017. Northam must have hoped that the press conference would allow him to gain some measure of control over the story; instead, it was a universally-panned disaster. Northam has since avoided the public eye and has been huddling with advisers. Morning Consult, which continually monitors the approval ratings of major statewide officials, found “a 41-percentage-point drop in Northam’s net approval rating” over the weekend.