Cardinal News Opinion: [...] Earle-Sears has avoided talking about most issues. Her silence on issues is unprecedented in modern Virginia history.
 

VIRGINIA – Ahead of tonight’s gubernatorial debate, a new column from the Cardinal News details the unprecedented lack of policy plans that Winsome Earle-Sears has released and her outright refusal to discuss her platform for the Commonwealth. Yancey writes: 
 
Here we are in October, and Earle-Sears’ campaign has simply gone radio silent. Her campaign hasn’t responded to any of our messages since Sept. 9. If you ever read a news story that says “Earle-Sears did not respond,” that’s why. There is very little evidence that there is an Earle-Sears campaign — beyond whatever her campaign is posting on social media.
 
Cardinal News Opinion: Spanberger answers questions about policy. Earle-Sears does not

• You could, of course, go online and read the platform of the current Republican candidate for governor, Winsome Earle-Sears. It won’t take you long. Earle-Sears doesn’t have an “issues” page on her website. If you click around enough, you will find an “on the issues” section as part of her biography. It consists of just nine paragraphs, few of which offer any details.
• On other issues, Earle-Sears is simply silent. Her website says nothing about economic development or transportation, two issues that typically consume much of a governor’s time. Agriculture? Broadband? Energy? Environment? Health care? Higher education? Earle-Sears has nothing to say there on her website, either.
• In the pantheon of Virginia political campaigns — many of which I’ve seen close-up over my career of four-plus decades — Earle-Sears is more than just an outlier. She’s just not on the chart. There is simply no comparison to her campaign in my memory. 
• She rarely gives interviews, and most of those are with “safe” conservative news organizations. [...] This is not a Republican thing, a party rejection of the “mainstream media;” this is very much an Earle-Sears thing.
• Here we are in October, and Earle-Sears’ campaign has simply gone radio silent. Her campaign hasn’t responded to any of our messages since Sept. 9. If you ever read a news story that says “Earle-Sears did not respond,” that’s why. There is very little evidence that there is an Earle-Sears campaign — beyond whatever her campaign is posting on social media.
• In a column last week, I pointed out how she’s passed up meetings with key business groups, which are typically de rigueur for a gubernatorial candidate. In one case, her campaign said she was too busy to talk to the Virginia Trucking Association’s annual convention in Roanoke, even though she was in Roanoke the same day for a fundraiser — but no public appearances where she might earn some free time on the television news.
• In the past few weeks, Earle-Sears’ campaign has promoted a bus tour of the state. Those have become popular, a modern-day nod to the whistlestop campaigns of yore, a way to demonstrate that the candidate is willing to go meet people, especially in smaller communities. Youngkin had a bus four years ago. After the Democratic primary filled out the rest of the party’s ticket in June, Abigail Spanberger had an eight-day bus tour. Earle-Sears has a bus, too — but she’s not on it. A bus tour without the candidate is an all-too-fitting metaphor for the Earle-Sears campaign.
• If that’s so, Earle-Sears is the job-seeker who skips the interview but sends in a video saying she still wants the job. There is precious little evidence that she’s prepared to be governor [...].
• Spanberger, though, has honored the basic conventions of a political campaign. She’s done interviews, she’s released plans.
• We’ve heard nothing from the Earle-Sears campaign since, despite at least seven inquiries.

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