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In one of the clearest signs yet of its Trumpian turn, the Gillespie campaign earlier this week sent out a blistering fundraising email to supporters attacking The Washington Post. In the email, the Gillespie campaign calls the Post a “liberal, out-of-state media outlet” “owned by Seattle billionaire Jeff Bezos” that is performing “a disservice to the voters of Virginia who deserve to be informed about the campaign for governor.”
The attack is a clear adoption of Corey Stewart’s “vicious, ruthless” campaign tactics — andechoes Donald Trump’s countless attacks on the paper. It's also factually wrong. The Post, is in fact, Virginia’s largest paper — and the hundreds of thousands of Virginians who subscribe to the the Sunday edition don’t consider it an “out of state” paper.
Last week’s fundraising email is just the latest indication that Ed Gillespie is going full Trump. The hiring of Corey Stewart acolyte Jack Morgan, a new misleading TV ad, and a disturbing embrace of Trumpian rhetoric all indicate that Gillespie has become obsessed with winning over Trump-Stewart extremists. In the process, Gillespie has essentially declared war on the state’s political press corps — refusing interviews with the political reporters at the Post and Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Seemingly unable to defend his appeals to the Republican Party’s neo-Confederate wing or his widely pilloried “phony math” tax plan, Gillespie is closing himself off to everyone except his party’s far right wing.
Read the email here:
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