With embattled Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam facing calls from his own party to step down after his yearbook blackface/KKK photo surfaced, Fox News politics editor Chris Stirewalt on Monday gave the embattled governor some advice: Dig in because Republicans will eventually come to your defense.
During an America’s Newsroom panel discussion on the pressure Northam faces to resign, Stirewalt at first poked fun at the governor for his widely mocked Saturday afternoon presser in which the governor almost moonwalked.
“I have to reach back to Mark Sanford to find a gubernatorial press conference as uniquely awful and terrible as that press conference,” Stirewalt observed, referencing the former South Carolina governor’s 2009 presser addressing his extramarital affair.
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After joking that it was “deeply regretful” that he missed out on Northam performing Michael Jackson’s signature dance move, Stirewalt went on to provide the governor some twisted political counsel.
“If I was Ralph Northam, I wouldn't be going anywhere,” the Fox News analyst said. “ I would be, as a matter of fact, I would be digging in and waiting. And you know what I’d be waiting for? I’d be waiting for Republicans.”
He continued: “Because it will be Republicans in the end. Even though this is the guy—Dr. Death—this is the guy who, in the grimmest possible terms, talked about what Republicans and pro-life people say is infanticide, they will come around on this issue for him because of Covington Catholic and all these other things. Republicans are highly conscious about the lynch mob. The online, the internet mob.”
Stirewalt concluded his point by reiterating that if he were Northam he would “dig in.”
That’s a whole lot to unpack there, but just to recap: Stirewalt believes Northam should stand his ground and refuse to quit because even though Republicans call him a baby killer (over his comments defending a defeated Virginia bill loosening some restrictions on late-term abortion), they will have his back somehow because of the liberal mass reaction to the MAGA hat Covington teens.
Let’s see how that works out for him.
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Justin Baragona is the founder and publisher of Contemptor, a site focusing on the intersection of politics, culture and the media, and spends most of his waking hours consuming cable news.
