In my latest piece I try to make sense of E.W. Jackson, the decidedly fringe black Republican activist and pastor who turned a failed bid for Senate (he got 5 percent of the GOP primary vote) into this year’s lieutenant governor nomination. Out of nowhere, Republicans in the year’s most competitive state election* have to answer for a guy who links homosexuality and pedophilia, aims to liberate blacks from the Democratic “plantation,” says that Planned Parenthood has a higher black death toll than the KKK. That last item, depending on your view of when life begins, is true, but Republicans have tried to avoid saying it when running for office.
Bill Bolling is the outgoing lieutenant governor, a moderate-ish politician who was boxed out of a potential race for governor when the state party opted for a convention instead of a primary. (Bolling probably would have lost to the red-hot Ken Cuccinelli anyway.) He’s lovin’ it.
“These kinds of comments are simply not appropriate, especially not from someone who wants to be a standard bearer for our party and hold the second highest elected office in our state,” Bolling said in a statement to POLITICO. “They feed the image of extremism, and that’s not where the Republican Party needs to be.”
*Low bar – the only other race for statewide leadership is in New Jersey, where Chris Christie is making the rubble bounce.
