Failed vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) backtracked Monday on his call for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) to resign over his blackface scandal, telling the Washington Post he is “glad he didn’t listen to me.”
Kaine had joined fellow former governor Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a 2019 letter calling on Northam to resign as a picture of the governor in either blackface or a Ku Klux Klan robe resurfaced from a college yearbook. “After we watched his press conference today, we called Governor Northam to tell him that we no longer believe he can effectively serve as Governor of Virginia and that he must resign,” they wrote in their statement.
“Governor Northam has served the people of the Commonwealth faithfully for many years, but the events of the past 24 hours have inflicted immense pain and irrevocably broken the trust Virginians must have in their leaders,” they continued. “He should step down and allow the Commonwealth to begin healing.”
Now Kaine gushes to the Post that Northam is “the most consequential Virginia governor of the modern era.” And so the rehabilitation of Northam’s reputation begins, just when a Republican takes over as Virginia’s governor. Coincidence, I’m sure.