Stewart on Northam blackface scandal: ‘I feel vindicated’

WOODBRIDGE — When Corey Stewart was running for governor in 2017, he was accused time and again of being a racist.

The Republican during the campaign defended calls to leave standing Confederate statues in public squares to at a time when many were calling on local governments to take them down and mothball them in storage units or relocate them to National Parks.

Stewart also spent a lot of time in the southwest portion of the state defending the confederate flag. There too, he was dubbed racist.

“The Confederate Flag is alone is not a racist symbol. It’s a historical symbol,” Stewart maintained in an interview with Potomac Local on Feb. 5.

Stewart called his defense of the Confederate Flag and the Gov. Ralph Northam blackface scandal “two different things.” Northam is under fire for admitting to appearing in a photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook featuring a man in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe, only to retract the apology the following day.

“I have never stood in blackface, or in a KKK outfit, or anything close to that,” said Stewart.

Stewart lost a Republican Primary Election to Ed Gillespie in 2017. Northam went on to beat Gillispie handily, winning the state by nine points. Today, Stewart joined the ranks of nearly every other Virginia politician — Democrat and Republican — who has urged Northam to step down.

“I feel vindicated,” continued Stewart. “Here are the Democrats who claimed I was racist, who claimed that Ed Gillespie was a racist and ran an ad of a guy trying to run down minority children with a truck… and now we find out it was the racists who were making the accusations.”

Stewart, who’s been the Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman for the past 15 years, announced January 8 that he wouldn’t seek re-election to the job. Whatever happens in the governor’s mansion, Stewart still plans to take time off from politics.

“My intention is not to retire from politics forever,” said Stewart. “I’m not coming back into politics in Virginia until my chances in winning in Virginia are actually greater, and that is, no doubt, something that is happening…”

Northam in 2017 won the vote-rich Northern Virginia counties of Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, and Henrico, and the city of Virginia Beach.

During that same election — the first since President Trump had won the White House — Democrats also swept out long-serving Prince William County Republicans from the halls of the General Assembly with an entirely new slate of representatives — all Democrats.

Despite all the calls to step down, Northam shows no signs of leaving the Executive Mansion. Whether he goes or stays, Stewart says this scandal will have caused “immense” damage to Democrats ability to raise money for fall elections and has put their ability to keep their seats in jeopardy.

“They lost their moral high ground. How are they going to go to minority communities, especially in Northern Virginia, and say “we’re the party of inclusiveness and diversity,” said Stewart.

All of the seats in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates are up for grabs this year. Locally, all seats on the Prince William Board of Supervisors are up for grabs, too.

The Northam blackface scandal came two days after the governor came under fire for going on WTOP Radio to describe in detail the process of late-term abortion critics equated to infanticide. President Trump during his State of the Union address brought national attention to Northam’s comments.

“And then, we had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth. To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb,” said Trump.