Did McAuliffe just compare the Civil War-era slaves to felons?
“Nobody should be surprised” that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued an executive order restoring the voting rights of more than 200,000 convicted felons who have served their time, McAuliffe told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
“This is something I campaigned on and I’ve been working for the restoration rights for the last two years as governor,” he said. “I have already restored the rights of 18,000 individuals, more than my past seven governors combined.”….
“And that’s why I stood in front of our capital and erased 115 years. We have had some very horrible disenfranchisement of voters in Virginia. And I stood right in front of that capital, where we had a poll tax, literacy (test), disenfranchisement of voters.
“I stood not 20 yards from where Abraham Lincoln met the freed slaves 151 years ago in April.”
“It was the right thing to do legally, and most importantly, George, it wasn’t politics. It was the right thing to do morally. And I know these Republican legislators think it’s politics,” McAuliffe, a leading fundraiser for former President Bill Clinton, told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, a former communications director in the Clinton White House…..
McAuliffe says he wants all the ex-felons to vote, but he denied he issued his blanket order to help his good friend Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democrat nominee, win the state.
Stephanopoulos noted that a 200,000-vote edge, if the felons register to vote and show up to vote, could make a difference in November.
“Well, I would tell the Republicans, quit complaining and go out and earn these folks’ right to vote for you,” McAuliffe said, addressing some of his critics. “Go out and talk to them. I find it very — and in fact, I think some of the language that has come out of the Republicans, I would tell them to be very careful at how they frame this, very careful of their rhetoric.”
Then McAuliffe changed the argument entirely, veering off into women’s rights and LGBT issues in an attempt to delegitimize Republicans….
Related:
National Review: In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe Breaks the Constitution to Plump the Democratic Vote
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Yeah, and if he chopped down a cherry tree, he’d say that he can not tell a lie, Trump did it.