39th District Update

Is Vivian Watts a racist?

Read more here.

Comments

[Rick]

NLS- Do you have the mailer? I would like to see it before all hell breaks lose.

[wonder boy]

It is a bad day for Vivian.

[gophokie]

"One of our own"?
Come on, that could just as easily mean a person who is actually native to the district.
But what the heck, the dems would definitely be creamin us if we said something like this.
I say milk for everything its worth and try to sink her with it.
The dems have done it to us (i.e. Trent Lott).

Is it equally bad to say "native of the district?" I hear that all the time.

Okay, I just looked her up and she was born in Detroit, Michigan. "One of our own." refers to what?

[tooconservative]

I don't when liberals use the "race" card, and I don't like it even more when republicans use it.
Negative points in my book for Meunier.

[LoganFerree]

Nothing new here, Republicans have done this for years in the South, who cares if the Democrats play dirty too?

I'd like to see the mailer - and who it went out to. That could make a difference in interpretation.

For example, if Bruce Roemmelt sent a mailer to Virginia firefighters with "one of our own" on it, it would have absolutely no racist implications in my mind (nevermind that he's running against a white guy, I'm just using this as an example).

I wonder -- if someone WAS a native to a community and had lived there for 40 or 50 years -- would it be racist to say (City name here) Native in mailers? That used to be a positive - it meant I really know and understand the heart and soul of this community; I'm not a carpet-bagger. But in these days of ultra-heightened sensitivities, common sayings become convulted and take on "racist" meanings.

Is Mike brand new to the community (not the country)? Could it have been meant in a non-racist way?

Too little to go on right now to tag Watts as racist, IMO. I need a few more details.

[Not Larry Sabato]

We are just asking the question. We just saw the release, not the mailer, so no judgements from us, yet.

[William Jackson]

let's see the mailer first. I hate the race card, and I'm a conservative. Let's not call it until we know for sure. Maybe we can get some off year quotes from her "us vs. them." senario.

Why didn't U.S. Newswires contact the Watts campaign for a response, or at least say "calls to the Watts campaign were not returned?"

What is the matter with her? Is she eating moron sandwhiches?

[Will Vehrs]

Look, this is a typical "fight over semantics" campaign tactic, used one way or another by both sides in most contests, and most of the time it's a stretch or an out and out falsehood. I don't think House of Delegate campaigns have three or four levels of staff to review every word in their materials for hidden meanings or possible negative connontations.

"Racist" is a terribly inflammatory word. The most you could make out of this is that maybe her campaign was "insensitive." There's an issue to take to the ramparts.

I was in Annandale this past Saturday for a Korean-American event and Del. Watts was a guest of honor and spoke briefly. She praised the Korean community of her district for their contributions. It was boilerplate stuff, but it sure didn't suggest to me that was in any way "insensitive," let alone "racist."

Campaigns are just dreadful when this kind of thing arises.

[Anonymous]

The oldest rule of the game -- what goes around comes around. Those who defended Marrs must defend Watts. Those who attacked Marrs must be equally angry at Watts. (Dream on, folks.) And in reality neither of them probably really thought about the potential harsh implications of the copy when presented with it (by some paid mail consultant, likely) and both wish they could just take it back.

[GayDem]

I'd site Waldo.Jaquith.Org as pretty clearly debunking this whole allegation. Check it out.

[Not Jack Herrity]

Waldo has the flier up. Maybe NLS can link to it?

[Jack_Abramoff]

If Watts was a Republican this would have been on the front of the Washington Post as "Delegate Deemed Racist After Comment". I think that in the context of the situation she may not have intended for it to be as racist as it came out, but it was just a stupid comment.