The GOP’s disgraceful bid to sandbag its openly gay lieutenant governor nominee

Things aren’t always what they seem to be, especially in today’s online realm.

A “friend request” appeared in my Facebook notifications last week that I immediately recognized as phony. It purported to be from a real-life friend I’ve known for more than a quarter of a century. It used his real name and photo, but it had only 16 friends, not his more than 2,000 online friends, including me. So I reported the sham account to Facebook and texted my friend, who knew about it and had already alerted Facebook. The fake “friendvite” was one of many I reject and report every week.

In deepening Va. GOP crisis, Reid accuses Youngkin PAC of extortion. Is a legal battle ahead?

Having a large social media following is not unusual for people like my friend, who spent most of his career in the public eye during decades of distinguished service at top levels in state government. They’re also prime targets for digital impostors.

The very next day, another friend of mine — longtime Richmond morning radio talk show host and Republican lieutenant governor nominee John Reid — was the focus of lurid accusations stemming from posts on a dubious social media account.

A page on a platform known as Tumblr used a name that matches Reid’s usernames on other social media. The story was first reported Friday in The Richmonder by former Mercury reporter Graham Moomaw, who viewed the images before the Tumblr page was taken down. The story said the pornographic pictures of men were reposted, random photos that had appeared elsewhere. Reid was in none of them.

Reid is the first openly gay candidate for statewide office in Virginia history. I’ve known him for the better part of 30 years, and he’s never hidden his orientation from anyone. People who know him know that he’s eight years into a committed, monogamous relationship.

I am not privy to all the facts, but there’s more than enough reason to be highly skeptical of what has all the earmarks of a clumsy, hateful political takedown. It’s also clear that a quarter of the way through the 21st century, some people will do anything to keep a gay man from being part of the most diverse ticket in Virginia history alongside the first Black woman and Hispanic man elected to statewide office.

This was already a difficult year for Republicans. President Donald Trump has lost convincingly all three times he’s been on a Virginia ballot. The GOP is winless in every statewide election when he was either president or a candidate. His second administration’s chainsaw approach to severing federal employees and contractors who are a significant part of Virginia’s economy makes this year’s climb steeper.

The GOP caught a break by avoiding primaries for statewide office. Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, running for governor, and Attorney General Jason Miyares, running for reelection, secured their nominations weeks ago. On April 21, Reid became the default lieutenant governor nominee when longtime Fairfax County Board of Supervisors member Pat Herrity withdrew citing health concerns.  

That’s when the threats began, Reid said in a Monday interview with the Mercury.

“Then I got a call from a religious group in Henrico saying, ‘We’re warning you that your life is going to be ruined, so don’t run,’” he said. “Yesterday, they told my campaign guy that if I step aside, this will all go away.”

If that sounds to you like blackmail talk more befitting mob bosses than political operatives, you’re not alone.

“I think they — not everybody but some people — decided they don’t want a gay man on the ticket after the primary didn’t work out the way they expected. They thought that Pat would crush me in money and in northern Virginia votes,” Reid said.

Leading the chorus of Republicans pressuring Reid to retreat is Gov. Glenn Youngkin, whom Reid has unabashedly supported and who was often a guest on Reid’s dominant Richmond region morning radio talk show on WRVA.

I know from bitter personal experience the disastrous consequences of being insufficiently skeptical; of feeling time-pressured to believe a finding rather than awaiting a fuller accounting. Has Youngkin done the same thing?

Imagine you’re a well-known media personality who also has a significant portfolio of service to Republican causes and officeholders. You effectively live in a glass house. Now ask yourself: Would I, in such a situation, post X-rated pictures of strangers on a social media account under my own username? In what world is that sane? At a minimum, it should give you pause.

I wonder, governor, where was your indignance over the lewd behavior of another Republican who once bragged on a hot mic of taking grossly indecent liberties with women, including grabbing their genitalia? Or over unwanted sexual advances against writer E. Jean Carroll for which a New York jury held him civilly liable for battery and defamation. Or over his conviction on 34 felony counts by another New York jury on charges he paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election to silence her claim that the two had sex years earlier.

Did you ask him to abandon his nomination for the presidency, an office he has now won twice? Did it occur to you or your political advisers that the questionable claim against Reid could plausibly be one of those innumerable spoofed accounts that get generated every day by overseas bot farms, soulless scammers and, in the instant case, possibly a few ethically bankrupt political schemers? How much investigation preceded your demand that Reid quit the race? Would you have similarly sandbagged your party’s nominee if that person had been heterosexual?

I have always respected Reid. I don’t agree with all of his politics, but there’s no Democrat with whom I share full concurrence, either. He has always been unflinchingly conservative. He’s never shied from asking tough questions or answering them from others, either as a political aide or as a broadcaster. Nothing he’s ever told me turned out to be a lie, and I can’t say that about many in the realm of politics.

I don’t know how all of this winds up, but history won’t be kind to those who orchestrated or advanced this Machiavellian ambush. As Reid told me, it’s not all Republicans. Many of them have recognized this underhanded play and rallied behind him, as the Washington Post reported from Reid’s campaigning in Virginia’s reddest congressional district over the weekend.

I also know Reid is defiant, hurt, angry and not backing down. He has engaged lawyers to look into what he flatly calls extortion, a felony. He might have a civil defamation claim, something that could compel interesting answers in sworn depositions.

Those who figured Reid would falter and meekly fade away figured wrong. Now they’re in a fistfight of their own making.