Martin Luther King's famous, famous comments that we are not going to judge one another by the color of their skin but rather the content of our character." The curriculum has gone haywire," he said to cheers in Warrenton on a sunny fall afternoon, claiming parents from across the ideological spectrum were joining in him a nonpartisan "movement." (Proponents say they are simply advocating for schools to be honest about the country's complicated racial past and ongoing systemic racism.)īut, emblematic of his approach to the entire campaign, Youngkin is careful to speak in a way that is unlikely to turn off voters who see themselves as the good guys in the fight against racism as he vows to "ban critical race theory on Day One" if he is elected. "If Youngkin is able to improve his margins in suburbs that have gone from red to blue over the past decade in Virginia, we could see this used as a blueprint in the midterms in certain place," Taylor said.įor Youngkin, who has been holding "Parents Matter" rallies across Virginia, schooling has become a stand-in for a host of contentious issues that galvanize the conservative base, from mask mandates to charter schools to critical race theory - an until-recently obscure academic field that conservatives say liberals are using to indoctrinate children to think white people are inherently racist. "Virginia offers a first test as to whether or not education issues like these could be effective at wooing back suburban voters that Republicans hemorrhaged during the Trump administration," said Jessica Taylor, an analyst who tracks governor's races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. And education has frequently been the battlefield of American culture wars, from war protests to classroom prayer.īut thanks to frustration over pandemic school closings, a national push by conservatives to resist a wave of race-focused curriculum changes and an unforced error by McAuliffe, Virginia Republicans have found an issue that unites their fractious base without turning off the suburban moderates they need to win statewide on Nov. Schools have long been a top issue in gubernatorial campaigns. "Parents around the country need us to say we are standing up for our children, because the same thing is happening in their school districts and their school boards, and they need us to give them hope." "I'm getting texts and emails and phone calls from parents all over America, and they need us to stand up for them," Youngkin told supporters Thursday at an outdoor rally.
0 kommentar(er)
