EXCLUSIVE: Top Dem House Candidate Pressed on His Whiteness
Jewish refugees from Communist Eastern Europe are not in vogue with the intersectional coalition–even if they're #Resist heroes
One of the Democrats’ top fundraisers in House races across the country found himself in hot water at a candidate forum over his skin color.
In the race to succeed Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, Eugene Vindman has parlayed his stardom as a key in the cog of Donald Trump’s first impeachment to raising pallets of cash from around the country–but to some Democrats, it doesn’t matter that he’s a Jewish refugee from Communist Eastern Europe. He still has to “pass the torch” onto someone else in their intersectional coalition.
At a recent forum, Vindman was asked–by a self-proclaimed white man, no less!–about whether he’s the (white) man for the job.
“As a white man–I am one myself–currently our congressional district is a white woman,” Vindman was asked. “Do you think it’s time to pass that torch to a person of color, considering we have so many strong women of color running for this seat?”
The question was clearly awkward for Vindman, who played it off by playing up whatever left-wing bingo cards he had at his disposal. “I’ll answer your question this way,” he said. “We’re all multifaceted people. As I mentioned at the beginning, I’m an immigrant, and I’m Jewish, fleeing a bigoted Communist regime. So, I understand those perspectives.”
All of these may be true about Vindman, but being Jewish isn’t exactly in vogue for the left wing of the Democratic Party right now, as anyone who’s looked at Columbia University lately could tell you. And attacking the brutality of communism isn’t going to win you too many plaudits with primary voters either.
It’s worth noting that while some Democrats have had the courage to take on the Hamas Caucus, there’s been no evidence that Vindman is chomping at the bit to do that. This morning, I wrote in the Telegraph that:
“[Some] elected Democrats, like President Joe Biden, Senator John Fetterman, and Congressmen Jared Moskowitz and Ritchie Torres have, to varying degrees of sincerity, opposed these demonstrators.
Biden absurdly equivocated between the mobs and their victims, but Fetterman went so far as to suggest that retiring Senator Mitt Romney take over Harvard, and Moskowitz walked through Columbia’s campus. None of this is to say that Democrats are basking in glory here. Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, a Jewish alum of Columbia, hid behind the human shields in the White House until she put out a statement completely devoid of substance – which is explainable once you remember that now that she is running for statewide office, she needs to mollify the voters in Dearborn, who were recently seen chanting ‘death to America’.”
Instead, Vindman is about 30 seconds away from pulling an Andrew Cuomo, who memorably claimed that “as a New Yorker I am a Muslim. As a New Yorker, I am Jewish. As a New Yorker, I am black, gay, disabled, a woman seeking to control her health and choices. Because as a New Yorker, we are one community – the New York community comprised of all of the above.”
Following a brief answer to the question, Vindman, of course, pivoted right to a familiar foil. “At this time and this place in the world, where you have Donald Trump, and I said this at the beginning, so this is going to be repetitive, where there is a prospect of Donald Trump being on the ballot, I think that having somebody that has stood up to Donald Trump, that has stood up to MAGA Republicans, that has been denounced for doing that, standing by their values, from the steps of the White House, is critically important.”
Vindman has raised so much money that he may be able to #Resist his way through the Democratic primary this summer–but he’s likely going to face Republican Derrick Anderson, who has already been raising stratospheric amounts of money for a candidate who hasn’t been plastered all over MSNBC for years.
(READ: EXCLUSIVE: Top GOP House Candidate Rolls Out Massive Fundraising Numbers)
Vindman’s primary is later this summer–and we’ll see if Virginia Democrats are okay with him refusing to “pass the torch” to someone else.