As Virginia prepares to say good riddance to governor Ralph Northam, the Washington Post publishes a long and largely sympathetic profile of the departing governor, and marvels at how Northam remained in office.
Northam’s rebirth is as unlikely a story as any you might find in today’s polarized world of instant cancellation. It was driven partly by an extraordinary effort to connect with Black constituents across Virginia, a process that Northam says broke him down and built him back a better person — more aware of the ugly reality of race in America.
Of course, it’s no big mystery how Northam remained in office. If Northam had resigned or the state legislature removed him from office, the lieutenant governor would take over – and the lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, was facing two serious accusations of sexual assault. (The Virginia House Democratic Caucus argued that “the allegations against Lieutenant Governor Fairfax are extremely serious,” and also that the state legislature should not investigate the allegations.) If Northam and Fairfax resigned, then state attorney general Mark Harring would be governor — and Harring admitted he had worn blackface to a college party in 1980.
If Northam, Fairfax, and Harring had all resigned simultaneously, then the speaker of the House of Delegates at that time – Republican Kirk Cox – would become governor. And Virginia Democrats believed that a Republican governor was much worse than blackface, wearing a Klan hood, or allegations of past sexual assault.
And so most Democrats in Virginia decided that dressing up in blackface or wearing a Klan hood or having the nickname “Coonman” was just not that big a deal — certainly not the sort of action that warrants resignation. We know that most Democrats in Virginia would be apoplectic if any Republican figure had similar actions. And they would be right; dressing up like a Klan member, even as a prank, is no small matter! Multiple allegations of sexual assault are no small matter! Go figure, it turns out “today’s polarized world of instant cancellation,” as the Post describes it, is less likely to generate your removal from office if Democrats really need you to stay in power.
The Post profile at least remembers that Ralph Northam initially admitted he was one of the two figures in the infamous photo, and then said he wasn’t either of the two figures, and that the photo appearing on his yearbook page must be some kind of mistake. The Post reports that Northam now says he thinks he know who is in the picture, but the governor will not say:
Two investigations — one conducted by Northam’s political action committee, the other by the medical school — failed to reach any conclusions. Today Northam says he is “99 percent sure” he knows the identity of the person in blackface.
“He’s been talked to,” Northam said in the interview. That person’s “name is very close to mine,” he said, meaning alphabetically, “and was also in that medical school class.”
Northam said he thinks he knows who the person in the Klan robe was, too, but that they also would not cooperate with investigators. Neither would the person in charge of putting photos into the yearbook.
My, what a convenient set of circumstances for the governor.