Tom Perriello Flip-Flops On Key Issues To Appease Far-Left Voters

February 27, 2017

As Ralph Northam and Tom Perriello race further to the left in the Virginia Democrat gubernatorial primary, both candidates continue to desperately pander to their party’s most liberal voters, even if it means reversing their positions on key issues. For Perriello, a failed former congressman, this has meant flip-flopping on an array of items. The New York Times reports:  

“He speaks from the lexicon of modern-day liberalism — alluding to the ‘structural privileges’ he enjoyed — and is plainly trying to position himself as the preferred candidate of the left. Yet in the one term he served in the House before being swept out with the Tea Party wave of 2010, he took positions that have raised doubts about his ideological consistency.”  

“Representing a conservative-leaning district, Mr. Perriello received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association in his re-election bid and supported an amendment to the Affordable Care Act barring insurance companies participating in the law’s exchanges from covering abortion. He said he regretted accepting the N.R.A. endorsement and argued that the group had become an extremist organization in recent years.”  

“It is not a very persuasive answer for some Virginia gun control advocates.

‘That seems a little strange to me, because the N.R.A. now and the N.R.A. in 2007 are not a whole lot different, as far as I can tell,’ said Peter Read, a Northam supporter whose daughter was killed in the mass shooting that year at Virginia Tech.” 

“When asked about abortion rights at the meeting, he said with no hesitation that he had ‘always been pro-choice.’ But when he was in Congress, he boasted of having ‘rejected the labels pro-life and pro-choice’ and ‘drawing ire from both sides of this debate.” 

Tom Perriello’s shameless flip-flops on key issues prove that he is willing to do or say anything to appease the far-left. His and Ralph Northam’s insistence on pushing their party further to the left only puts them further out-of-touch with mainstream Virginians.