Republican Party Used NJDC’s Name to Falsify Warner’s Record
Listed in: Other Domestic Policy, NJDC News, Press Releases
RNC lacks documentation of Democratic candidate's purported statement to Jewish Democrats; NJDC director decries exclusion of Jews from "people of faith"
Washington, DC: The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) today strongly criticized the Republican National Committee and the campaign of Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Earley for circulating unsubstantiated comments that Democratic nominee Mark Warner purportedly made at an NJDC event. Warner is alleged to have made disparaging remarks about "people of faith" at a gathering of NJDC Virginia members in 1994, when he was chairman of the state Democratic Party. According to The Washington Times and The Richmond Times-Dispatch, these comments are the basis of a Republican ad being broadcast on Christian and southern Virginia radio stations, in which Warner is accused of being hostile to "people of faith." The NJDC has repeatedly called the RNC and the Earley campaign to show documentation of Warner's alleged remarks.
"We at NJDC have pored over our records from 1994," stated NJDC Executive Director Ira N. Forman. "We have contacted NJDC members and staff who could have been in attendance at the 1994 event at which Mr. Warner attended. In the end, we have turned up nothing to suggest that Mark Warner ever spoke before our group, much less that he made any disparaging comments about people of faith. As the RNC and the Earley campaign have, thus far, refused to share their alleged documentation with us, we have no choice but to expose these allegations as falsehoods.
"We demand that the RNC and the Earley campaign apologize for using the NJDC to stir up resentment against Mark Warner within Virginia's religious community. We are outraged that they have used our name in order to prop up their candidate's gubernatorial campaign."
Forman further took issue with the use by the RNC and the Earley campaign of the term "people of faith" in the radio ad: "Mark Warner attended a meeting of the National Jewish Democratic Council. By definition, he was in the company of 'people of faith' - people who are proud and up-front about their strong religious identity. How could Mark Warner's alleged comments disparaging people of faith square with the fact that he would have vocalized these comments before an inherently religious audience?
"Obviously, someone behind the Republicans' ad strategy thinks that Jews are not 'people of faith.' This notion is an insult to the overwhelming majority of Christian Virginians who would never disparage the Jews of the Commonwealth as people without faith."
