Richmond, Va. — The far-right demonstrators that rallied in Charlottesville last weekend and engaged in violence are not conservative or even on the usual American political gamut, GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie claimed Saturday.
“These people were not on a legitimate left-to-right political spectrum of any kind,” Gillespie said at a gathering of activists with the free-market group Americans for Prosperity.
On a scale of one to 10, with one being the most liberal and 10 the most conservative, the people who demonstrated at the “United the Right” rally “are a yellow,” Gillespie quipped.
He went on to contrast their “twisted mindset rooted in hating and opressing” and his own conservatism, which he said was based on the notion that all are equal.
In his remarks, Gillespie did not address President Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville. He also skirted the issue of statues that honor Confederates, such as the statute of Robert E. Lee at the center of the Charlottesville rally. The question of such statues has become a political hot-button issue nationally and in Virginia.
Gillespie has not supported removing Confederate statues. His Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, has called for them to be removed and placed in museums.
“If Ed Gillespie wants to be serious about condemning hate, he needs to start by denouncing Donald Trump’s horrific defense of the white supremacists in Charlottesville,” Kevin Donohoe, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Virginia, said in a statement to the Examiner.