Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is calling on the 2024 crop of Republican presidential candidates to stop their “scorched earth” attacks on each other and turn their fire on the Democrats and President Joe Biden.
Earle-Sears, who realized she was a Republican during President George H.W. Bush’s “kinder and gentler” era, said the candidates should be talking about their agenda and accomplishments, not tearing each other down.
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In a Secrets interview to promote her autobiography, How Sweet It Is, Earle-Sears said, “We’ve got to get past the name-calling. We’ve got to get past the schoolyard insults.”
The state’s first-ever black woman No. 2 said, “I’ve watched them, and it’s like, you know, they’re bent on destroying each other. I mean, just scorched earth, and I don’t get it.”
Instead, she said the secret to building the party is to offer up a positive plan. “We’ve got to bring other like-minded people in, and you’re not going to do that with insults. You’re not going to do that with grinding somebody into the dirt. We have to respect each other. And, you know, I’ve always said you can disagree without being disagreeable,” Earle-Sears said.
She didn’t name names, and she has called for former President Donald Trump to step aside for other candidates. In her book, previewed by Secrets, she praised Trump’s accomplishments but said she is looking for another choice in 2024.
“I don’t know Trump personally, never took a picture with the man. Never spoke to him. For the good of the nation, I do not think he should run again in 2024,” she wrote.
An immigrant from Jamaica who served over three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, Earle-Sears wrote about her hardscrabble path to Richmond that is likely to continue in 2025 with her own bid for governor. Hers is a story of religious faith, tough politics, family ties, family tragedy, and facing racism from other black people.
Written in an inviting and conversational style, the book detailed the attacks she suffered as a black Republican at a time when national Democrats, including Biden, have sneered that black people can only be Democrats.
In a chapter titled “Delegate Sears — I am black enough,” she wrote about being banned from the Democratic-controlled Virginia House of Delegates black caucus because of her politics. “They wouldn’t hear of it. To which I say, ‘God made me this color. God made me the best color for me. He made me black.’”
As a delegate, she wrote a tough anti-KKK bill and attempted to work with a black Democratic delegate who had a weaker bill but was shot down and personally attacked by that delegate.
“I still can’t understand where this hate for black Republicans comes from. Why can’t black people just vote the way we want to vote? Why do we have to come and ask permission? Whose ring do black people have to kiss? Who made those rules for us? Who says we’re black because we vote Democrat or not black because we do not vote Democrat?” she wrote.
Earle-Sears said she realized her politics and conservative leanings during the 1988 election between Bush and former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. Listening to a Bush ad, she said, “Oh, my God. I’m a Republican.”
And she has never been tempted to switch despite being offered political bribes, largely because liberals support abortion. “I’ve never really, you know, rethought, ‘Maybe I’m a Democrat.’ No, no, because as long as the Democratic Party concerns itself with abortion up until the date of birth, no, I can’t. I can’t,” she said.
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Her book is set for release next week and is published by Hachette’s Center Street.
She said, “I just want people to read the book and know that you will have tragedy in life. They’re there. You don’t get out of this life unscathed. Sometimes, it’s a wonder we don’t have more trouble, but you have to keep going forward. You cannot lie down in your house coat and your bedroom slippers. You’ve got to keep moving. You only have this one life, and we have to adjust to any new circumstances and go for it. You don’t know who’s watching. You don’t know whose life you can change, including your own.”
