President Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
President Trump on Thursday again jumped into Virginia governor’s race, with two tweets praising Republican Ed Gillespie as being tough on crime and protective of Confederate statues and “heritage.”
“Ed Gillespie will turn the really bad Virginia economy #’s around, and fast. Strong on crime, he might even save our great statues/heritage!” Trump tweeted at 10:07 a.m., an apparent reference to new Gillespie ads that call for preservation of the state’s Confederate monuments.
The president is a native of New York City. Gillespie grew up in New Jersey.
Four minutes later, Trump added, “Ed Gillespie will be a great Governor of Virginia. His opponent doesn’t even show up to meetings/work, and will be VERY weak on crime!”
Gillespie’s Democratic opponent, Ralph Northam, is a former Army doctor and pediatric neurologist who grew up on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. He responded to the president’s tweet with “I served 8 years in the Army, took care of sick kids, and am running to build a more inclusive Virginia. Don’t talk to me about showing up.”
Northam later shared a video of him treating patients at a free health care clinic in southwest Virginia, adding “While I was treating patients at the RAM clinic, Donald Trump was golfing in Sterling. You tell me who doesn’t show up for Virginians.”
With the election just 12 days away, speculation has mounted about whether Trump would hit the campaign trail for the Republican in the nation’s only competitive governor’s race this year.
Gillespie has repeatedly declined to answer questions about whether he would welcome the president to a state where Trump is deeply unpopular. Virginia was the only Southern state to vote for Hillary Clinton last year.
Vice President Pence, a long time personal friend of Gillespie’s, appeared in Virginia earlier this month for a rally and on Wednesday was the featured guest at a private Gillespie fundraiser in Fairfax County.
But the candidate has struggled to find the right posture toward Trump. He needs support from Trump voters without turning off moderate Republicans and independents.
Trump first tweeted on the race earlier this month, endorsing Gillespie and falsely claiming Northam fights for violent gangs. Gillespie was slow to acknowledge that endorsement, and did not comment until reporters asked him about it the next day.
But on Thursday, Gillespie quickly retweeted Trump’s praise.
In doing so, they elevated the issue of Confederate monuments — one of the most emotionally charged topics in the neck-and-ncek governors’ race.
White nationalists rallied in Charlottesville in support of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, leading to violent clashes in August that stunned the country and left three people dead.
Trump blamed both sides for violent and lamenting the “history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.”
While Gillespie condemned the white nationalists, he said the statues should remain in place with additional historical context.
Northam initially responded to the Charlottesville unrest by vowing to be a “vocal advocate” to move the statutes to museums. But he has since backpeddled, saying the decision should be made by local jurisdictions.
Virginia, once the capital of the Confederacy, has more monuments to the losing side of the Civil War than any other state.
Polls have shown majorities of Virginians want the statues to remain, with Democrats split on the issue and Republicans united.
Other references in Trump’s tweets Thursday echo claims made in Gillespie’s campaign commercials.
Trump’s reference to Northam failing to show up to work echoes a common Republican attack line blasting the Democrat for missing meetings of various boards and commissions he sits on as lieutenant governor.
Virginia’s overall economy was hit hard during the recession because of its dependence on federal government spending and regional ties to dying industries, such as coal, textiles and tobacco.
But unemployment rate is now at 3.7 percent, one of the lowest in the nation, and even Republicans have credited Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) with being an enthusiastic recruiter of new businesses.
Still, the low unemployment rate masks an uneven recovery, with urban areas such as Northern Virginia and Richmond doing well while rural areas suffer.
McAuliffe, who is barred from seeking consecutive terms under the state constitution, responded to Trump by defending the state’s economy under his stewardship.
“Virginia unemployment is 3.7%. National unemployment is 4.2%. Stop tweeting and get to work,” he tweeted.
That was a departure from China’s carefully scripted transfers of power in recent decades and a possible signal that Mr. Xi intends to govern beyond this next five-year term. Mr. Xi may also want more time to test possible successors, while avoiding lame duck status with an heir waiting in the wings.
But by discarding the unspoken conventions that have ensured relatively stable leadership changes in recent years, Mr. Xi has pushed Chinese politics into new territory that critics have warned could lead to turmoil, or a cult of personality with echoes of Mao.
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Soldiers marching in front of the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday. Credit
Roman Pilipey/European Pressphoto Agency
“If Xi goes for broke and breaks precedent by not preparing for an orderly and peaceful succession, he is putting a target on his back and risking a backlash from other ambitious politicians,” Susan L. Shirk, the chairwoman of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego.
“By taking such a risk, he shows himself to be more like Mao than we originally thought — he demonstrates his power by overturning institutions,” said Professor Shirk, a former State Department deputy assistant secretary for China policy.
In a possible nod to such concerns, most of the new Standing Committee members were not longtime associates of Mr. Xi, though all have worked with him in some capacity. Mr. Li, the premier, was once seen as a possible rival to Mr. Xi to lead the country.
Among the new members were Wang Yang, 62, a vice premier who promoted himself as a can-do reformer while party chief of Guangdong Province in southern China, and Han Zheng, a former mayor of Shanghai who is credited with guiding that city’s emergence as China’s glittering financial and business capital. Neither had a long history of working closely with Mr. Xi before he became president in 2012.
Other new members have worked alongside Mr. Xi for years. They included Li Zhanshu, his longtime friend and aide, and Wang Huning, a former professor turned party ideologue who has helped craft Mr. Xi’s speeches and reports. An expert on international politics, Mr. Wang also advised Mr. Xi’s predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, and as a young scholar wrote a book, “America Opposes America,” based on a six-month visit to the United States.
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The seventh member, Zhao Leji, served as head of the party’s organization department and will assume leadership of its anticorruption agency, succeeding Wang Qishan, perhaps Mr. Xi’s most powerful lieutenant. Mr. Wang has retired as scheduled, despite speculation that Mr. Xi might try to keep him on the committee.
“Xi has seemingly chosen magnanimity with the list,” said Christopher K. Johnson, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Of course, that’s easy to do when you’ve achieved your two core objectives — making yourself the party’s untenured ideological arbiter and refraining from signaling the succession.”
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A live broadcast in a subway car in Beijing showing Mr. Xi introducing members of the Politburo Standing Committee. Credit
Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
Mr. Xi’s victory at the congress means he will welcome President Trump to China next month more confident than ever in his hold on power and in his pursuit of a more assertive foreign policy. His signature initiatives to extend China’s influence overseas, such as the global infrastructure program known as “One Belt, One Road” and a drive to build artificial islands in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, are likely to get a boost.
Some China watchers have said they also expect Mr. Xi to place more emphasis on overhauling the economy and cleaning up finances, after spending the past five years stamping out dissent and tightening his control over the party and the military, China’s other political power center.
One sign he may do so was the promotion of Liu He, his closest economic adviser and a longtime advocate of curbing debt and financial hazards. As a new member of the Politburo, a broader 25-member council that is less powerful than its Standing Committee, Mr. Liu appears likely to wield greater influence on policy.
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In his remarks Wednesday, Mr. Xi noted that next year would mark 40 years since Deng Xiaoping opened up China to market forces and vowed to “firmly and unwaveringly deepen reform in every aspect.”
Few experts expect Mr. Xi will take big steps toward market liberalization, but many believe he must move to limit financial risk. After decades of rapid growth, China faces growing economic challenges that include mountains of debt held by local governments and inefficient state-owned conglomerates.
“He wants a team around him that will implement his vision,” said Evan S. Medeiros, the former senior director for Asian affairs in the National Security Council under President Barack Obama. “On economic issues, one could tentatively say that this Politburo Standing Committee is more reform-minded than the current lineup.”
The party congress, the party’s 19th since its establishment by Marxist revolutionaries in 1921, has portrayed Mr. Xi as a transformational leader guiding the nation into a “new era” of Chinese socialism. Mao unified China after nearly a century of civil war and foreign invasions, Deng brought it prosperity and Mr. Xi is said to be restoring the nation to global strength and leadership.
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A conductor leading a military band during the closing ceremony of this week’s congress, the party’s 19th since its founding in 1921. Credit
Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
The congress blessed his one-man style of rule by writing his name and ideas into the party’s constitution, in effect declaring any effort to challenge him to be an act of ideological heresy.
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Under Mao and then Deng, the party struggled with succession arrangements that ended in purges and division. Then, in the 1990s, the party established a pattern of installing likely successors on the Standing Committee well in advance, with party leaders serving no more than two terms.
Mr. Xi himself joined the committee in 2007, before taking power in 2012. Before him, Mr. Hu served on the committee for a decade before succeeding Mr. Jiang.
The inclusion of one or two officials in their 50s in the new Standing Committee would have suggested they were being groomed to take over from Mr. Xi in five years. Instead, the party’s failure to promote anyone of that age will ignite speculation that Mr. Xi wants to extend his influence beyond the end of his second term.
China’s national constitution says that he cannot serve more than two terms as president, but Mr. Xi could stay on in other posts, as the party leader or chairman of the armed forces, for example, or create a new role to preserve his power. Other experts believe Mr. Xi will formally retire in five years, after selecting successors he is confident will uphold his policies.
The party has promoted a phalanx of officials loyal to Mr. Xi into the broader Politburo. About two-thirds of the 15 new members joining the body once worked under Mr. Xi or have other longstanding ties to him, including some younger leaders seen as potential successors.
They included Chen Min’er, 57, who worked as a propaganda functionary with Mr. Xi when they were both officials in the eastern province of Zhejiang in the early 2000s. Some experts had speculated that Mr. Xi might attempt to catapult Mr. Chen into the current Standing Committee, a move that would have made him the heir apparent.
Instead, Mr. Chen is one of four Politburo members under the age of 60 who could be considered a candidate to lead the country in five years — but only if Mr. Xi relinquishes control.
