NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A former top official in the Biden administration slammed Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger as wrongly following Joe Biden’s playbook, squandering “goodwill” and allowing the GOP to define her, demanding she “come out of her Biden bunker.”
The swipe comes as former Gov. George Allen offered to debate her virtually on the subject of redistricting if timing was an issue in her original rejection, and Spanberger briskly avoided a Fox News Digital reporter who confronted the tight-lipped governor in Richmond this week.
Michael LaRosa, former first lady Jill Biden’s longtime top aide and spokesperson, slammed Spanberger on Tuesday, unfavorably comparing her to former President Joe Biden and calling a Washington Post poll showing her as the governor with the highest unfavorables dating back to Allen’s era “entirely self-inflicted and avoidable.”
LaRosa called Spanberger’s fall from a landslide-winning candidate to a controversial chief executive “a classic, but all too familiar tale.”
WHO IS ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, AND WHY DID DEMOCRATS CHOOSE HER FOR TO THEIR STATE OF THE UNION RESPONSE?
President Joe Biden and then-Rep. Abigail Spanberger pose for a photo in the U.S. Capitol. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
“[She] came in with a mandate and genuine goodwill, and within months, the GOP succeeded in branding her a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he said.
“Instead of confronting it, the governor defaulted to the old 1990s ‘don’t give it oxygen’ playbook prescribed for Biden throughout his four years: duck and cover.”
Biden remained out of public view during some controversial points in his tenure, leading pundits to claim he was hiding or stowed away in a “bunker.”
LaRosa added on X that ignoring “attacks, smears and misinformation” doesn’t make them disappear but instead creates a vacuum for Spanberger and allows her opponents to define her.
“What started as silly right-wing noise is now a mainstream narrative, and it’s…
