The Republican Party of Virginia's recent history of anti-Semitism in political campaigns was blasted by The Washington Post editorial board on Wednesday.
"Antisemitic stereotypes, tropes and imagery, centuries old, recur episodically in American politics, and not only on the ideological fringes. Days ago, in a tightly contested Northern Virginia state legislative race, a Republican challenger sent a mailer to thousands of households with a digitally altered photo of the Democratic incumbent, who is Jewish — his face in profile, features accentuated in shadowy tones — gazing upon stacks of gold coins," the editorial board explained.
The editorial went on to give some context to the race for which the mailer was targeted.
"The mailer, authorized by Harold Pyon, a GOP candidate for the House of Delegates, was paid for by Virginia's Republican Party. Its target is first-term lawmaker Dan Helmer, an Army veteran who was an armor officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is now a management consultant as well as an instructor at West Point, his alma mater," the editorial board explained.
The mailer was initially reported by Lowell Feld at the website Blue Virginia.
The Commonwealth of Virginia is rare in that it holds state races in odd number years, putting campaigns in the post-Labor Day rush towards election day.
"We have no reason to assume Mr. Pyon, a retired federal worker and former Army medic, is himself an antisemite. But there is no doubt that his noxious mailer is an affront to decency. It also fits a recent pattern among Virginia Republican candidates in this fall's legislative elections. One, Hahns Copeland, running in Norfolk, responded to a photo of state House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) by tweeting, 'I was surprised to see a pair of eyes and a mouth with that NOSE.' Another, Julie Perry, running for a seat in Northern Virginia, made light of the Holocaust by comparing the experience of conservative teachers to the plight of German Jews in Nazi Germany," the newspaper explained.
