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Barbara Comstock Conveniently Forgets She's Barbara Comstock

Tuesday, April 7, 2015


From DPVA:
Barbara Comstock is infamous for avoiding the media at all costs. However, in an profile yesterday, she let the New York Times in just enough to glimpse a carefully-crafted moderate schtick. We've translated her deceptively-benign answers into a more realistic picture of what it means to be Barbara Comstock -- something Barbara Comstock can't hide from so easily.

NYT: What moved you to run for Congress?
Comstock says: "I passed a lot of tech legislation, worked a lot with my tech community, and I do think a lot of the technology areas are where we’re going to break through a lot of the sort of the right-left divide."
Comstock means: By technology, I mean transvaginal ultrasounds! Or maybe it's what the Washington Post cited in their 2013 endorsement of my opponent, saying "Barbara J. Comstock, a two-term Republican with one of the most ideologically rigid voting records in Richmond, likes to cite her legislation extending tax breaks to data centers in Northern Virginia. But by opposing Virginia’s transportation funding bill, she became part of the problem that has plagued her district’s commuters."

NYT: What do you think of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s potential candidacy for the presidency?

Comstock says: "It’s always good to stay in my lane on that one, and I don’t know what’s going to happen on the other side."
Comstock means: Let's not bring up my past, where being a professional Clinton-hater was pretty much my only lane.

NYT: What is it like to be a Republican right now, when many of the prominent figures in your party are such divisive figures?
Comstock says: "Obviously you want women to be experienced, and in my case, I like the Maggie Thatcher model more in terms of women leaders, but I think we need to get women leaders out there on a lot of fronts."
Comstock means: Pivot to women! Please just don't look at how I've actually voted against women's interests -- one of my first major votes in Congress was to block women's reproductive freedom. As Delegate, I voted for TRAP laws that closed women's health clinics, said Lilly Ledbetter had a "left-wing agenda" and voted to kill minimum wage increases even though 60% of Virginia's minimum wage earners are women.



NYT: What will success look like for your first term?

Comstock says: "I think first and foremost that the economy is much more on track. Part of getting the economy on track is having technology work better so that things — whether it’s health care or access for medicine — are working better and costing less."
Comstock means: I sure hope we get this new technology soon, because in the meantime a lot of folks are going without healthcare or medicine thanks to my staunch opposition to Medicaid expansion. 

Here are some questions the Times could have asked to show readers the real Barbara Comstock: