Richmond, VA (LifeNews.com) — Mark Warner is a former Virginia governor who is running for a U.S. Senate seat and is a strong supporter of Barack Obama. A new audio recording has surfaced showing Warner saying that pro-life advocates and other conservatives are “threatening to what it means to be an American.”
The remark is making the rounds of the Internet and reminding pro-life voters of the off-putting comment Obama made in Pennsylvania earlier in the campaign that conservative and pro-life rural voters “cling to guns or religion.”
Warner’s Republican opponent and former Gov. Jim Gilmore has already turned the audio of the comments into a new television commercial.
The comments feature Warner talking about political opponents at a Democratic Party gathering.
“One of the things you’re going to see is a coalition that has just about completely taken over the Republican Party in this state, and if they have their way they’re going to take over state government,” Warner says.
“It’s made up of the Christian Coalition. It’s made up of the right to lifers,” Warner continues.
“It’s made up of a coalition of people that have all sorts of different views that I think most of us in this room would find threatening to what it means to be an American,” he concludes.
Ken Shepherd, a columnist with the media monitoring blog NewsBusters says it will be interesting if the media report on this gaffe and attack on pro-life and other conservative voters.
“With Virginia as a battleground state in the 2008 election and given Democrat Barack Obama’s damaging gaffe earlier this year about rural voters clinging ‘to guns or religion,’ a new gaffe by another Democrat should be worthy of media attention,’ he says.
“It remains to be seen if the mainstream media will even notice.”