Yahoo News Ex-chair of GOP national committee says he’s voting for Biden not Trump: ‘He’s dangerous to existence of the republic as we know it’
A former chair of the Republican Party’s national committee has said he is voting for Joe Biden and denounced Donald Trump as a threat to the “existence of the republic as we know it”.
In one of the more damaging responses that emerged after the president’s brutish presidential debate performance, and his refusal to denounce white supremacists, Marc Racicot said he could not bring himself to vote Mr Trump.
“I regret that I will cause consternation, perhaps, in some corners, but even as a Republican, I will not be supporting Donald Trump for president, and I will not be voting for him,” Mr Racicot, a former governor of Montana, told Yellowstone Public Radio.
He said that he had policy differences with Mr Biden but that he had decided he would receive his vote.
“But at the end, the content of a man's character or a woman's character to serve in that capacity is more important than any other issue that I have to consider as a matter of conscience,” he said.
He said did did not vote for Mr Trump in 2016 and had “even more grave doubts than I did in 2016”.
Later, he told the New York Times that life many Americans who watched the encounter on Tuesday night, when the president repeatedly attacked and talked over Mr Biden, he was not impressed by what he saw.
Indeed, so unimpressed was he that he turned off his television.
“I was embarrassed, that’s why I shut off,” he said “I thought it was a degradation.”
Watch: Biden - We can’t take four more years of Trump
Alluding to Mr Trump’s remarks about the Proud Boys, which he said should “stand Back and stand by”, he said the president had breaded the moral leadership required of the occupant of the Oval Office.
Mr. Racicot said the president offered comfort to racists that betrayed the moral leadership responsibilities of his office.
“It gnawed at my conscience,” he said of his decision to vote against the president, but added: “I’ve concluded that he’s dangerous to the existence of the republic as we know it.”
It it unclear what sort of impact Mr Racicot’s will have by themselves. The 72-year was chair of the Republican National Committee from 2002 until 2003, and headed George W Bush’s election campaign. He has not held elected office since 2001, and in that sense represents a previous of Republicans.
Yet, his words do seem indicative of the mood among many establishment Republicans, angered by Mr Trump’s comments both about race, and unwillingness to say he would recognise the result of the election regardless.
They are concerned not simply about the impact Mr Trump’s comments will have on their chance of retaining the White House, but on down-ballot races.
A number also seem genuinely aggrieved by the content of his words.
Even figures usually unwilling to clash with the president, such as Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, rejected Mr Trump’s words, tweeting: “The winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January 20th. There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792.”
A large number of members of the intelligence and defence establishment have come out agains the president. Perhaps the most senior former Republican official to put his support behind Joe Biden is one-time secretary of state Colin Powell.
Speaking on the second day of the Democratic National Convention this August, Mr Powell said: “Joe Biden will be a president we will all be proud to salute.”
Additional reporting by Associated Press
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