It looks like a family holiday card except that the woman and children posing with Republican Derrick Anderson are not his wife or his offspring.

Anderson, who running in a close race for Virginia’s seventh congressional district, was seen in another image seated around the dining table with the same woman and three girls.

The images came to light in an article by The New York Times, headlined “G.O.P. Candidates, Looking to Soften Their Image, Turn to Their Wives,” which reported how “male Republicans struggling to appeal to female voters concerned about their records on reproductive rights are unleashing their spouses to make the pitch on their behalf.”

However Anderson, who is childless, engaged to be married and lives alone with his dog, sought to borrow the wife and children from a longtime friend in an apparent effort to appear as a family man.


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  • teft@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    engaged to be married and lives alone with his dog,

    How does that work? Don’t most people cohabitate before marriage? Or is he engaged to his dog?

    • Skanky@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      What woman would want to marry sometime that felt the need to put his political career over their relationship? Sounds like a match made in heaven

    • unmagical@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Many Christians believe that living together before marriage is wrong. Many conservatives are either Christian or appeal to Christian values (as they’re both largely patriarchal and controlling; at least as practiced). This guy’s conservative.

      • teft@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Then why wouldn’t he just do a photo shoot with his fiancee and his dog? Conservatives are idiots or someone is lying.

        • Jimbabwe@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Or at least use his dog in the fake photo?? Cmon, he’s got one creature on this planet that loves him (ignorance is bliss), and he leaves it out of the family photo?!

          What a monster, lol

          • Rolando@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            His dog, apparently smarter than every Republican voter in Virginia’s seventh congressional district, refused to have anything to do with it.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          The article talks about how Republicans are alienating virtually every woman in the country. So, to appear electable, they’re having their wives and kids do the ads, so that out-of-touch women will see a woman in the ad and decide that the candidate is a good guy.

          But that, and the whole focus on “traditional family values” and everything boxes them into a certain image, that you’re not a real American man if you’re not married with kids by the time you’re in your 30s or something. So, even if he had a picture with his fiance and dog, it would prove he’s not a “traditional family values” republican. So, better to pose with a friend’s wife and kids than prove that he’s not “normal”.

    • qantravon@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Many people do, but not everyone. Religious people especially tend not to cohabitate before marriage, as that would be considered a sin.

        • Nastybutler@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Not to worry, the wife will do all the cooking cleaning and housekeeping, as God intended. And if she doesn’t like it, too bad, the Bible says wives are to submit to the will of their husbands, so she’ll suck it up and do as she’s told.

          That’s what they actually believe, don’t hate me. I grew up having this BS crammed down my throat, and even as a kid I thought it was ridiculous