TOO BAD HE RAN AS DONALD...:

Ed Gillespie is running two very different campaigns for governor of Virginia.

In the last week of the biggest election of 2017, the Republican nominee has spent his time on the trail emphasizing his family's immigrant story and talking up plans to improve Virginia's economy.

But Gillespie's stump speech has diverged sharply from his fusillade of paid advertising focused on cultural hot buttons -- his support for keeping Confederate statues up, his opposition to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality, and scorching accusations that Democrat Ralph Northam backs making it easier for sex offenders to buy guns.

The divergent campaigns appear to have helped Gillespie close the gap with Northam, the lieutenant governor and longtime polling leader, in the final weeks of the race. Democrats have responded with a furious effort to gin up black and Latino turnout and link Gillespie to President Donald Trump. But Gillespie's strategy -- adopting Trump's racially charged culture war issues without adopting the president's say-anything-at-any-time unpredictable style -- could be widely adopted by other establishment Republican candidates in 2018 as a way to fire up Trump's base without alienating Republicans who may dislike the unpopular president.

"You'd never take a knee ... so take a stand on Election Day," read campaign mailers from Gillespie featuring a kneeling football player, part of a series of mail pieces focused on social issues.

The mail is emblematic of Gillespie's advertising themes in the closing week of the race. Over the last seven days, Gillespie has aired 12 ads on broadcast television, according to Advertising Analytics. Eight have been negative attacks on Northam about social issues, mostly crime -- including four focused on Northam's support of restoration of rights for felons, including sex offenders, "making it easier for these violent felons to get guns"; two ads attacking Northam for supporting the removal of statues of Confederate generals; one ad linking a Northam vote to allow sanctuary cities in Virginia to the growth of the violent El Salvadoran gang MS-13; and another spot criticizing an ad from the pro-Northam group Latino Victory Fund, which featured a Gillespie supporter chasing immigrant children in a pickup truck.

At the Jay A. Parker lecture, @EdWGillespie was asked to publicly address @GovernorVA's scandal for the first time. Watch his response. pic.twitter.com/Ewx6PrMAJc

— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) February 22, 2019

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