Ex-CIA Agent Valerie Plame Lost Her Congressional Bid In The New Mexico Primary

Valerie Plame, the former CIA operative who was outed during the George W. Bush administration, has lost her bid to become a congresswoman after losing Tuesday night to attorney Teresa Leger Fernandez in the New Mexico Democratic primary.

Plame announced her candidacy in September 2019, The Daily Wire previously reported, in an attempt to fill a vacancy left by Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), who decided to run for the Senate to replace Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), who retired. Plame originally said she would run for Senate to replace Udall, but changed her mind for a congressional bid.

Plame used her fame from being outed in 2003 in an op-ed citing Bush administration officials to launch her candidacy. Her announcement video, however, was riddled with falsehoods, including her suggestions that she operated in Iran and North Korea and that Scooter Libby was responsible for her outing. Her opening ad also made it clear she was running because she had “a few scores to settle.”

Plame’s candidacy was plagued by accusations of racism and anti-Semitism. In 2017 – two years before announcing her candidacy – Plame resigned from her position on the board of Ploughshares Fund after retweeting an article blaming Jews for America’s wars, The Daily Wire’s Frank Camp previously reported. After a backlash, Plame defended her tweet, writing:

First of all, calm down. Re-tweets don’t imply endorsement. Yes, very provocative, but thoughtful. Many neocon hawks ARE Jewish. Just FYI, I am of Jewish decent. I am not in favor of war with Iran, or getting out of the Iran nuclear treaty. There are simply too many who are so ready to go to war. Haven’t we had enough for awhile? Read the entire article and try, just for a moment, to put aside your biases and think clearly.

The statement didn’t help, so Plame tweeted a second response before resigning:

OK folks, look, I messed up. I skimmed this piece, zeroed in on the neocon criticism, and shared it without seeing and considering the rest. … I’m not perfect and make mistakes. This was a doozy. All I can do is admit them, try to be better, and read more thoroughly next time. Ugh.

During her candidacy, left-wing media outlets either ignored or downplayed Plame’s racism and anti-Semitism. National Review’s Jim Geraghty outlined her issues after she launched he campaign:

She repeated an urban legend about dancing Israelis sighted after 9/11 and an article touting “Israeli fingerprints all over the place” in the investigation of the worst terror attack in American history. She shared an article entitled “Why I Still Dislike Israel” that laments the “Israel Lobby electing and controlling a malleable congress [sic] and increasingly even officials at state and local levels.” She commented that Natalie Portman was a fine choice to play a young Ruth Bader Ginsburg because “they are both Jewish.” (By itself, that’s a harmless comment, but in the context of the other ones, Plame seems particularly focused on knowing who’s Jewish and who isn’t.)

Fox News reported that ads from “anonymous backers” outlining Plames bigotry ran in the final weeks of her campaign.