A former Ronald Reagan political director says he’s voting for Hillary Clinton, rejecting the Republican nominee for the first time in 40 years.
Frank Lavin, who was Reagan’s political director from 1987 to 1989, became the latest GOP official — following Reps. Scott Rigell and Richard Hanna and operatives like former Jeb Bush aide Sally Bradshaw and ex-Chris Christie communications aide Maria Comella — to announce he won’t back Donald Trump. And former GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman — CEO of Hewlett Packard — says she will vote for and donate money to Hillary Clinton.
“It might not be entirely clear that Hillary Clinton deserves to win the presidency, but it is thunderingly clear that Donald Trump deserves to lose,” Lavin wrote in an op-ed for CNN.
“From this premise, I will do something that I have not done in 40 years of voting: I will vote for the Democratic nominee for president,” he wrote. “The depressing truth of the Republican nominee is that Donald Trump talks a great game but he is the emperor who wears no clothes.”
Lavin also worked in the Commerce Department for George H.W. Bush and as US ambassador to Singapore, and then in George W. Bush’s under secretary of Commerce for international trade.
His announcement comes amid consternation within the GOP over Trump’s attack on the parents of a slain US soldier and his refusal last week to endorse several key Republican figures — though he reversed coursed and endorsed House Speaker Paul Ryan, Arizona Sen. John McCain and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte Friday night in Wisconsin.