Paul Ryan is not weighing in

The real-life election fraud story playing out in North Carolina mysteriously isn’t getting much attention from Republicans, despite their ongoing obsession with fictional voter fraud. Gee, wonder why that is—just because in this case we have a Republican with a narrow lead and information emerging about people paid by a Republican operative to collect unsealed absentee ballots, in a county where the absentee ballot numbers ended up wildly skewed?

Republicans are staying quiet. Outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan isn’t answering questions. Donald Trump isn’t yapping on Twitter.

“People are still trying to determine what exactly happened, and that’s what we don’t have clear,” said Republican strategist Doug Heye, a veteran of several North Carolina campaigns. “I think you have some folks who, correctly, don’t want to extend themselves and say that there’s not a problem here when it may turn out that there’s something very real there, and that’s very understandable.”

Republicans, just the picture of circumspection! Funny how that’s not the stance when it comes to whipping up suspicion about brown people voting.