Democrats face meltdown in Virginia as racial and sex charges confront party leaders

WASHINGTON - Only days ago, Democrats believed they had an obvious fix for a sudden political crisis after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was found to have a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page.

The solution came with moral clarity and easy resolve: Northam had to go.

Moral clarity has gotten a lot harder ever since.

First, the state's popular lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, a promising young African-American politician who looked poised to pull the party out of its mess by moving into the governor's office, became tainted by an allegation of sexual assault.

Then, on Wednesday, the state's residents learned that Northam's troubling history was not unique. The third Democrat in the line of succession, state Attorney General Mark Herring, confessed that he, like Northam, had once dressed in blackface.