Lowell over at Blue Virginia has written an excellent postmortem of last night’s election (from the Democratic perspective):
http://www.bluevirginia.us/2009/11/after-action-review-of-mcdonnells.html
Likewise, Ben Tribbett at Not Larry Sabato has an equally fascinating pre-mortem:
http://notlarrysabato.typepad.com/doh/2009/11/the-democratic-gilmore-repost-from-july-2008.html
Governor-elect Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) is facing calls to verify the location and circumstances of his birth.
Charlottesville, VA—Less than four hours after Republican Robert F. McDonnell won the governorship of Virginia by a wide margin over his opponent, Democratic state senator R. Creigh Deeds, he faces calls from some prominent Democratic activists to provide proof of his citizenship.
“I’m not saying that he’s not a citizen,” said Michael Karlik of The 28th Amendment, a liberal-leaning blog. “I’m just saying that the allegations are out there—and the burden of proof should be on him” to disprove the rumors. Karlik is calling on the governor-elect to produce his certificate of birth to show his qualifications to hold Virginia’s highest office.
Although McDonnell, who was born in Philadelphia to American citizens, has held elected office for nearly two decades, this is the first time any concerns over his birth are receiving scrutiny. The Virginia constitution requires governors to be citizens of the United States.
The outcry echoes the movement by some conservatives after the 2008 election in which President Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was accused of being Kenyan by birth and thus not eligible to hold the presidency. Neither the McDonnell nor Deeds campaign had any immediate comment on this issue.
Still, Karlik is not giving up. “I think it’s completely rational to assume that Bob McDonnell is not a citizen of this country until it is proven otherwise. As the former attorney general, he should know that one is presumed guilty of a charge until able to provide proof of his innocence.” Karlik added, “I mean, McDonnell? What kind of name is that? Sounds Congolese to me.”
We knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad!
This is a real screen capture, but the data are not authentic. Apparently, someone at the SBE accidently put a 2 in the millions place, producing this comical result.
Still, in looking at the real returns from tonight, the result is pathetic: a thorough rejection of the Democratic ticket, with gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds the worst performer, followed by attorney general candidate Stephen Shannon and lieutenant governor candidate Jody Wagner. As is sometimes the ironic case, Deeds’s concession speech was the most impassioned bit of oratory he had given to date. At the victory party, meanwhile, McDonnell thanked God profusely for his win, while Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli quoted Dr. Seuss and vowed to protect Virginia’s “sovereignty” against federal encroachment.
Today’s election may mean many things: a repudiation of the Obama agenda; a pushback against Deeds’s negative campaigning on social issues; a resassertion of Virginia’s true conservatism; or a declaration of Virginia’s preference for balanced partisan administration between the state and federal levels. But one thing is clear: given the victors tonight, we may very well know who the next governor will be in 2013.
In Virginia, attorneys general and lieutenant governors have a habit of running for governor after their term is finished. Since Virginia is the only state whose governor is elected to a non-renewable term, it is virtually certain that Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling or Cuccinelli will seek the Republican nomination in 2013. And, assuming Obama is elected to a second term, there is a good chance they will win.
To use a phrase that both campaigns employed tonight, Virginia Democrats stand an excellent chance of being in the wilderness for the next eight years.
On Tuesday, two different political parties in two elections occurring in two states will have a similar dilemma: what happens when your party’s candidate doesn’t effectively represent your party?
First, New York’s 23rd congressional district: a special election is being held to replace Republican representative John McHugh, who resigned to become President Obama’s secretary of the Army. Running for his seat are Democratic attorney Bill Owens, Republican assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, and attorney Doug Hoffman of the Conservative Party. Scozzafava is a fiscal conservative, but is liberal on abortion and gay rights. She was endorsed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who warned that the way for a party to lose elections is to impose ideological litmus tests, no matter how ill-matched the “pure” candidates may be with their constituencies. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has spoke out for Owen and condemned “blurring the lines” between parties. As it stands, Owen and Hoffman are leading Scozzafava. It is entirely possible that come election day, this Republican-leaning district will give the plurality of its vote to Owen because Republicans could not unite behind their selected candidate.
Then, look at Virginia’s gubernatorial race: Democratic state senator Creigh Deeds was selected by wide margins in all areas of the state in the June primary against his two liberal Northern Virginia rivals. Since then, Democrats from the White House down to the grass roots level have widely viewed him as running his campaign into the ground, to Republicans’ glee. Besides distancing himself from the Obama administration, Deeds has suggested in the final weeks of the campaign that he is against the climate change legislation and the public option in the healthcare bill, presumably to shore up his standing in rural Virginia (which he has somewhat obnoxiously termed “Deeds Country”).
Consequently, Virginia Democrats have been posting on blogs that they are so disenchanted with Deeds that they will refuse to vote on November 3. Or else, they will write in “Mark Warner,” “Thomas Jefferson,” or some other popular Virginian to express their dissatisfaction. The problem is, by not turning out to vote for Deeds, all of the other Democratic candidates on the ballot will suffer, which is unfair to those who have waged competitive and competent campaigns. Not to mention, these overly-sensitive liberal Democrats would never choose Republican Bob McDonnell in a million years, but they are essentially handing him victory by refusing to vote for their party’s candidate in order to teach someone (the other seven million people in this state?) a lesson.
It’s entirely possible that other Democrats will outperform Deeds on the ballot, an indication of either the candidates’ strength or the loyalty of the rank-and-file voters (just not to Deeds himself). It’s also possible that New York’s Republicans will end up uniting behind the candidate who is most likely to win in order to prevent enabling a Democratic victory in the district. The takeaway lesson here is to remember that it is fine to disagree with candidates on principled issues, but the degree of “purity” should not prevent you from voting for the candidate who stands the best chance of implementing a vision similar to yours. It is unproductive to think that the qualities which are best for the party are necessarily what is best for the people as a whole.
Yesterday, Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson pointed out a widely-overlooked aspect of healthcare reform that ought to be addressed before the final bill is deliberated upon. Throughout the deliberations on how to pay for increasing coverage, two options have solidified. The House’s plan is to tax wealthy households and individuals, which will cover about half the cost of the bill. The Senate, on the other hand, will tax “Cadillac” plans that exceed roughly $21,000, encouraging folks to buy less expensive plans, consume fewer costly treatments, and thus reduce expenditures.
Liberals are wary of the Senate’s plan because union members have, over the years, settled for lower wages in exchange for generous healthcare benefits, and any tax will ensnare middle-class families who happen to have well-earned, expansive health coverage. However, it has been pointed out that many union contracts will have to be renegotiated in the coming years and employers can simply reduce the level of healthcare coverage while boosting wages in an attempt to shift the balance between income and non-taxable health benefits. This will ensure that these workers will not cost the healthcare system as much in treatment and if they need to seek medical help above and beyond what their coverage entails, their extra wages can be used to cover that treatment.
But Meyerson cautions us not to fall into a rhetorical fallacy: just because two ideas appear to be connected does not mean that there is necessarily a logical link between them. In this case, we are dealing with the assertion that employers have a “pool” of money for each employee, into which are divided wages and healthcare benefits (in addition to Social Security taxes, pensions, etc.). If one part of the pool—healthcare—shrinks, the other part—wages—will get larger, and the overall size of the pool will remain unchanged, as long as revenues and expenditures remain constant.
Yet, this is not an ironclad deduction. Unions have been successively weakened in America, and many people disdain unions as only serving the purpose of protecting incompetent workers from being fired. This public condemnation—combined with the fact that in 2008, “top executives at 386 Fortune 500 companies averaged $10.8 million in total compensation, more than 364 times the amount paid to the average American worker”—demonstrates the relatively impotent bargaining position of the average employee.
Employers could very well shrink the pool—paying less for healthcare, refusing to increase wages, and then pocketing the rest. Congress ought to write a provision into the bill requiring employers to match dollar-for-dollar any decrease in existing health benefits with an increase in wages. If that cannot be done without a compelling reason, union leaders should have the right to appeal to the Labor Department for an inquiry and/or punishment. Among the administration’s many endeavors to reinvigorate the middle class and curtail the rampant greed of corporate culture, ensuring that unions receive proper respect at the bargaining table will prevent the further widening of the wealth gap that is a byproduct of the American myth that what is good for wealthy businessmen is good for the country overall.
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