Last week, Left of the Hill lamented the fact that both of Virginia’s candidates for lieutenant governor are busy sniping at each other’s records instead of laying out their agendas to the voters. Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling attacked the Democratic nominee, former finance secretary Jody Wagner, for “flawed revenue projections” and “budgetary gimmickry” in light of the recession—a totally bogus claim considering that the great majority of states continue to see their revenues decline precipitously as the economy deteriorates. Wagner responded that Bolling refused to support a bipartisan tax increase in 2004, when he was a state senator—which is a relatively unimpressive claim and lacks context.
I agree that there is a problem (candidates going negative) but I would like to offer a different solution. Not only do I not think that lieutenant governor candidates should not campaign on a particular message, but I feel that they should not have their own agendas at all. Virginia, like 19 other states, elects the governor and lieutenant governor separately (in addition to the attorney general). The candidates can campaign together, of course, but their political futures are not linked. And after the voters have made their selections, we could end up with a scenario like what we have now, with a Democratic governor and a Republican lieutenant governor and attorney general (or any combination).
Where the train comes off the rails is in the division of time, energy, and attention that must be given to the lieutenant governor’s race at the expense of the two more important races. Considering that we elect state officials the year after a presidential election—and especially this year with a robust primary campaign—the voters cannot be expected to focus on so many names and offices (turnout was 44 percent in 2005). The lieutenant governor’s campaign is a distraction, and the candidates should not pursue plans that they will doubtfully ever be able to implement. Rather, they should be campaigning on behalf of their principal, and attacking the other party’s candidates for governor and attorney general.
Of course, the qualifications and the record of the lieutenant governor candidates should be scrutinized. Attacks on them should be fair game, if not entirely productive. But given that the governor only has four years to carry out his agenda, it is highly unlikely that he will step down halfway through and surrender power to the lieutenant governor, especially if it be someone of the opposite party.
The lieutenant governor of Virginia (whom I suspect is similar to many states’ lieutenant governors) has only two constitutional duties: breaking tie votes in the Senate and succeeding the governor if he could not fulfill the duties of his office. Of course, I’m sure there are numerous unofficial duties, like reading to schoolchildren, going to police officers’ funerals, and making photocopies when the temp is sick; but the fact that each of the lieutenant governor candidates has posted a snazzy video on his and her websites laying out the “vision” for the commonwealth is at best amusing to the small fraction of people who are interested, and at worst completely irrelevant.
The only vote I think a lieutenant governor candidate should be subject to is during the primary. (I would not want to give gubernatorial candidates the power to choose their own running mates as presidential candidates do.) But after the parties choose their ticket, the lieutenant governor’s campaign should merely be an extension of his or her running mate. The two candidates should have the same message, be using the same line of attack, and pool their resources. Virginia is too big of a state to process the platforms and personalities of six different candidates, plus the myriad candidates for senator and delegate.
