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.
Between now and November 3, unless Bob McDonnell walks into a hair salon and announces to all the women that they ought to be at home baking cookies and pumping out kids, there is an overwhelming chance that he will be elected the next governor of Virginia. Conversely, unless Democrat Creigh Deeds surgically attaches Mark Warner to his hip and parades him across the commonwealth, he will probably fare badly. To be frank, McDonnell probably would have squeaked by on Election Day even if Democrat Deeds had been a stellar candidate with a transportation plan and a clear message on taxes—just because of the natural inclination of Virginians to vote for the opposite party of whomever controls the White House.
But as it is, McDonnell now has a double digit lead over Deeds. The same Northern Virginians who gave Deeds his primary victory by wide margins have largely become disenchanted with his overly-negative campaigning, loss for words in the face of reporters, the distance he has tried to put between himself and President Obama, and the latest gaffe in which he said he would consider opting Virginia out of the public option if it were passed in healthcare reform.
Now, it’s true that what he said—that he’s not convinced the public option is the only way to reduce costs—is essentially what the president has also stated regarding the public plan. Considering, though, that Deeds has rebuked McDonnell for raising federal issues in debates, Deeds could have said something along the lines of, “I will wait until the bills are completed in the House and Senate before I make a judgment.” Or, “I will do whatever possible to ensure that the maximum number of Virginians have health insurance.” Or, “I will speak with members of the Virginia congressional delegation to ensure this legislation results in a net benefit for citizens of the commonwealth.” Since Deeds’s strategy in the final weeks is to energize Democratic voters, I’m not sure that expressing skepticism over an item on the wish list of many liberals is the best way to impress the base.
As it is, many Democrats will probably get over their heartburn about Deeds and vote for him if only to vote against McDonnell. This bears some resemblance to the 2004 presidential election, where people plainly knew what they disliked about President Bush, but Sen. John Kerry was such an uninspiring and amorphous candidate that the electorate did not have as much confidence in him as a potential commander in chief. The danger of electing McDonnell is that he could also sweep into office a Republican Lieutenant Governor (who can break tied votes in a nearly evenly-split Senate), a Republican Attorney General (and an ultraconservative, environmentalist-hating, immigrant-bashing, state “sovereignty”-supporting one at that), and a Republican House of Delegates.
This means that after eight years of having moderate Democratic governors stand between the people and the legislature, it is probable that there will be laws enacted over the next two to four years that chip away at gun regulations, expand the use of capital punishment, crack down on non-felon illegal immigrant workers and families, fail to raise taxes to maintain our road systems, eliminate the chance of any new funding for public transit, slash welfare benefits, oppose the president’s healthcare proposal, and fail to lessen the burden on public colleges and universities and the financial burden on their students.
If Glenn Beck is worried that the Democrats are hijacking his country, I am worried that a solidly Republican state government will enact seriously regressive policies that would caricature us as a “Deep South” state. Of course, congressional Democrats have served as their own check over the past ten months, but an ideologically pure GOP can mobilize their ilk more efficiently. That’s why I hope that there is at least one Democrat elected statewide to serve as a counterweight, if only in title, to a reinvigorated Republican government.
As much as I hate to say it, I am not sensing a Creigh Deeds victory in this fall’s gubernatorial election.
Don’t get me wrong—it would be nice to see Deeds win. He is a hard working, mild-mannered state senator who trends liberal on energy, the environment, transportation, and gay rights, while hewing to the right on gun issues. But right now he is suffering from the same condition which felled both of his challengers in the Democratic primary: slamming his opponent on issues of character while failing to identify with the electorate.
Right now, the number of Virginians (which is by no means universal) who know of Deeds probably have two facts stuck in their minds about him: he’s the guy who didn’t write the sexist/homophobic master’s degree thesis twenty years ago; and he’s the guy who doesn’t have a transportation plan. Let’s look at the first point, the McDonnell thesis. The Washington Post has done a dutiful job (though lately, it borders on the partisan) in explaining and measuring the reaction to the thesis among voters. Last week, they even convened a panel of women to discuss what Bob McDonnell wrote.
Accordingly, Deeds has made this a central focus of his campaign. But this is far from a “macaca moment”. In fact, when one looks at McDonnell’s legislative record, it’s not unsurprising at all that he railed against “fornicators” and working-mother households and welfare. So, to some extent, Virginians knew what we were getting with the former attorney general. What is impressive about the episode is how McDonnell handled it: by convening a conference call of reporters and answering questions until there were no more.
Contrast this with the way Deeds handled the other issue surrounding his campaign, that of transportation. His position for several weeks has been that a.) he will not raise taxes to the general fund (schools, public safety, health and human services, etc.); b.) the state needs “new revenue” for transportation; c.) he will sign a bill if elected that will raise said “new revenue”; and d.) he will not use money from the general fund to pay for transportation, as McDonnell’s transportation plan requires.
So, essentially he is saying he wants to see a tax increase for transportation. The problem is, for nearly three painful minutes after a recent debate, he could not bring himself to say that in front of reporters:
This has led Republicans, not unreasonably, to accuse Deeds of not having a plan. In today’s Washington Post, Deeds wrote an opinion piece in which he came as close to being explicit as he has been thus far, writing “I’ll sign a bipartisan bill with a dedicated funding mechanism for transportation—even if it includes new taxes.” The article was entitled “My Transportation Plan,” but unfortunately it was merely a transportation wish list. Deeds wrote that he would like to “expand freight and passenger rail,” “utilize bus rapid transit” and “promote smarter land-use planning.” There are no numbers and no mention of how he would get this done—whom he would work with, where the funding would come from, where this development would occur, how jobs would be created, etc.
Even in a recession, and even in a conservative state like Virginia, I would hope voters would understand that raising taxes to preserve vital government services should not be an automatic campaign killer. As much as I disagree with elements of McDonnell’s plan, the fact is that he has one. And it’s more or less crystal clear. And it’s not that bad—proposing, for example, that thirty percent of sales taxes (actually, it says .30%, which I assume is a typo) in Northern Virginia be retained in that region. I realize that Deeds does not want to box himself into a corner if elected, but there are ways to formulate a plan now while still being open to tweaks or alterations once in office.
There are a lot of factors at play here in the gubernatorial election, not the least of which is Virginia’s trend of favoring a division of power between federal and state governments, and again within the state government. Deeds ought to stop saying that he will be like popular Democratic governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and develop a set of policies that will prove it. Because right now, the man who is positioning himself as heir to the business-like approach of the past eight years is Bob McDonnell. And it’s working.
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