July 3, 2009 [LINK / comment]

McDonnell campaign fires up

GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell has issued a bold challenge to his Democratic rival Creigh Deeds: participate in a series of ten debates all across Virginia. It is an unprecedented idea, and will keep the Democrats under pressure to defend their agenda in a setting where reasonable discourse -- rather than cheap shot sound bites -- prevails. I remain very encouraged that McDonnell knows the political landscape in Virginia and is determined to win over independent voters. He is keeping busy with campaign appearances, and TV ads are continuing at a good clip. Here in the Valley, stalwart Republican Party loyalist Steve Kijak is taking the lead in spreading the word via campaign road signs. As the Fourth of July weekend approaches, things are looking up for the Republican ticket. Well, almost.

I hate to mention this, but I feel it's my duty: About two weeks ago, Chris Green wrote that "McDonnell is running as a Democrat on the Tax issue," based on nothing more than Washington Times editorial that criticized McDonnell for not signing Grover Norquist's infamous anti-tax-increase pledge, which they say "is a guaranteed vote-getter." Well, there's no doubt that it picks up some votes, but it almost certainly loses many more votes than it gains. Has anyone been paying attention to election results in the last few years since Norquist intensified his guerrilla campaign against independent-minded Republican legislators? Kudos to Bob McDonnell for recognizing that the political winds are changing.

Virginia is one of the most business-friendly states in the country, and undermining the pro-business candidate at a time when the pro-business party is riven by deep factionalism, and when the very survival of American private business is being menaced by an onslaught of government regulation, is inexcusably irresponsible. It's time to put an end to sniping at the good guys!

And just for the record, Grover Norquist, as head of Americans for Tax Reform, is the original author of the regrettable trend toward "bitter nastiness and partisanship" in state politics, in Virginia and elsewhere. See my June 2007 blog post on him, in the midst of the epochal Sayre vs. Hanger primary race. I noticed that Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" has been deleted moved to a new page.

Franken is the winner

We've been expecting this news for a long time, but it's still awfully hard to swallow: Al Franken has been declared the winner of the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota against incumbent Norm Coleman. The margin of victory: 312 votes. According to politico.com, "a new national poll shows that 44 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of the former comedian and liberal radio host." (Maybe they are confusing him with his alter ego, Stuart Smalley. ) Franken is a lot like his arch-enemy Rush Limbaugh, but not as successful in talk radio. Will an acerbic, smarter-than-thou comedian find success in the hallowed halls of the U.S. Senate, where deference and collegiality are the watchwords? We'll see.

Now President Obama has his 60-seat Senate supermajority, unless some of the Democrats start demanding favors to get that crucial 60th vote. Because of ill health, moreover, neither Sen. Ted Kennedy nor Sen. Robert Byrd have been able to carry out their senatorial duties lately.

Unlike Franken, Minnesotans are considered very polite and self-effacing, almost painfully so. That's what makes the social satire of Garrison Keillor (the genial genius behind "Prairie Home Companion") so hilarious. Too bad he's a Democrat too.

Press gets mad at Obama

As Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and the George Bushes could tell (or could have told) you, when Helen Thomas gets her dander up, you know you're in trouble. At a press conference a couple days ago, some members of the White House press corps took exception to President Obama's phoney-baloney stage-managed "public forums" that are being used to promote his health care nationalization reform. It was quite an amusing sideshow to the usual fawning adulation that Obama usually gets from the Mainstream Media. Too Conservative noticed this little journalistic spat as well. Perhaps more of the conformist liberal reporters will wise up one of these days, as Bernard Goldberg (ex-CBS) and John Stoessel (ABC) have. When will they realize that they are becoming propaganda pawns for the Obama administration?

Brief blog hiatus

To my immense relief, the delightfully honest and thoughtful Megan Rhodes has not disappeared from the blogosphere. It was just a technical adjustment that was more troublesome than expected. Well, I can relate to that. I have noticed that some other Virginia bloggers such as Bad Rose have virtually given up on their blogs and are now devoting full-time attention to Facebook. I'm having a very hard time keeping up with all that...

June 29, 2009 [LINK / comment]

House votes to regulate climate*

On Friday, the United States House of Representatives voted 219-212 in favor of a massive 1,300-page bill that seeks nothing less than to stop global warming in its tracks. In spite of intensive lobbying by the White House, 44 Democrats voted "no," but eight Republicans crossed the aisle, providing just enough votes to save this high-priority legislative milestone. The bill contains a comprehensive set of mandates that will force industries to restrict their consumption of fossil fuels, or else pay a penalty for excessive greenhouse gas emissions. Companies that consume less than the ceiling would get credits that could be traded with companies that consume too much. As the Washington Post explains,

The heart of the bill is a "cap" that would lower greenhouse gas emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and to 83 percent below those levels by 2050. It would enforce the cap by requiring many sources of such pollution, including power plants, factories and oil refineries, to amass buyable, sellable credits equal to their emissions.

What I'd like to know is where they got those numbers. Is there any scientific evidence that a 17 percent drop in emissions by the U.S. would have a noticeably different effect than a ten percent drop? And what if companies shut their U.S. factories and open up new ones across the border in Mexico? Has anyone thought about that? And how can we be so sure that investing in new technologies will bring about the planned increase in energy efficiency? As far as breaking the fossil fuel habit, why hasn't Obama spoken more openly about following the French example and going nuclear??? I suppose real-world conditions don't matter very much to social engineers who are busy dreaming of how to make our future better.

In essence, under this system, the government would set an arbitrary limit on air polluting emissions while permitting companies to sell or purchase allowances, providing some quasi-market flexibility. It would be prohibitively expensive, and if the measure gets final approval in the Senate, years from now people will be screaming bloody murder, asking how such a thing could have been done. (The Heritage Foundation prepared an estimate of what the net cost of the Waxman-Markey Climate Change Bill would be for each congressional district. For Virginia's Sixth Congressional District, they forecast an annual decline in Gross State Product of $585.72 over the period 2012-2035. Most other districts in Virginia would suffer even more.) For the record, I don't rule out the possibility that greenhouse gases may have a significant impact on global temperatures. I am, however, very skeptical about the efficacy of the national caps, especially given that China is a bigger greenhouse gas emitter than we are. In principle, something along the lines of the "cap and trade" regulatory mechanism might be appropriate, but only if it was geared to a market price system in which producers and consumers could plainly see the direct costs they would be bearing. Arbitrary limits on consumption on consumption are not only less efficient and less equitable, they are inimical to the very notion of a free society. For those who are curious about this "cap and trade" business, here are some useful background sources:

• EPA
• Center for American Progress (LEFT)
• Heritage Foundation(RIGHT)

As for the politics, it seems that much of the opposition to the bill came from farm states. I was intrigued that the co-sponsors of the bill, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), rejected Obama's idea to have the emission allowances be auctioned off to make possible tax cuts that would offset some of the pain. As with the health care debate, Obama is either unable or unwilling to spend much of his precious political capital, a striking contrast to his bold approach to policy-making.

On the Republican side, Minority Leader John Boehner at least put up a respectable fight, insisting that the provisions of the bill be explained on the House floor, so that the members would actually know what they were voting on. Somehow, Rush Limbaugh got mixed up on which of the eight Republicans defected on the cap and trade legislation, falsely including our own Congressman Bob Goodlatte, notwithstanding Goodlatte's strong denunciation of the measure. Fortunately, the word got around on Facebook pretty quickly, and Rush issued a correction.

In a statement to reporters today, President Obama voiced confidence that the Senate will likewise follow the "forward-looking" example set by the House. Sigh.....

* Hopefully the absurdity of that title will register with some people. As if...

ABC's The Obama Show

I missed the President's prime-time interview/public forum with ABC anchorman Charlie Gibson last week, but you can watch the video at whitehouse.gov. Conservatives are outraged that ABC gave air time to Obama for what some saw as a blatant promotional "infomercial," and I would have to agree that Gibson made only the barest pretense of presenting both sides of the issue.

As a protest, a blogger in Cincinnati is launching a boycot of ABC and its sponsors; see Puma by design 001 and scroll to the middle. Hat tip to Stacey Morris.

Another Facebook poll

This sounds like a fairly accurate description of me, though I'm probably more of a free-market booster than it implies. Also, I don't necessarily dislike hippies, some of whom might fit the description of "Crunchy Conservative."

Moderate Republican

Tax cuts, less regulation, family values -they're all good to an extent, but hey, let's not go crazy. You're pragmatic, and you shy away from ideology. You want what works for America, and you sometimes feel that it isn't found in your own party's platform. You're a loyal Republican, though, and you know that government is at best a necessary evil. You probably have friends (and fierce enemies) on both sides of the aisle. You don't like hippies, but you don't like torture either. You love America, and want it well-defended, prosperous and healthy. You'd also like a bit less yelling, please. You probably have recently said: "I voted for McCain (twice)", "I'm working towards the centre", "I miss my father's Republican Party"

June 28, 2009 [LINK / comment]

Obama's health care proposals

This past week, President Obama started his big push for health care "reform," setting the stage for what will surely be a monumental battle with the Republicans over the proper role of government. Oddly, Obama has played a passive role as far as the legislative specifics, leaving it up to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to fill in the details. It's an invitation to chaos and stalemate, which makes you wonder what Obama is up to. I would at least agree with Obama that the current system is a travesty that cannot be sustained much longer. I sharply disagree with most of his proposed remedies, however. From whitehouse.gov,

President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform in his first year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

To put it bluntly, that is utopian balderdash. There are always tradeoffs in policy, and by declaring his desire to simultaneously tackle both sides of the dilemma, Obama exposes himself as a light-weight rookie, policy-wise. In the New York Times, David Brooks noted that the Congressional Budget Office has evaluated the two alternative plans put forth by the Democrats, and found that over the next 10 years, they "would cost the government more than $1 trillion this decade and send total health care costs zooming at least twice as fast as the economy as a whole." Obama may not be closely involved with the policy formulation at this stage, but numbers like that reinforce the impression held by many on the Right (including me) that the President is either indifferent to whether the Federal Treasury goes bankrupt, or it actively running that risk so as to create more emergencies that will justify more drastic action. I sure hope I'm just being paranoid about this.

In the Washington Post, George Will writes that most Americans do support health care reform, it's just that they have not really thought about it very deeply: "They want 2009 medicine at 1960 prices." It is a classic case of escapism, or refusing to face up to basic facts. He scorns Obama's fixation on the supposedly excessive share of health care expenditures in the average family budget, but this is as much due to improvements in technology and medical skill as anything. The reason we pay so much is because the quality of our medical care is so high! Maybe what we need, or what some Americans need, at least, is access to lower-quality medical care -- the "barefoot doctors" approach of Cuba or China in the days of Mao. Policies to enhance access to basic-level medical services in public clinics (such as is available in most of Latin America, for example) might be part of a bipartisan compromise solution. George Will gets to the crux of the matter in admirable fashion:

Most Americans do not know this because the cost of their care is hidden. Only 9 percent buy health coverage individually, and $84 of every $100 spent on health care is spent by someone (an employer, insurance company or government) other than recipients of the care. Those who get insurance as untaxed compensation from employers have no occasion to compute or confront the size of that benefit. But it is part of the price their employers pay for their work.

One of the few hopeful signs as this policy debate unfolds is that Obama has indeed begun hinting that he might accept taxes on the (hitherto undisclosed) employer contributions to health care insurance. During the campaign, Sen. McCain boldly took on this issue (see May 2008), but Obama assailed him for it. Now, he realizes that his program will need more revenue, and any government-run health insurance program will fail to attract customers unless that inherent advantage of private health care coverage is eliminated. (NOTE: Former President Bush cautiously addressed this issue in his last State of the Union address, in January 2008.)

Over the next few months, things are bound to get confusing for average folks across the Fruited Plain, as their very lives in the future now hinge upon what a bunch of big shots in Washington decide. Just keep this in mind: All that talk about how many billions this or that proposal will cost or save over the next ten years is a waste of time. Budgetary forecasts are rarely accurate more than a few years in advance, and when it comes to entitlement spending, the sky is the limit. No one really knows how much health care will cost ten years from now. Unless, that is, Obama really is determined to "contain health care costs" by imposing iron-clad caps on costs. That would be a devastating blow to what is left of our market-based economy, and would lead us down on a path toward a paternalistic, semi-authoritarian welfare state.

So what's the Republican alternative approach to health care reform? Beats me.

Obama and Canadian oil

As tensions with Iran mount over the dispute elections and subsequent crackdown against protesters, the question of whether we should reduce our dependence on oil imported from the Persian Gulf rises once again. Well, it seems that the Obama administration has taken "a rather belligerent stance" toward oil extracted from tar sands in Canada for environmental reasons. See Yahoo finance; hat tip to Dan. Apparently Obama is banking on political stability in the Middle East, because a democratic revolution would disrupt oil markets for several months at least. On the plus side, from a parochial standpoint, this shift in policy against oil from tar sands may cause a delay or cancellation of the proposed refinery to built in southeastern South Dakota; see Nov. 29.

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NOTE: While looking at my Facebook page on Saturday, I realized to my dismay that I had inadvertently posted a brief and preliminary version of this blog piece on Friday night. My apologies for the (extremely rare) "false start."

June 26, 2009 [LINK / comment]

Can Gov. Sanford keep his job?

Yet another Republican official has been caught up in a morals scandal that, in many peoples' eyes, makes the party look hypocritical. Gov. Mark Sanford's lame alibi -- that he was hiking along the Appalachian Trail -- was bound to unravel eventually, and made the affair with the mysterious "Maria" of Argentina all the more farcical. It makes you wonder how a smart guy like that would think he could get away with it. Lust and hubris go hand in hand, and if political leaders can't control themselves, they soon fall. As far as his public duties, Sanford's biggest sin was making trips with taxpayers' money. No one can excuse that, period. If he avoids impeachment, he will still end up gravely weakened, probably ruining his political career. He has left his position as chairman of the Republican Governors' Conference, and is no longer a serious contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.

Sanford drew flak from other Republicans in March, referring to people like Rush Limbaugh in suggesting that anyone who wants President Obama to fail is an "idiot." Hey, Mark take a look in the mirror!

Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles had a pretty good one today, with the GOP elephant lost somewhere along the Appalachian Trail between Maine and Argentina (!), holding a map and a bible entitled "Holier Than Thou." The fact that so few Republican leaders recognize the perilous position they put themselves in when they court moralistic "values voters" who are especially liable to punish candidates who "stray from the path." Sometimes the party as a whole suffers for the sins of a few. As the Toles cartoon says, the Republicans are indeed in the "Wilderness Years."

For the record, I was hiking along the Appalachian Trail last weekend, in case anyone was wondering where I was. Unlike Sanford, however, I was with my wife!

Rambling Kaine

But wait, there's another southern governor who has been AWOL for extended periods in recent months: our very own Timothy Kaine! With all his fund-raising trips on behalf of the Democratic Party lately, he is a true "ramblin' man." (Cue Allman Brothers.) Virginia Republicans have been demanding that Kaine release his travel records so that the public can know where and what he has been up to. Today, however, his office issued a flat rejection, saying that travels that do not pertain to state business are nobody's business. See the Washington Post. Hmmm. I guess that means that he is only a part-time governor. Did the voters realize that his devotion to the Commonwealth would take a back seat to his Higher Ambitions when they elected him three and a half years ago? In the News Leader, Jim McCloskey had a good cartoon today, pointing to the parallels between Gov. Kaine and "fellow traveler" Gov. Sanford, with Kaine's wife saying "At least my husband isn't in Argentina."

R.I.P. Jack Kemp

While the rest of the world is absorbed in the tragedy of Michael Jackson's death, we should take a minute to remember someone who died last month whose work never got as much credit as was due. Jack Kemp was a pro football quarterback (for the Buffalo Bills) as well as a congressman and a member of the (first) Bush cabinet, as secretary of housing and urban development. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele paid tribute to Kemp as a "standard-bearer for economic conservatism and lower taxes within the Republican Party. ... He would often remind me what it meant to be a 'Lincoln Republican.'" See GOP.com. Conservative curmudgeon Cal Thomas wrote a tribute column that appeared in the News Leader: "The Jack Kemp I Knew." Like Steele, he emphasizes that Kemp was a sincere true believer in expanding opportunities for less-advantaged people by unleashing market forces.

I sometimes wondered about some of Kemp's ideas, such as supply-side economics or targeted tax breaks to regenerate business in urban areas by creating "enterprise zones." It just seemed too gimmicky and prone to misuse to me. Nevertheless, I would agree with the general idea that in an imperfect world you sometimes need to compromise with basic principles in order to accomplish important tasks. Kemp never worried about whether he fit somebody else's description of a "true conservative." The important thing about his life is that he broadened the Republican Party's appeal, a vital task that has fallen by the wayside in recent years.

June 23, 2009 [LINK / comment]

Obama changes his tune on Iran

One of the recurring themes during the 2008 presidential campaign was the frequency with which Barack Obama changed his policy positions for the sake of political expedience. It was one reality check after another, and so it is with his presidency. With regard to the upheaval in Iran, Obama initially reacted very cautiously, but today for the first time he started to use strong language toward the Tehran regime. Why the switch? Well, today's News Leader editorial applauded Obama for not overreacting, which is well and good, but in the comment section, I took mild exception to their criticism of Republican leaders:

I agree that Obama's restraint is appropriate for the situation, because any hint of U.S. intervention would play in to the hands of the tyrannical mullahs, who thrive on inciting hatred of the "infidels." There is very little we can do, unfortunately. As Sen. McCain and other Republican critics rightly point out, however, Obama's policy of currying favor with Islamic autocracies is very discouraging to the reformist forces in Iran who want more freedom. His attitude of indifference to freedom is well known, and it would seem insincere if he started talking about promoting peace through democracy, as Bush II did. Indeed, today's speech in which Obama chastised the Iranian government for its brutal crackdown makes it look like he was caving in to pressure from the Republicans. He tried to deny it, but he couldn't stop from grinning. Foreign policy never was a priority for Obama, and because of his weak stance, he will have a very difficult time exerting diplomatic leverage.

Right after the (bogus) election results were announced, before the protest movement got going, Daniel Drezner wrote that a continuance of the status quo (the theocratic regime) in Iran "might actually be the best possible outcome for the Obama administration." Why? Because Iran's regional influence is waning anyway, because the discrediting of the Iranian regime will make Obama's fondness for multilateral diplomacy easier, and because if Mousavi had won, it would make it harder for the U.S. to rally international support for containing Iran's nuclear ambitions. (As I wrote last week, even the reformist "moderates" in Iran are in favor of pursuing great power status.)

Tehran video update

If there is a real grassroots revolution in Iran, it will be propelled to a large extent by Western technology: cell phones, Twitter, and of course YouTube: "Riot police caught by crowd - Protests in Tehran after election."

2nd American Revolution

And speaking of YouTube, listen to a Bob Basso, author of "Common Sense," playing the role of Thomas Paine to rouse complacent, lazy Americans into action before their freedoms are lost forever. Watch "We The People Stimulus Package"; hat tip to Stacey Morris. "Wouldn't it be nice..."

Fact check department

Former News Leader editor Dennis Neal asked me to correct a misleading statement that I made on April 4, and I am happy to oblige. So, just for the record, the controversial characterization of the "SWAC" leaders as "snakes" was not his idea, and he did not leave his job with the News Leader because of the boycott waged against the local paper by those "grassroots" activists. My apologies to Dennis for interpreting the situation wrongly, and for taking my sweet time in making the correction.

Jose Rodriguez, a long-time visitor to this blog, informs me that -- contrary to what I wrote on June 9 -- Terry McAuliffe does not have a Chicago accent. I could have sworn that accent came straight out of the Windy City, or some place very close to it, but Jose tells me that the McAuliffe is actually from upstate New York. It seems that those exaggerated vowel sounds are a speech characteristic of several states in the Great Lakes region. I stand corrected!

June 15, 2009 [LINK / comment]

Iranians protest election fraud

Anyone who studies Iran know that the elections are to a large extent window dressing to legitimize the authoritarian theocracy. The real power rests not in the hands of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad but rather in the hands of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini. Chances that the mullahs would let their puppet "president" be ousted in a free election were slim to none, so it was no surprise when they announced the results almost as soon as the polls were closed. The challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, led street protests today, and Iranian security forces killed at least one of the demonstrators. This is a sign of a regime that is desperate and out of touch with the majority of the population, and that ought to be very good news for the United States and the free world in general. Perhaps "the Islamic republic" will be more of a republic and less Islamic in another year or two.

As the Washington Post notes, however, the political tumult is making it harder for President Obama's policy of "outreach" to Iran. A White House spokesman said the U.S. Government will have to deal with the Iran that is, not the Iran we would like to have. Ordinarily, that would be a sensible, pragmatic position to take, except for two things: First, Obama's very identity is that of a starry-eyed dreamer for whom no challenge is too daunting; Second, such words have a chilling effect on those in Iran who are pushing for more freedom. It's quite the opposite of the Bush administration, which tended to speak in grandiose terms about the spread of freedom and democracy, even if nothing much in concrete terms was actually done to help the cause. Still, Obama is adopting a very weak stance on what could be one of the most dramatic political shifts to take place in the Middle East in over a decade.

Some may argue that Iran's defiant crackdown on the pro-democracy movement shows that Obama's solicitous approach to the Muslim world has backfired. It's far to early to assess what the consequences of that initiative will be, however. I would agree with the commentator on ABC's "This Week" (Ron Brownstein, I think), who argued that Iran was not responding to U.S. pressure but rather is trying to preemptively silence the opposition. The mullahs think they can buy time while they prepare for another challenge to the western world, possibly involving a missiles launch, in an attempt to rally national unity. What many in the West don't understand is that, even among the pro-democracy forces in Iran, there is a strong nationalistic pride and consensus on Iran's right to develop its own strategic military forces.

On a related note, CIA Chief Leon Panetta said that former V.P. Dick Cheney acts as though he wants the Islamic radicals to attack us to validate the Bush administration's position. In that vein, one could be forgiven for believing that Obama wants the fragile Mideast democracy movement to fail to validate its position.

Obama's outreach to Muslims

Earlier this month, President Obama made his second major foreign trip, the highlight of which was a major speech in Cairo. He pleaded with the Islamic world for a "new beginning" with the United States, with a humble tone that acknowledged past American transgressions and lingering prejudices. See Washington Post. Some of what he said is accurate, including the need to avoid defining our relationships in terms of our differences. It is true, as he said, that we do share some values, and more importantly, concrete interests. However, much of his speech was quite out of place or proportion to the true nature of the political problems that exist. What Obama fails to grasp, or at least to show he grasps, is that Western culture is very tolerant of diversity and amenable to pragmatic compromise, whereas most Islamic countries are in the grip of a religious orthodoxy that regards free inquiry as treason. In that sense, the vast cultural divide (or "clash of civilizations," as Samuel Huntington put it) is likely to remain a fixture of world politics for years to come.

Nevertheless, Obama remains supremely confident of his ability to convince others of his good intentions. It is clear that he aims to radically reshape global political dynamics by overtly courting the Muslims, staking everything on establishing friendly or at least polite relationships with governments that have been quite hostile or suspicious of us. It is a striking combination of idealism and pragmatism, but where this approach is taking us remains unclear. Obama may yet achieve some diplomatic breakthrough through his immense personal charm and unique pesonal identity, but he needs to make it clearer that he understands where U.S. national interests lie, and that he is committed to upholding them.

June 11, 2009 [LINK / comment]

McDonnell vs. Deeds "rematch"

Four years ago, Bob McDonnell beat Creigh Deeds in the race for attorney general by a razor-thin margin of just a few hundred votes, and now the same two candidates are vying for the highest office in the state. It will be fascinating to see how that rivalry is played out this time around, when the tables have turned in terms of shifts in the respective parties' strength. For obvious reasons, McDonnell has to play it safe, even though his Republican Party has been shut out of the Governor's Mansion for the past eight years (and is therefore very eager to get back in), while Deeds is aggressively "hunting" (he's pro Second Amendment) for new voter groups.

At augustafreepress.com, Chris Graham exuberantly touts "The Deeds juggernaut," asserting that the Democrats' nominee for governor has an advantage in both geography and policy. Here is my take on all that:

Deeds' advantage is not so much that he is a relative moderate or can pull votes from NRA members, but rather that he has a reputation for doing what is right, regardless of party affiliation. Both he and McDonnell understand the current political climate, that the independent voters who care more about results than ideology are the key to victory. It will come down to which candidate offers the clearest plan for tackling economic AND social problems. In that sense, McDonnell is on very solid ground, and thus far has a clear edge. If Deeds can present a more substantial agenda than merely continuing the Warner-Kaine policies ("Me too!"), he might chip away at McDonnell's advantage with independents, in which case it could boil down to which party is more enthusiastic for their candidate. So far, McDonnell has been a master at smoothing over differences among the fractious Republicans, whereas Deeds is something of an outsider among Democrats, and his support among the party "base" remains very uncertain.

And speaking of accents, McAuliffe sounds more "foreign" than any of them! The Dems are lucky he lost the primary race.

Home town support

Thanks to Bob Gibson on Facebook, I came across a cool page at VPAP.org, with maps showing county-by-county election results in statewide races back to 2004 or so. The map of the recent Democratic gubernatorial primary election reveals that turnout in Creigh Deeds' 25th Senate District and in the Washington suburbs was higher than average, while it was lower than average here in the Shenandoah Valley and in southwestern Virginia. The map of the 2005 attorney general race also shows that Deeds has strong support from folks in his own area.

June 9, 2009 [LINK / comment]

Creigh Deeds wins big

Perhaps it was the surge in TV advertisements for Creigh Deeds late in the campaign, or perhaps it was people getting tired of hearing Terry McAuliffe's Chicago accent. Getting an endorsement by the Washington Post didn't hurt either. Whatever the reasons, it's pretty clear that the Democrats have nominated their most appealing candidate to go up against Republican Bob McDonnell in the fall gubernatorial campaign. Deeds came within a fraction of a percent of getting an outright majority of votes in a three-way race, which is very impressive, given his relatively modest funding. The Washington Post called the result a "stunning come-from-behind victory."

Deeds is from Bath County, in the rugged highlands of western Virginia, and some have mocked him -- unfairly -- for being something of a backwoods rube. He is competent and likeable, which is one reason I initially doubted he would win. (Leo Durocher: "Nice guys finish last.") Deeds has been an advocate of redistricting reform, a cause that I believe in, but in his case it comes from personal experience. His 25th Senate District is the most severely "gerrymandered" constituency in the Old Dominion, with a thin strip of land linking two Appalachian counties with parts of Albemarle and Nelson counties on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge. That sort of monkey business has got to stop. But Deeds will have to work hard to distinguish himself from the traditional big-spending liberal activism that the sitting governor Tim Kaine exemplifies. Just because Barack Obama won in Virginia last fall does not mean that most Virginians agree with his agenda or ideology.

I positively dreaded the prospect that the Clintonista McAuliffe might occupy the Governor's Mansion next year. Like his former boss in the White House, "Bubba," he practically exudes insincerity from every pore in his body. Toward the end of the campaign, his ads emphasized his supposed advantage in electability, but I have serious doubts about that. He lined up endorsements from most of the "usual suspects" in the Democratic coalition, mainly the public employee unions, but that only served to highlight his identity as an old-fashioned Ted Kennedy-style Democrat. As for his argument that he would have done better against Bob McDonnell in November, I've come to be skeptical of the opinion polls in Virginia over the years, and this primary election result validates that.

Brian Moran barely won a majority in his home turf of Alexandria, and failed to convey a strong message or image of himself across the state. He represented the wealthier, suburban, more liberal people in Virginia, and he and McAuliffe ended up fighting each other for that group, while Deeds built a large majority in the southern and western parts of the state, while picking up support in the more populated areas.

Bob McDonnell had a congratulatory video, grinningly expressing "regret" that the Democrats' campaign against each other has come to an end. It was a positive message that pointed to his openness to new approaches, prioritizing the creation of new jobs through the private sector: "Yes to new jobs, yes to economic growth, and yes to more opportunities for Virginians." I had expected that the Dems would tear each other apart, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Terry McAuliffe seemed flustered when interviewed as the results were coming in, but he seems committed to uniting behind his party's ticket this fall.

For Lieutenant Governor, Jody Wagner trounced Michael Signer but will have a big uphill battle against incumbent Bill Bolling this fall.

In local races, Greg Marrow defeated James Noel by a two-to-one margin in the 25th District House of Delegates primary race, and will challenge incumbent Steve Landes this fall.