Red
State
Review
Despite
a noble effort by Democrats, Virginia
remained comfortably in the Red
State
column on November 2nd. Pundits in the Commonwealth still expressed the
wide range of reactions that swept the nation in the
wake of President Bush and the Republicans’ victory.
Soul-Searching:
A subdued Bob
Gibson of the Daily
Press surveyed the wreckage and offered three
suggestions. He
told Democrats not to run as the anti-Bush, that faith
and values are not dirty words, and “running as a
moderate does not require anyone to run as a light
Republican.”
Triumph:
A delighted Ross
Mackenzie of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch claimed that “Middle Americans -
the people who get up early each day to raise the kids
and make this nation work - just blew John Kerry away.
He couldn't connect with them - didn't get it even in
his concession speech that they voted against him in
droves.”
Recriminations:
One would think that Paul Goldman, campaign
manager for Doug Wilder’s stunningly successful
mayoral race, would be magnanimous in victory.
Instead, writing in the Washington Post, Goldman
linked those who did not support Wilder vigorously
enough to “why the national Democratic Party lost the
South to George Bush in the presidential election.”
Goldman specifically blasted Virginia
Pundit Watch favorite Gordon
Morse, author of a skeptical look at Wilder prior to
the election.
Conservative
Caution:
Melanie
Scarborough of the Washington
Post hailed the election of several
“conservative” candidates, but warned, “Virginians
will be ill-served if their representatives give the
president free rein. Bush's policies have helped drive
Americans $7 trillion into debt. Where are the
Republicans who supposedly favor fiscal restraint?”
Denial:
Wil
LaViest of the Daily
Press, while claiming he was “fine” with
Bush’s re-election, expends a lot of energy denying
that the President has a mandate. “This was no mandate
to bask in. It's the rise of an unholy alliance between
government and the church that the nation's founders
sought to avoid.”
Bitter
Denial:
Virginia Tech Professor Dennis
Kilper wrote in the Roanoke
Times that he was “appalled and devastated by the
election results. It's like a validation of Stanley
Milgram's experiment - that in support of authority the
people will condone any atrocity.”
Adding paranoia to bitterness, Kilper even
claimed the IRS would audit him because of his views.
The
most realistic view of Election 2004 as it relates to Virginia
may
have come from the Virginian-Pilot’s
Margaret
Edds:
The
election is dead. Long live the election. In
Virginia, politics is never done. At the very moment one election cycle slips
into the grave, another exits the womb. The burping and
diapering on the 2005 statewide elections for governor,
lieutenant governor and attorney general are already
under way.
Winning
by Losing
Some
might say that popular Democratic Governor Mark Warner,
unable to deliver Virginia
to
John Kerry, was a 2004 election loser.
Others were quick to anoint Warner as the type of
moderate, geographically advantaged candidate that
Democrats should turn to in 2008.
As Harold
Meyerson wrote in the Washington
Post,
The
only two successful Democratic presidential nominees
since Lyndon Johnson were both governors of Southern
states . . . That's why Hillary Clinton's stock has been
falling since Election Day, and why that of Virginia
Gov. Mark Warner and other red-state Democrats has been
rising.
Winning
by Winning
Virginia
Republican Senator George Allen is almost universally
recognized as a big winner coming out of the 2004
elections. As head
of the Republican Senatorial Committee, he is being
credited with the party’s gain of four seats.
Both Ed
Lynch of the Roanoke
Times and David
Lerman of the Daily
Press saw Allen’s performance a strong indicator
that he will pursue a higher national profile, up to and
including a possible Presidential bid.
Recovering
from Soul-Searching
It
took Bob
Gibson only a week to begin fighting back for
Virginia Democrats. He
wrote of Lt. Governor Tim Kaine’s religious faith and
his service as a missionary in Honduras,
challenging Republicans to question Kaine’s
“morality.” Does
anyone remember Gibson writing so approvingly of former
gubernatorial candidate Mark Earley’s religious values
and missionary work?
What
Does It Mean?
Preston
Bryant of the Roanoke
Times, a Republican delegate from Lynchburg,
attempted to divine what the 2004 election results might
mean for the 2005 General Assembly.
“Republicans will be feeling their oats,”
according to Bryant. “It is assumed that socially
conservative initiatives will have little trouble
passing the House of Delegates and Senate.”
He wondered if the “ambitious” Governor
Warner would veto a constitutional ban on gay marriages,
“especially when 11 other states last week approved
such bans overwhelmingly?”
Dumb
or Dumber?
At
least one pundit was neither crowing nor mourning over
the election results. A.
Barton Hinkle of the Richmond
Times-Dispatch offered a tongue-in-cheek apologia from Bush voters scorned by certain quarters of elite
opinion:
Us
here in Bush Country sorry. We sorry for being so dumb,
voting for dumb President Bush.
Only
two groups go for Kerry: those with post-graduate
schooling (55-44) and those who not even finish high
school (50-49). If really smart people and really dumb
people agree, does that make dumb people look smart, or
smart people look dumb?
All
that academic now, pardon expression. We take your word
we dumb. From now on follow your advice: Vote for us,
you stupid morons. Only true genius could come up with
real winning political slogan like that.
We
can only hope that the 2005 contest in Virginia
will
be slightly more elevated, although giving Hinkle more
material to work with would be a nice consolation.
--
November 15, 2004
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