Bacon's Rebellion

Teflon Governor?

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by

James A. Bacon
in

The mini-scandal/kerfluffle/soap opera over at the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries continues. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has the story on page one, above the fold, with another story inside. Last week the Washington Post did a story on employee discontent at the agency and the Virginian-Pilot later picked it up.

What’s remarkable about the story to me is that there’s no comment or reaction from the Governor’s office. I recall other little dust-ups, such as a few at the Department of Social Services, where the Governor’s fingerprints were nowhere to be found. Maybe I’ve just totally bought into left-wing media conspiracy theories, but I remember every problem in state government that made news pages during the Gilmore Administration was laid at the Governor’s feet.

Governor Warner seems to be coated with teflon. Good for him–I think it’s another indication of the good work Press Secretary Ellen Qualls does for him. I’ve praised her in these pages before. A Governor doesn’t control all the stuff that goes on in agencies. He does control appointments, though, and he ought to make it clear that when something goes wrong, his appointees better fix it fast or get out of town.

In this case, it’s indefensible that agency brass go to Zimbabwe on a safari to learn about game management techniques, while two guys making $30,000 each have to patrol five sprawling counties back in the Old Dominion, responding to every McMansion report of a gunshot in the woods.

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  1. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Will:

    I know nothing about Fish and Game or Social Services problems.

    I do know about VDOT problems. They escalated when Allen and then Gilmore put their political twist on every significant activity of the agency.

    Perhaps the finger prints were on state agency problems because they had their hands in the wrong places.

    EMR

  2. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    The interesting question that Will raises here is whether or not there is a double standard in the slant the press has given to coverage of the Warner administration versus that given to the Allen and Gilmore administrations.

    On the one hand, I think that Warner has appointed competent people. There has been a dearth of scandal because his cabinet secretaries and other appointees have, overall, done a good job. Furthermore, Warner’s appointees have avoided conflicts of interest and blatant partisan politicking in their decision-making.

    On the other hand, the political press has gone easy on Warner. There has been virtually no criticism whatsoever, for instance, of Warner’s environmental record — a record that, for all intents and purposes, has been identical to that of Jim Gilmore, who faced endless and withering criticism. Clearly, in this arena, there has been a double standard.

    The obvious question is this: Is that double standard the result of political bias on the part of the press? Perhaps. I would postulate that a large majority of political reporters and editorial writers at the state’s major dailies (the Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page excepted) vote Democratic. But I’m not convinced that’s the whole story. Warner also benefits from the fact that Virginia’s most active environmentalists are Democrats also. Though far from happy with Warner’s track record, the environmentalists have been all but silent during his administration. (The Blue Dog wrote an excellent column on this topic not long ago.) Rather than attack him publicly, as they did Gilmore, they have been content to work quietly behind the scenes to advance their agenda. The press coverage simply reflects the lack of press releases and press conferences emanating from the environmentalist community. To me, that’s simple laziness. If some political interest group isn’t actively agitating about something… if there isn’t a press release that can be easily re-written, a topic simply won’t get covered.

    Perhaps the lesson is that the press is both biased AND lazy.

  3. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    In my humble opinion, Gilmore’s cabinet was decent. Allen put many of his top donors’ housewives into cabinet positions – nice ladies, but completely incompetent. Either that or complete partisan hacks.

    From what I’ve heard (from people who worked for the state back in the 90s), when Gilmore came in it was a breath of fresh air for everyone. He hired largely on merit.

    Personally, I think Warner took non-partisan merit hiring to a whole other level – but that’s probably mainly because he has plenty of Republican friends to stick in their with his Democratic friends…

    Environmentalism? Gilmore was better. But he also had huge budget surpluses to throw around every year. Historically, the environment tends to be something that surpluses are spent on (read: this year’s surplus).

    The two environmental lobbyists I’ve talked to both agreed with me on that one – off the record, they’ve been disappointed with Warner’s environmental record and miss Gilmore.

  4. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    It goes without saying that there is a Press bias. How else do you explain that Gov. Pinocchio has such a high approval rating? Do you really think that Gov. Gilmore could have gotten away with lie upon lie and broken promise upon broken promise, and not have the press hounding him out of the Governor’s mansion?

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