Polls, common sense, Eskimo Pie, $$$, tonsils

by Gordon C. Morse

Just like that, Virginia Lt. Gov. Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate for governor, has seen a significant improvement in her race with former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat.

This news came via Roanoke College, whose polling folks calculated a few months ago that Earle-Sears trailed Spanberger by 17 points. That seemed to be a sizable gap – sizable enough to make you wonder if Earle-Sears would enter the fall as a viable candidate. Virginia’s quadrennial exercise in gubernatorial selection could conceivably lay an egg.

Now the chicken, the egg, whatever, has recovered and Earle-Sears trails by only 7 points, says Roanoke College.

The other preferred metaphor involves resuscitation or even resurrection. She’s not flatlining anymore; she’s not comatose; there’s a pulse.

Then again, another recent poll – this one from Old Dominion University and completed online – invites Earle-Sears back into the ER. Furrowed brows all around.

I’m sticking with the Roanoke poll only because it offers hope for a competitive race; we won’t be wasting our time with a noisy, expensive but pointless exercise. Heaven knows there’s money enough to make the fall contest compelling and, on that point – the $$$ – I should own up to my failings.

Long ago, in 1982, service in an unfortunate congressional campaign (the candidate was nuts) obliged me to regroup and I accepted a position as executive director of Common Cause of Virginia. The board told me to venture forth, consistent with the organization’s purposes, and reform Virginia’s political habits, particularly on the money front.

“Just go do that,” said the board members (nearly all of whom lived in Northern Virginia), and I replied, “Sure.”

The best part of that job was the office: It was on the second floor of what was then called the “Eskimo Pie Building” at 530 West Main St. in Richmond. There was this wonderful fan-shaped window overlooking 6th Street, and occasionally a visitor from the offices above would come knocking. I’d open the door and a smiling face would say, “Here, try this.” It was some new ice cream variation on a stick, and I was the available volunteer.

How did ice cream experimentation come to Richmond? It’s a little complicated, but not unusual in the way of American enterprise. Invented in 1920 by Christian Kent Nelson, a Danish immigrant living in Onawa, Iowa, the product started out as chocolate-covered vanilla ice cream called the “I-Scream Bar.” Cute, huh?

Russell C. Stover then got into it, mass production followed, and Stover’s wife, Clara, suggested a new name: Eskimo Pie. At one point, they were selling a million bars a day, and in 1924 they sold the whole thing to U.S. Foil Corporation, a company now known as Reynolds Metals of Richmond, Virginia.

That corporate progression brought free ice cream to my Common Cause door, and God bless America.

But back to what I was doing between ice-cream bars: Common Cause was laboring to mitigate the influence of money in Virginia politics, and, you know, I didn’t get it done.

Let’s just run through some numbers. In 1985 – at this point I was writing editorials for The Virginian-Pilot – the contest between Democrat Gerald Baliles and Republican Wyatt Durrette involved more than $5 million. That made it the “most costly” governor’s race ever. But we were only getting warmed up. Four years later, Republican Marshall Coleman and Democrat Doug Wilder pushed the numbers past $20 million, setting a new state record.

Then, in 2001, Mark Warner assembled $19.5 million for his campaign against GOP contender Mark Earley, who raised $10.8 million – a combined total of more than $30 million.

Bill Clinton’s leading money man, Terry McAuliffe, spent $38 million in 2013 on his campaign for governor, nearly doubling that of Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who spent nearly $21 million. That was $59 million combined, yikes.

Chump change. In 2017, Democrat Ralph Northam raised nearly $37 million, and his opponent, Republican Ed Gillespie, collected almost $30 million. Now we’re up to $67 million. McAuliffe’s bid for a second term in 2021 faced GOP newcomer Glenn Youngkin, and the two of them racked up $115 million ($80 million went to advertising alone), almost twice the amount spent in 2017.

And in the present contest? Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee, has raised $27 million, and Earle-Sears trails with less than half that amount. They’ll both be raising more, no doubt, and failure to achieve another record will be disappointing to all.

So, yes, Virginia candidates for the state’s top job keep raising more money each election cycle, and does anyone care, one way or another? The overwhelming evidence supports the following conclusion: No.

For many, many moons, newspaper columnist George Will has argued that restrictions on campaign funding are, after all, both unconstitutional and counterproductive. “More speech, advocating less government” is preferable, Will continues to contend, and while government keeps growing, he certainly carried the day against campaign spending limits.

You hear anyone saying otherwise these days? Right, neither do I.

Periodically, an issue-by-issue poll will pose the question in a general way about whether voters think that there’s too much money flowing into politics, and a hefty majority will answer in the affirmative. But does that ever translate into some workable remedy? Nope.

By all means, blame it on me. My Common Cause moment in the sun proved ineffective. Indifference carried the day.

As for Earle-Sears, it’s not her bank account but her tonsils that’s the issue. The remedy there is less Youngkin and Trump and more her. If she finds her voice, if she speaks strongly and unequivocably to what drew her to public service and her current purposes, she’ll have something important left at the end – even if it’s not victory.

Gordon C. Morse has been writing commentary and speeches in Virginia since 1983. This column his republished with permission from his Substack account Heart’s Desire.