Although it’s not a dead certainty, it sure seems that Bob McDonnell will be Virginia’s next governor. Despite the revelation of a graduate master’s thesis that makes him look Cro-Magnon, McDonnell has run a virtually error-free campaign while his opponent, Creigh Deeds, has had disconnect after disconnect.
Personally, little of what McDonnell stands for or has proposed is appealing, but Deeds hasn’t come up with much on the policy front at all. This could be a turning point since the Democrats have trounced the state GOP since 2001. Republicans have put in such a bad showing that the state voted Democratic for president for the first time since 1964.
But there appears to be a shift in favor of the GOP and it is important to start reading the tea leaves. A helpful place to start is today’s lede story in The Washington Post. The article shows how the GOP has finally figured out how to play in Virginia.
Northern Virginia is key especially since it represents a huge demographic and economic change in the Old Dominion. As the tech industry took off there in the 1990s followed by a big ramp-up in defense spending post 9/11, NOVA has seen a big influx of smart, well-educated people from all across the country, if not the world.
They don’t know of all the mossbacks in either party who have hamstrung Virginia for years with the usual sells that are anti-tax, anti-government, pro-gun, anti-abortion and anti-regulation. What used to work int he state, namely, a lot of rural yahoos controlling much of the action, has shifted.
The Post, which has endorsed Deeds editorially, helps explain how McDonnell, despite his baggage of social conservatism and the fact that he’ll probably lose NOVA anyway, is one GOPer who has finally gotten it.
McDonnell has abandoned strident social issues by praising Obama where it helps, i.e. on the Nobel Prize while simultaneously taking advantage of Obama’s current decline in polls. He has shunned the approaches that doomed the McCain-Palin campaign, going so far as to ask “Rogue” Sarah to steer clear of Virginia. Smart move. The last thing he needs is having the ‘I can see Russia” woman who abandoned her governorship insulting the intelligence of key voters he badly needs.
All of this is designed to play in NOVA-land and, as the Post states, get rid of the out-dated mentality that conservatives should just plan on what they can get south of Occoquan and hope for the best in NOVA.
McDonnell also seems to be winning, to some extent, among minorities. He’s appealed to Latinos while just a couple of years ago, Virginia Republicans had launched and ugly, racist war on so-called “illegals” to try to win attention of disaffected whites. That backfired badly. And, the fact that McDonnell has picked up the support of BET heiress Sheila Johnson speaks to his inroads with African-Americans.
This could be the traction that the GOP needs to recast itself with younger, smarter conservatives. One could include in this category House Minority Whip Eric Cantor who is gaining a lot of air time on talk shows. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of Cantor says is bunk and he is in the pocket of big institutions such as managed care companies. Yet, there’s no way of not noticing Cantor’s success in fund-raising and the impact he is having on shifting the GOP away form the nightmare years of “W, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Unfortunately, Deeds is squandering the legacy that Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have built up. He has not taken advantage of the pro-business stances they helped create while being level-headed on social issues. There’s plenty in the press about how Deeds has stubbornly gone his own way, but when you consider his dearth of policy positions, that’s really no way at all.
Don’t get me wrong. I find a lot about McDonnell objectionable As a former Tar Heel, I find it ridiculous and offensive that he wants to somehow tax motorists driving up from North Carolina on Interstates 95 and 85. His “Drill Here, Drill Now,” stances regarding offshore oil show a remarkable lack of concern for the environment or even global energy realities. The rest of his platform is the usual GOP stuff.
But he is at least savvy enough to note the changes Virginia has gone through and he certainly should since he grew up in NOVA-land. Interestingly, the Post has tables showing the changes in the stater and in NOVA. IN 1999, the biggest employers in the state were Newport News Shipbuilding, retail and food chains and then old line manufacturers like Philip Morris or Vepco.
Today, the top two are pretty much the same but there’s a big influx of government contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton and SAIC. Philip Morris is off the list and Vepcom comes in at No. 15.
So, it does appear a shift is in the winds.
Peter Galuszka
