A blue tide for the Old Dominion?

November 3, 2007

Guest Post by Morbo

Virginia holds statewide elections Tuesday. Every seat in the House of Delegates and state Senate is up for grabs. Democrats are running smart in this red state and just might make impressive gains in both chambers.

I’m not one to buy into the notion of bellwether elections, but if things go well in the Old Dominion on Nov. 6, I hope national Democratic leaders pay attention and analyze the results. As The Washington Post noted recently, Virginia’s Democratic Party is aggressive and well organized. Led by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the party is making forays into regions of the state that have traditionally been deep red.

Here’s what the party is doing:

Targeting independents and moderates: Virginia Democrats are reminding people that they don’t have to switch parties to support Democrats. If they like what a candidate is saying, all they have to do is walk into the voting booth and pull the lever.

Addressing issues that matter to voters: The outer Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., lean right – but more and more people are seeing that the solutions of the state GOP aren’t solutions at all. These areas have experienced phenomenal growth, but Republicans refuse to address it by dealing with infrastructure such as roads and new schools. Democrats are reminding voters that the state Republican Party has no incentive to fix these problems because it is the pocket of interests that promote runaway development.

Engaging in old-fashioned legwork: There is no substitute for knocking on doors and doing phone work. Virginia Democrats are canvassing neighborhoods and working for votes, on a person-to-person basis. They’ve set up regional offices in these areas and maintain a visible presence. The message is simple: We want to earn your vote.

Running good candidates: Virginia Democrats snatched two Republican seats, one in the House and one in the Senate, in conservative Loudoun County by running disciplined candidates who focused on local issues while portraying the Republicans as out of touch and obsessed with divisive social issues.

The Democrats haven’t won in Virginia yet. The Republicans are hitting illegal immigration hard, and polls show voters are concerned about that issue. The challenge is for Democrats to prove that on this issue, Republican offer lots of demagoguery but no real solutions.

Republicans also seem to have a problem with hubris. Asked about party members who are flirting with backing Democrats, Eve Marie Barner, an official with the Loudoun County GOP sniffed, “It’s a matter of integrity. If you are a Republican, you play for your team.”

Sorry, Eve, but it doesn’t work that way. When your “team” offers voters rhetoric instead of answers and extremism instead of governance, most people are smart enough to understand that it’s time to switch sides. Here’s hoping enough Virginians feel that way on Tuesday to make the state shift from red to purple.

“If you’re a Republican, you play for your team.”

That could be the lemmings’ motto.

  • “It’s a matter of integrity. If you are a Republican, you play for your team.”

    The best reply I can think of is to throw the argument right back at this little sniffer:

    “It’s a matter of integrity. If you are a Virginian, you play for Virginia.”

    The GOP is no longer the party capable of representing the People and the rich history of Virginia. The GOP is about lining the profits of the wealthy and controlling the masses through fear.

    The gentlemen who stood against the tyranny of George Rex III rejected the notion of lining the pockets of their self-appointed British masters with the hard-earned wealth of the colony.

    The gentlemen who lined up and marched into the field of death at Gettysburg were incapable of being controlled through fear.

    The coal-miners, steel-workers, and ship-builders of Virginia brought the Republic through a global Depression and two world wars—once again defeating both the tyranny of Fear, and the fear fomented by Tyranny.

    The Revolution against Neoconservativism is at hand; the Cause against it is just.

    Let the battle begin….

  • Led by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the party is making forays into regions of the state that have traditionally been deep red. — Morbo

    Not really. The *rural* “deep red” has been left to fend for itself. My district (24th) is putting up a Dem candidate for Senate and, for once, he might have a chance, because the right is in disarray: the incumbent — somewhat more moderate — fought off a vicious attack from the right in the primaries (mostly thanks to Dems who went and voted in the Repub primaries, since we didn’t have our own). As if that weren’t enough, some of “his” votes will be siphoned off by a libertarian (also to the right of him). So you’d have thought the VA party would grab the chance to sweep the GOPer out. But, no; we’re having to do it all by ourselves, nickel-and-diming the whole thing. And Kaine and Warner (Mark) and even Webb (who visited the area several times when he ran for US Senate) must have decided that we live “where the devil says goodnight” (to use a Polish phrase).

    I do understand that counties near DC are more populous, so one can get “more bang for the buck” campaigning there. But those counties are turning purple anyway, *because* of the rapid development of the last decade or more, with more young people moving in; they’re on their way to becoming blue no matter what. While we’ll never turn even purple, if we don’t get some help…

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