Disingenuity thy name is liberal pundits.
Take, for example, Josh Marshall’s writeup claiming that Democrat Tim Kaine’s victory in Virginia with 51% of the vote is more impressive than the numbers would suggest. I would suggest that a closer look at the numbers indicate that Democrats turned out the vote very well in the Northern Virginia suburbs, but generally lost up and down the state ballot.
Declaring Lt. Governor Tim Kaine’s victory over Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore a grand victory for Democrats ignores the stark facts staring them in the face down the ballot. Democrats lost the Lt. Governor race, are loosing the Attorney General race, and have no hope of closing the 60-38 gap with Republicans in Virginia’s House of Delegates. Republicans might actually have a net gain of a seat or two…
While some would argue that Kaine is riding the coattails of Virginia’s most popular Governor in recent memory – Gov. Mark Warner (D); or that he’s a beneficiary of the independent candidacy of state Sen. Russel Potts (R) who switched from campaigning for himself to campaigning against Kilgore in the final days of the race; the real answer is that Kaine won because Kilgore shot himself in the foot with a late death penalty ad campaign. Kaine strategists admitted as much this evening. It’s particularly instructive that Kilgore finished with 70,000 votes less than the Republican winner in the Lt. Governor race. That vote swing in the Governors race was more than enough to win a tight race against Kaine.
Invoking Adolf Hitler and the death penalty mocked Godwin’s Law of internet discussion threads. In essence USENET old-timer Mike Godwin postulated that as the length of a discussion thread increases, the probability of someone invoking a Nazi reference approaches 1. By tradition the person who invoked the Nazi argument is declared the loser of the thread.
It turns out Godwin’s Law applies equally in politics, just ask Jerry Kilgore…
And on the local front, our own incumbent Delegate here in the 32nd District lost. I’ve never been comfortable with Dick Black representing me, but I’ve consistently held my nose and colored in his dot every two years, mainly because the Democrats have never put anyone forward who was sufficiently compelling.
I can’t say I’m sorry to see Dick go. Although I’m sure all the Republican county office holders are sweating bricks right now, since most of Loudoun county seems to have voted Democrat.
Well, it’s a nice try to put some positive spin on losing the gubernatorial election but I noticed the winning margins in the Lt. Governor and Attorney General race were 1.53% and .19%, respectively. The AG won by 3,600 votes out of 1,934.202. Whew.
A win is a win, but man they don’t get much closer than that. Most of us out here in America don’t even think of Virginia as competetive for Democrats. These races appear to be pretty close.
Pug, your comment is a nice try to put some positive spin on the fact Kaine’s victory mrely holds a governorship his party already had.
That was really good spin, Aylward. Almost as good as Laura Ingraham’s talk-down to fellow GOPers this morning on her radio show, saying that the real story here is that Kansas approved teaching “intelligent design” (conservatism on the march!)
Get yourself over to Ken Mehlman’s office, pronto! They really could use your help… 🙂
Kaine isn’t Warner. Virginia elected a good old-fashioned liberal as a governor.
A great deal of the credit can go to the national Republicans, whose increased spending has created tons of jobs in the Dem strongholds in the north.
McGehee, I’m not trying to spin anything. As someone unfamiliar with Virginia politics I was genuinely surprised to see how close those races were.
I think of Virginia as a solid Republican state in spite of the Democratic governor. That AG race was a barn burner.
And of course someday you’ll get around to telling your readers that Kaine got closer to 52% than 51%, and that Kilgore underperformed the last GOP gubernatorial candidate by a full percentage point — against a former civil rights lawyer who opposes the death penalty.
And while you’re at it, maybe you’ll point out that Kaine’s margin of victory was more than twice the size of President Codpiece’s last year, which every conservative in the fucking country told us (about 18 zillion times) was a mandate for the glorious Republican cultural revolution.
But I’m not holding my breath.
That AG race, with a margin of less than 2,000 votes out of almost 2,000,000 votes cast, is starting to look like it’s in recount territory to me. But I don’t know anything about Virginia politics.
Seriously though, other than “Widen 66!” what the heck was Kilgore in favor of?
I’d see his signs in favor of the roadwork as I got off 66 at Fairfax, but what else was there?