The Shifting Ground On New Virginia

Politics, of course, runs in cycles - and in Virginia those cycles last about a decade.  Ever since the fall of the Byrd Dynasty in 1966 when Bill Spong and George Rawlings knocked off Willis Robertson and Judge Smith in the Democrat primary, the state has shifted back and forth.  The 1970s where dominated by Republicans, the 80s Democrats, the 90s Republicans, and the 00s Democrats.  Each change was marked by a change in the leadership and focus within each party.  The 1970s witnessed the culmination of Richard Obenshain's dream of a conservative realignment in Virginia that sent conservative voters to the Republican party for the first time and lead to the admins. of Govs. Holden, Godwin, and Dalton.  The 1980s saw the Democratic Party reach back across the aisle and they redefined themselves around Chuck Robb and Doug Wilder as New Democrats, moderates who brushed aside the pro-labor, pro-liberal, pro-taxes Howellism that had plagued the Democrats in the 70s.  Robb strode across the center of Virginia, embracing much of the old economic conservatism of the Byrdites and redefined the party and brought back many of the old elements that bolted with Mills Godwin to the Republicans the previous decade, capping it all off with Doug Wilder's historic election.  The Republicans responded in the 1990s by embracing the national Republican strategy of wooing social conservatives, homeschoolers, pro-life activists, a vigorious law-and-order stand, and an anti-tax attitude (remember, Pat Robertson first got started in Virginia politics in the Democrat Party).  This launched George Allen, and then Jim Gilmore to the governor's chair and brought the General Assembly into Republican hands for the first time in history.  But budget problems caused by Gilmore's inability to phase out the car tax and a growing recession at the end of the decade allowed Mark Warner, a businessman of seemingly sensible centrist positions, to blame Republicans for the ills of the state and capture the 2000s for the Democrats, and rode that wave, combining it with an anti-Bush tide at the end of the decade and continuing Republican infighting.

A couple of historical trends expose themselves each time.  After two or three terms, the party in power tends to collapse upon itself.  And its almost always a regional problem.  Secondly, the margin between winning and losing is always much less than either side makes it out to be.  There is also a general are of incoherence in the campaigns of the losing side, of campaigns unfocused and running behind.  Beyer was chasing Gilmore around the state yelling me-too, Earley did the same thing, and now we are seeing it manifest itself in the Creigh Deeds campaign.  Another one is that much of movement in Virginia politics is a bell-weather of major national trends.  The 1969 victory for Holton was the first of what became a decade of real growth of Republicans across the South.  The 1980s, though the Era of Reagan, saw Virginia lead the way in advancing new moderate Southern Democrat governors like Zell Miller, Bill Clinton, Jim Hunt, as well as others like Al Gore and Dale Bumpers.  George Allen's victory in 1993 was a microcosm of what happened one November later.  Warner's win ushered in Democrat resurgence in Virginia that soon followed nationally.  And the final trend seems to be where Northern Virginia goes - so goes Virginia.  The 1970s saw NOVA turn into the conservative dominion of Rep. Joel Broyhill.  The 80s saw Democrats like Robb appeal to the growing federal workers in the are, and then the Republicans won the back in the 1990s based on their pro-business low tax message.  When Republicans got riled up in social issues in the Hager-Earley primary and the Kilgore death penalty ads.  This weakness allowed Democrats to once again sweep in as the "moderates" focusing on education and transportation.  It also comes with a general electoral malaise in the losing party.  Notice a trend?

The ground is shifting underneath Creigh Deeds right now, and there are other issues within his campaign and his story that make this seem to be moving faster.  Deeds is the first Democrat candidate for governor in a long time that has a rural, low-constituent base.  Every previous candidate for governor since 1973, except for Mark Warner and his millions (he was also an active state party chair) had held state-wide office (Kaine, Beyer, Terry, Wilder, Blailes, Robb, Howell).  All came from populated centers of the state that made for a bigger jumping board.  Deeds has neither held statewide office, had a personal fortune, or come from a large constituent base.

Secondly, Deeds is all over the map when it comes to ideology.  One day, he's a good 'ole courthouse state senator, then he's an aw-shucks progressive, and there is a lack of continuity in his message and what he wants to do.  So far, I have no clear vision of what a Governor Deeds would bring to Virginia other than tax hikes.  His blind swings with issues like abortion and the confederate flag have not worked.  Worst of all, its so apparent that there is no conviction behind the attacks, its shallow, craven, and cynical.  It also shows that there is no natural connection between Deeds and voters outside his rural base, so he tries to win them over with stuff like this instead of doing the hard work of building trust through talking about issues that matter but might not make headlines.  And Deeds is doing it because the Democrats in Virginia have gotten fat and lazy.

The national mood isn't helping either.  Obama's wild victory looks to be the culmination of the Democrats and there is nowhere to go now but down.  Many of the independents who broke for Obama are betrayed now that the president is going to be taking over head care, spending more than Bush ever dreamed of, is bailing out banks, and is now looking to raise taxes on the middle class.  You can see Deeds avoiding Obama when he can, appearing at fundraisers but not major rallies that are issue-based.  He'll appear with Obama to get money and get a stemwinder.  But he's nowhere to be seen at the health care town halls.  Deeds is effectively running away from Obama.

Then we have the Republicans.  For the first time in the state since 1997, Republicans are united.  McDonnell is a nice mesh of Holton and Allen - he has the easy going, nuts and bolts experience of legislating of the former and the conservative outlook of the latter .  He's flanked by two excellent running mates, Bill Bolling is a proven electoral winner and a favorite with Republicans; while Ken Cuccinelli shores up the conservative voters that aren't always in the political process (they stay home when we lose and show up when we win).  Deeds's running mates add nothing, and only makes his problems worse.  Neither of them have any statewide experience and a limited constituency (Wagner's only offices have been appointed, while Shannon represents a geographically small delegate district).  

The ground is shifting.  McDonnell is running the most disciplined statewide race since 1993, where he's hitting group of core issues hard, over and over, and refusing to be baited into spats over abortion and the confederate flag.  He doesn't have the confrontational reputation of an Allen that left him open over and over to various nefarious charges that eventually caught up to him.  He doesn't have the stiffness and aloofness that hurt Gilmore.  He's a new kind of Virginia Republican candidate, a very new suburban candidate.  He was born in Philadelphia, grew up in Mount Vernon, went to Notre Dame, and raised his family in Virginia Beach.  This is not an old time Republican that can be demagouged as a racist.  And they've been trying, but nothing has stuck.  McDonnell's life and experience is that of the New Virginia that Tim Kaine proclaimed.  Born somewhere else, grew up in Northern Virginia, went to college, and found a professional job and entered local politics.  He's not born out of some machine, he's a politician interested in the unsexy issues that matter the most.  Democrats have been used to running against ideological candidates or old style candidates.  Mark Earley may have been pro-labor, but he was an evangelical and was preaching a message that nobody really cared about with budget problems and a recession.  Kilgore was a rural candidate, undefined, and seemed often uninterested in the issues of transportation that meant the most to suburban voters in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.  In 2006, George Allen ditched much of state team to audition a national team and finally said something that allowed every rumormonger and hater to point and say "I told you so!"  Bob McDonnell doesn't talk with a twang, he lived the life my family did . . . a suburban life.  Deeds has not, Deeds has lived a life that is not the majority of Virginia any more and he cannot seem to find any traction other than doing what Kilgore did, ignorantly lurching to divisive social issues that the educated electorate of Virginia sees right through.

A combination of history, trends, national mood, candidate personalities, campaign missteps, and the changing of Virginia is moving this race.  The ground is shifting again, and while the Democrats have, for the last ten years, been marvelous in reading their political richter scale, they did so with leaders in tune with New Virginia.  This year, its the entire Republican ticket that is in tune with New Virginia, while the rural courthouse Senator Deeds and his marry band of backbenchers offer New Virginia nothing in vision or solutions.  He's turned his back on the tried and true way to win in Virginia - focus on fiscal issues, transportation, and the pressing national problems - ways that Warner and Kaine used to win.  Deeds isn't doing this on purpose, its because he can't, its not in his nature, in his experience, or in his Old Virginia.  For the first time in a long time, The Republicans of McDonnell-Bolling-Cuccinelli are speaking the message of New Virginia while the Deedocrats are stuck in the past, drowning in the Kilgorian quicksand of the quick fix politics of social issues used with no conviction and pure cynicism, compounded by a candidate who has never lived or known New Virginia, no matter how hard he tries to pretend.  

Comments

[Jason]

Excellent analysis! Do you have any theories on why the Dems might have selected such a tone-deaf, out-of-touch candidate? (Especially when running against McAwful and Moran, who, admittedly, were more closely aligned with New Virginia than is Deeds.)

[Chris]

My theory is that the Moran and McAuliffe people hated each other's candidate so much that many of the NOVA dems out there who don't pay much attention to state politics until right till the end were turned off by it and went with the candidate the DCPost endorsed.

[Chris Obenshain]

Awesome post. I agree that McDonnell is our best candidate for Governor since George Allen.

But Chris, I'm still waiting for you to weigh in on the Linda McMahon for US Senate rumors.

[McDonnell is better.]

I cannot stand George Allen, but I do like Bob McDonnell. Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran were too extreme for Virginia. Creigh Deeds was the least scary to anyone but Northern Virginia liberals. Even the Northern Virginia liberals seemed shy of going too far left in the primary.

Obama winning Virginia was more of a backlash against the incompetence and aloofness of George W. Bush than it was a victory for the Democrats. Now that the Democrats have control and are attempting to convert us all to their scary socialist utopia, people are starting to run the other way.

On an individual level, Creigh Deeds is not a man with a whole lot going on in his head. Bob McDonnell beats him on every issue that matters to voters. When Creigh Deeds cannot come up with an idea for transportation, he drags abortion out of the closet to fearmonger independent female voters.

The Democrats are making the foolish mistake of thinking they can continue to run on their good brand. Obama is no longer new. Pelosi keeps tarnishing the party's image with her foolish commentary. Whatever party is in power at the top showcases its own leaders' incompetence and aloofness and leads voters to choose the anyone-but-them candidate. The voters see that the Democrats cannot do any better than the Republicans and, key to the electorate, they see that the people in power are in a position to do much, much worse. It's almost like we swing the pendulum back and forth between parties so that the Democrats don't take away all our inalienable rights and appoint too many czars to oversee and disapprove of our choices and the Republicans don't declare war on one too many causes. :)

[aznew]

This was an excellent and very interesting post.

[major pain]

Im not sure how much more of this back and forth delusional bickering i can stomach. May i offer critical advice? i will anyway.

you say that guy isnt winning because of thus and such. this guy is winning because of this and that. a candidate should be judged by his ideas (which necessitates going beyond what they actually has say, unless he has a history of integrity). these guys are not pieces on a chess board, we are not pawns in their game. when a candidate is right he wont have to sell it. take bHo, for example, he aint even funny no more. he just wrong. i know, but he is still fighting. still selling. (off topic: why? because he has an audience. leave that for another subject.)

you all like McDonell. i hope you love him because if put him in charge youre going to have to deal with and put up with him.

if i were a brand new convert convince me why i should not dismiss your guy as just another power-grabbing politician.

you have homework. class dismissed.

yeah the major pain said that