...or is Governor McDonnell planning to run on the Jim Crow ticket?

The Party of No appears to be degenerating into the party of No, Really? Thanks to Bob McDonnell, the GOP's newest asshat, Virginia is being transformed from a cosmopolitan urban center to a suburb of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The new governor is attempting to prove that, even in 2010, it's possible to be an insensitive bigot. Lester Maddox and George Wallace would have been proud.

Following his colossally tone-deaf reintroduction of April as Confederacy Month in Virginia, Governor Retro has involved himself in the legislative effort to restore voting rights to non-violent felons. During the 2008 election, in order to persuade a few black people in Norfolk and Hampton Roads to vote for him, McDonnell ran on a promise to restore voting rights to non- violent offenders. Currently Virginia and Kentucky are the only states that don't automatically restore those rights upon completion of sentence. An appeal to and approval of the governor is required.

McDonnell has decided that before you get the right to vote again you will be required to submit an essay on your contribution to society since your release. (If McDonnell were required to submit such a term paper, his right to vote would vaporize.) This Jim Crow-like restriction is being vilified for what it is, a roadblock to the restoration of voting rights to predominately black citizens. Whether you think felons should be allowed to vote or not is irrelevant. What matters is that McDonnell is singlehandedly towing Virginia into the arms of Southern, Conservative, Tea Party rednecks. We get it; Virginia is a Southern State. It's not necessary to segregate water fountains to underscore the point.

But wait...another state is heard from. Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi has weighed in (and his weight is considerable) to defend McDonnell. As a bastion of civil rights and progressive thinking, we all need to be taking our cue on equality from Mississippi. Barbour, whose entire exposure to slavery appears to be a slavish devotion to donuts, thinks that ignoring slavery is just fine. Why Southern politicians continue to treat ignorance as a point of pride is a constant wonder.

Anyway, no one should be surprised if Governor McDonnell continues to drag Virginia down this path to antibellum bliss. Remember, Virginia Governors can only serve one term so no reelection worries for Old Bob. How about a poll tax? Hey, we have to balance the budget somehow. Maybe a minstral show in Richmond? Don't be shocked to see Governor McDonnell reintroduce miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriage. After all, that law was only changed in 1967. The ink is barely dry.

...or does Fox News exist solely to make the rest of us feel smarter?

Well, now that "Decision 2009" is over, we can safely say all the important questions have been answered. Was the election in the frozen tundra of New York's 23rd Congressional District a referendum on Conservatives vs Moderates in the Republican Party? Ask Fox. Was the never-in-doubt Governor's race in Virginia a rebuke of Barack Obama? Ask MSNBC. Was the not-as-close-as-you-thought defeat of Jon Corzine a repudiation of men who foppishly dropped the "h" from their first name? CNN knows. Was the closer-that-expected election for mayor in New York affected by a six game World Series? Inquire at ESPN.

The answer to the burning question as to what we learned from the governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia, the answer is ...nothing. Jersey first. Corzine was wildly unpopular long before the President proposed healthcare. He was losing his grip on power well before the tea-baggers showed on Fox News. No one in the Garden State trudged to the polls on Tuesday to express an opinion on Barack Obama. They voted against Jon Corzine. The happy beneficiary of that sentiment was Chris Christie who happened to be a Republican. Had the party labels been reversed, the result would have remained the same: incumbent out...new guy in.

Virginia is a bit different. Bob McDonnell defeated Creigh Deeds because Deeds ran the single most inept campaign since John McCain. McDonnell is a social neocon of the first magnitude. He's one of the last of the "bare-foot and pregnant" crowd. The choice should have been one guy walking upright; the other, not so much. Sadly, Deeds never bothered to tell anyone who he was. Having somehow beaten Terry McCauliffe in a primary, he apparently felt the fight was over. The voters of Virginia felt otherwise. If you wish to draw a conclusion fror this contest draw this one: if you run a crumby campaign you will likely be the one making the early concession speech to an empty ballroom.

With regards to the imperial election in New York, you can't help but wonder; if $85 million only buys you 51% of the vote, what would a landslide cost? Michael Bloomberg laid out $152 for every New Yorker that circled his name. For that money you could almost buy a ticket to a Yankee game. Still, New Yorkers take exception to having their term limits laws ignored even by a mayor as reasonably popular as Little Mikey. In the future Mayor Bloomberg would be advised to try for something less stressful... like Eliot Spitzer's press agent.

And now we come to the Land That Time Forgot...New York's chilly 23rd Congressional District. This place is so far upstate that snow is considered a natural resource. It's also home to some of the country's most rock-ribbed conservatives. The 23rd hasn't voted for a Democrat practically since the Erie Canal opened. It was impossible for the GOP to lose this seat when the President nominated Congressman John McHugh to be Secretary of the Army. Ah, but no one ever went broke underestimating the ineptitude of the Republican Party. The party locals nominated Dede Scozzafava to run in a special election. But wait! Ms. Scozzafava is pro gay. She's pro choice. She's (dare we say it) moderate. That would never do.

Determined to cause a problem where none existed, the neocon purists decided to abandon sweet Dede in favor of a "true" conservative, Doug Hoffman. Never mind that he didn't actually live in the district or understand what issues mattered to the locals, he had his social ducks in order. Apparently Alaska's own Sarah Palin assumed that anyone with frost in their ears was her kind of people. After all, the populations are almost identical: 600,000 or so people trying to keep warm. Sarah lent her 1,000 watt smile and her lower wattage brain to the contest. This sort of carpetbagging went over like a Jello snow shovel. The Republicans were able to turn a sure victory into another Congressional vote for the Blue team. These guys couldn't get a Muslim elected in Iran.

So, what have we learned from "America goes to the Polls, 2009"? From Jon Corzine we learned that incumbency is it's own punishment. From Creigh Deeds we discovered that campaigning isn't really underrated. From Mike Bloomberg we find out that the third time isn't always the charm or three strikes and you're out. And from the "defeat from the jaws of victory" crowd in New York's 23rd district we learned that up state New Yorkers can smell manure even under all that Alaska snow.

...or will Virginia vote to return to the good old days...say 1700?

Politically, there is no state in the Union more interesting than Virginia. Since the founding of the Republic, Virginians have always thought of themselves as a cut above. After all, when you have given the country such national treasures as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Patrick Henry and Robert Edward Lee, (not to mention Sam Snead, Arthur Ashe and Fran Tarkenton) you have a right to feel superior. Politics in the state has always been a dignified affair. Although a late and reluctant addition to the Confederacy, Virginia contributed many of the South's generals and of course its capital city.


For most of the last hundred years Virginia has been a reliable member of the league of southern gentlemen. Virginia went Democratic when Democrats favored a separation of the races and turned Republican when state's rights became the vogue. Lately however, Virginia has seen a noticeable shift toward a more independent line of thought. The election of two Democratic Senators and two consecutive Democratic governors is considerably more significant in Virginia than in states with large urban centers.


In the election that put a black candidate in the White House, Virginia went 52% to 48% for Obama. The influx of dreaded liberals in the D.C. suburbs is unquestionably a factor but it doesn't tell the entire story. Pockets of Democrats inhabit several areas along the East Coast. Much of President Obama's support originated in the center of the state.


This bit of history is interesting for two reasons: 1) Virginia has had a non-succession law for its governors on the books since 1971. 2) America is watching the upcoming election in Virginia for signs of a chink in the Obama armour. Unfortunately, the election in Virginia will tell us almost nothing about the National mood. The guy who said "all politics is local" (I think it was Cain just before he negated his brother's vote) knew what he was talking about. The governor's race in Virginia will not be the first referendum on the Obama administration. It will be, as it ever was, a race about all the moronic social issues that Americans have been fretting over since Reagan.


The candidates, just in case you're not a political wonk, are: in the blue corner, Creigh (rhymes with flea) Deeds and, wearing the red trunks, Robert "Bob" McDonnell. Mr. Deeds won an impressive primary fight in June against the better known better funded Terry McAuliffe. McDonnell got the nomination because, well, nobody else wanted it.


Although Deeds impressed everyone with his come-from-nowhere victory in the primary, his return to nowhere has surprised and concerned Democrats throughout the state. As of last week Mr. McDonnell had a 15% lead in the polls and appeared to be pulling away. Ah, but not so fast Bob. Just like George Allen saw his senatorial (and presidential) hopes disappear in the blink of an eye, (please YouTube "George Allen, Macaca") Bob McDonnell is about to see his soaring lead over Mr. Deeds return to earth.


The Washington Post has had the poor manners to unearth Mr. McDonnell's graduate thesis, written in 1989 (not 1789) when Bob was a grad student at Regent University. Let's forget for the moment that Regent University was formerly known as Christian Broadcasting Network University and was founded by that progressive thinker Pat Robertson. Let's also forget that Regent U. ranks somewhere near Ted's On-line Divinity School and Used Car Sales as a seat of higher learning.


In his treatise, Mr. McDonnell expresses a vision of society (the paper is called The Republican Party's Vision for the family) that would have been a blueprint for a family home in Salem Mass. in 1700. He opposes women in the workplace as detrimental to family values. Daycare, because it encourages women to work, is also criticized. He opposes the Supreme Court decision (Griswold v. Connecticut) to invalidate the ban on contraception counselling for married couples because it "promotes a view of liberty based on radical individualism". (Those of you who didn't know that counselling on contraception was ever against the law, line up behind me.)

Mr. McDonnell's screed on modernism would have made a wonderful resume-stuffer had he been applying for headmaster of a Dickensian boarding school, but for a governor of a blueish state in 2009, not so much. His views oppose homosexuality, cohabitators and fornicators (Yes, Virginia, he actually used the word "fornicators").

These are not just personal opinions or religiously held beliefs. Old Bob advises that we incorporate his views into public policy. "Every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples..." "The cost of sin should fall on the sinner not on the taxpayer." Praise Jesus! This guy makes Ozzie and Harriet look positively ribald. (I never thought I'd ever get to use fornicator and ribald in the same piece.)

Naturally, McDonnell says that this is all just a big mistake. He has matured since 1989...when he was 34. In twenty years he has, he says, zoomed from the days of whale-bone corsets and floor-length skirts to a more enlightened world view. Having a daughter who served in Iraq will do that for you. Even an evangelical is slow to argue against equal pay for equal work with a lady packing an AK-47.

The beautiful irony in this story is the Republican claim that all this talk of antiquated social policy is distracting from the "real" issues of the campaign. Ha! The party that spent the last thirty years yelling about homos, free condoms in schools, family values and the godless scourge of liberalism now decries those issues as irrelevant. In 2000, Bob McDonnell would have been proud to describe feminism as "one of the real enemies of the traditional family". Now he's doing an Usain Bolt running away.

The election is still two months away and it will take more than an evangelical wet dream to sink Bob McDonnell. The Virginia economy is still sketchy and Democrats are still feared and hated in many parts of the state. Recent successful candidates have danced away from third-rail issues like gun control and the death penalty. Nevertheless, it's encouraging to see a Republican, running in a Southern State, disavowing right-wing social policy. If you're looking for a national trend, hopefully this is it. Glory Hallelujah and can I get an Amen!