After her recent double-digit victory in the Lynchburg special election, I told Del. Shannon Valentine that winning is one thing, but that winning by so much just seemed mean.
If Shannon is mean, Mark Herring is a right bastard. With 96% of precincts reporting, he’s got 61% of the vote. That’s a 23.36% margin. Mick Staton failed to win a single precinct. Not even his own precinct.
The narrative just writes itself. An overwhelming victory against Mick Staton, a radical Republican in the mold of father-in-law Dick Black, shows yet again how very, very far to the right that Republicans have gone in Virginia, and how very, very tired that voters are of yet more candidates who promote that radical agenda. The lesson that the Republican Party of Virginia will take away from this defeat is the same that they take from every defeat: they have to run still more radical candidates. And they’ll do it, and those candidates will lose, so they’ll become even more radical in response. This will be their undoing. It doesn’t matter how many times that they’re warned, it doesn’t matter who the messenger is. They’re simply unable to stop this death spiral.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the shift is underway. To centrist Republicans, let me be the first to say “welcome.” We’re a big tent party. We’d love to have you. I recommend that those considering joining do so as early as possible, as we’ll feel particularly indebted to those of you who make the jump now, rather than later. We look forward to working with you.
Do you throw better parties? Im particuraly interested in top shelf liqours.
100% correct. The Dems have taken the step to the right after losing the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, and Kaine drove that home tonight.
Nothing much to add.
I’ll gladly take the center, which the party has thankfully moved to, over the far right anyday, Shaun.
The Democrats are well on their way to recapturing the state senate. Lets hope that Republicans keep campaigning on right wing extream ideas and maybe we will get the house eventually as well. The fact is that Virginia’s population is extremely lopsided and the only reason Republicans win the state by such margins as 8 and 9% is because the exurbs of DC (Loudon, Prince William, etc) typically break decisively in the Republican favor. If this changes and other regions of the state moderate a bit or tilt further left (Albemarle, Henrico, Hampton, Newport News, etc. for example) then the GOP has a big problem in VA. Moderation is key and the wingnuts are finally slammed for years of extemist rhetoric and a lack of results. They can continue their bashing of gays, slaming of civil rights, and scare tactics over terrorism all they want and they will come up losing the population centers (like Kilgore did) while keeping the rural, sparsley and loosing population areas in the state.
All we need now are 3 more seats and the Senate is ours. We will pick those up next election. The momentum is undeniable now.
I want to remind other Democrats: moderation, moderation, moderation. Virginia is not embracing every facet of the far left. They want a centrist government that gets things done that most people can agree on. They don’t want big new programs, they don’t want government sticking it’s noses in their business. Let’s not make the same mistake that the Republicans did.
Unfortunately for Republicans, many of those you call “radical” actually feel validated by losing. They believe, and I think sincerely so, that they are in a life and death struggle. Losing just strengthens their resolve to push their agenda. Until they are willing to compromise insofar as forgoing excessive government action to achieve their goals, their favored candidates will continue to fare poorly.
I should point out that, nationally, Democrats have this exact same problem. After Kerry lost, many Democrats concluded that we simply have to run somebody much, much farther to the left to present “a real choice.” This is a pretty vocal wing of the party, and we may well end up running a really radical candidate because of their demands. If so, we’ll lose badly, and what I have to wonder is if we’ll learn that lesson right away or, like some Virginia Republicans, keep running radical candidates every four years.
The fact is that Kerry lost by such a small margin, and Gore won by such a large margin, that I conclude that the problem doesn’t lie in our ideological positioning.