McDonnell refuses to sign an anti-tax pledge.

Bob McDonnell is refusing to sign an anti-tax pledge, and the Washington Times is upset. I’m impressed with McDonnell. We’re seeing right now, in California, what happens when a state refuses to raise taxes as a matter of principle. Sometimes it’s necessary, and to say “I’ll never raise taxes no matter what” is foolish. McDonnell struck me as just the sort of guy who would sign a pledge like this in order to appeal to the base, damn the consequences, a la Gilmore. Obviously I was wrong.

Note, by the way, that McDonnell has already signed the pledge, back when he was a delegate. I don’t know what the wording of it is, but it seems odd that he could back out on a pledge that he already made. I suspect that this change from him is a sign that the right in Virginia is weaker than ever. McDonnell is tacking to the left awfully quick, knowing that Virginians like centrists, and that’s as true for Republican candidates as Democrats. (Via Norm)

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

13 replies on “McDonnell refuses to sign an anti-tax pledge.”

  1. This is a better take on the incident than the one over at NLS, but I have to say I’m uncomfortable with certain people on the left’s decision to attack McDonnell over this. Signing such a pledge is simply bad policy any way you look at it, putting the signers in a box that limits their policy options at a time when we need to be thinking outside of the box. When Mark Warner and a number of House and Senate Republicans were able to turn the budget around during his governorship, they would have violated the terms of this pledge, and we would have lost our triple-A bond rating. I worry that the more we talk about this pledge, the more it seems like somehow a legitimate political move, and not an appeal to the far-right of Virginia politics and a move away from the pragmatic tradition of leadership that has served Virginia well especially during the Warner governership.

  2. So there’s a question I’ve been sitting on for a while now, in part because I initially was able to find rationalizations for it, and secondly for a lack wording that didn’t sound aggressive. But I’m increasingly baffled, so here it is.

    What is with the persistent emphasis on the Republican party getting weaker? You seem to take almost any opportunity possible to interpret anything bumbling, centrist or hypocritical, or just outright stupid as a sign. And most of the time maybe it really is, but what you are trying to accomplish politically in pointing it out is where I’m lost. At first I thought it was pure elation, much like saying “everything is going to be ok” when Obama was elected even though there was little to show that either candidate was certain to make all the current problems go away. Then as the assertion of Republicans getting weaker became more interpretive, it seemed like there was a point to bringing it up besides a round of high fives with political Democratic bloggers. Perhaps this is where I’m wrong, but it does leave me baffled.

    What exactly is smart about Democrats rejoicing over the apparent downfall of the Republican Party? Say what you will about the Bush administration (that’s sorta the point), but it did give us a reason to mobilize. Is constantly assuring everyone that the Republican party (which for all its bumbling is buzzing like bees to get back in power) is on its way out the best way to assure that they do in fact get out? Virgina’s been a largely red state for a long time. A fact that made many Republicans rather arrogant, and in this decade Virginia has been turning increasingly purple until last election it leaned enough to vote blue, in part due to a lot of people voting who’ve virtually never if not ever voted before. That they will do that again in a post-Anything but Bush period I think is not something to get too confident about on any level of government.

    So again, I just don’t see why you and other political bloggers keep bringing this up. Especially in cases like this. Don’t we want centralist Republicans? I mean, if we have to have Republicans (and in truth there should never be only one party) why not ‘improving’ ones?

  3. Speaking as a resident of one of the 6 municipalities that Mark Warner didn’t carry in November, is a hot-bed of anti-tax pledge fever, loved them some Jeff Frederick, and are wallowing in Republican self-hate…BobO’s statement is music to my ears. There is no leadership to bargain with here, there are only ideologues that must lose. We are but a few political funerals away from progress my fishing friend. Drive on.

  4. So again, I just don’t see why you and other political bloggers keep bringing this up. Especially in cases like this. Don’t we want centralist Republicans? I mean, if we have to have Republicans (and in truth there should never be only one party) why not ‘improving’ ones?

    I’m confused. I just wrote that I’m impressed with Bob McDonnell for his centrist tendencies. So…uh…we’re agreeing.

  5. Not really, my question was why keep bringing up that they are weakening in political power. That was the main point.

    I realized afterwards that last part which you’ve quoted wasn’t clear but just got back to the computer. I meant that you make it sound like a bad thing for a Republican AS a Republican to go centrist by implying that it weakens the party (as opposed to say, weakens the hard right’s sway over the party). We agree it’s a good thing, but your follow up to being impressed strikes me as problematic for the reasons expressed in the first three paragraphs I posted.

  6. my question was why keep bringing up that they are weakening in political power.

    Because writing about politics is, fundamentally, writing about the waxing and waning of power. There’s really nothing else. As I’ve written here a couple of times in the past half-decade, this blog exists substantially to chronicle the downfall of the Republican Party. You might as well as Consumer Reports why they keep writing about products that aren’t very good, or Talking Points Memo why they keep covering Republican scandals. It’s what we do. :)

  7. Really? Your whole point is to write about the downfall of another group?

    You’re not interested in writing about positive ideas? Better government? More freedom? Taking care of your fellow man? A brighter future?

    Geez, Waldo. You’re far more cynical than I thought.

  8. As I’ve written here a couple of times in the past half-decade, this blog exists substantially to chronicle the downfall of the Republican Party.

    Now that’s just silly, and I’m surprised to read that from you… you’re smarter than that. Political power, as wielded by our two major parties, has always been cyclical. The Virginia Democrats were dead (or dying) throughout the 90s — far more so than the Va GOP today. Nationally, Democrats were shut out of power as recently as 2000. Today it’s the opposite.

    It all comes back around, and I suspect you know this.

  9. Really? Your whole point is to write about the downfall of another group?

    You’re not interested in writing about positive ideas? Better government? More freedom? Taking care of your fellow man? A brighter future?

    I didn’t say that, Jim. “I” != “this blog” and “substantially” != “whole point.”

    Political power, as wielded by our two major parties, has always been cyclical. The Virginia Democrats were dead (or dying) throughout the 90s — far more so than the Va GOP today. Nationally, Democrats were shut out of power as recently as 2000. Today it’s the opposite.

    It all comes back around, and I suspect you know this.

    And I’ve never claimed otherwise.

    I wrote about this in May of 2008:

    The theme of this blog for the past few years has been that, given a choice, Virginia Republicans will always choose wrongly. Not wrong in hindsight, but wrong like should I pick up some dinner on the way home, or drive off a bridge?

  10. What an interesting perspective. Because Jim Gilmore, George Allen, Jerry Kilgore, and Bob McDonnell indicate that Republican talent is in short supply and has been for a decade. And then there was that Convention circus last month. That was so 1964. What is the plan for a resurgent Republican Party? Double down on the Southern Strategy? Circle the wagons on Supply Side economics? Run off the Frederick Youth? Annoy Democrats? Honestly, you don’t need a turn of the cycle, you need to burn the damn thing down and kill the vermin. Good luck with that.

  11. Sure, most things are cyclical. For example, most animal populations are cyclical. That’s not much comfort, though, to the individual animals that die in a downturn. I’m kind of hoping that that analogy might hold in Virginia, though. The kind of Republicanism that seems endemic to VA? I’d love to see it decimated. It *deserves* to be decimated. If the Republicans that survive are new and improved? All the better for the rest of us. Plus, they won’t bother me nearly as much when the cycle turns back to Republicans.

  12. We could be about to witness an epic battle fought by grown ups- won’t that be refreshing. The democrats dodged a bullet by nominating the one canidate who could win statewide. My thought is this two are closer in belief and style then anyone would care to admit.

    I believe the republicans have an edge, it’s slight and could evaporate by the fall. I have no idea what this race is really going to come down to but these guys are going to spend a whole lot of money.

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