Virginia Voters Could Change The World
By Hank Silverberg
If you want a good clue how the 2024 presidential race is going, then all you have to do is look to the Old Dominion.
We have had Republican governors since then, but both U.S. senators have been Democrats since 2006, and Democrats have held an edge in the congressional delegation since 2008.
We have had a split government on the state level since 2014, with Democrats holding either the governorship or a majority in one of the two General Assembly Chambers.
The election of Glenn Youngkin in 2021 caught many Democratic leaders off guard. As I wrote last week, voter turnout may have been the key to Youngkin's victory. He used the culture war and slogans like "Parents matter," and "no CRT" in public schools to get out Republican voters, and he caught the opposition sleeping. That is why Democrats are focusing heavily on turnout during the current campaign for the entire General Assembly.
So why should anyone in other states pay attention?
A new poll out this week should provide a guide.
A University of Mary Washington Poll indicates 42% of likely voters in Virginia want Democrats in charge of the legislature, while 42% favor Republicans in charge. Is the state going purple again? Maybe not.
A further breakdown shows 64% who say a candidate's position on public school policies would be a major factor in their choice-- and it was a major factor in Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin's victory in 2021.
But 53% of those polled say the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is a major factor in how they will vote. That figure jumps to 75% among Democrats. Current Democrats who control the state senate have stopped every effort by Younkin and his party to harden Virginia's abortion laws, which currently ban abortion after 26 weeks and require parental consent for minors.
Asked about the COUNTRY'S most important problem:
* 21% of the Virginians polled said threats to democracy
*20% said inflation
*16% said the economy
* Only 10% said immigration
Culture war issues like CRT, transgender bathrooms, drag queens or children's books didn't rate very high.
Steven Farnsworth, the Director of UMW's Center for Leadership and Media Studies, which conducted the poll said, "this survey shows that those combative voices at school board meetings are not representative of public opinion across the Commonwealth regarding public education.”
Virginians Closely Divided Over 2023 Legislative Elections in Statewide Survey - News (umw.edu)
Virginia is a microcosm of the country. The heavily populated urban northern part of the state is a Democratic stronghold and has dominated state politics now for more than a decade. But the rural southern part of the state has enough pockets of resistance to progressive politics that Youngkin was able to squeeze in with strong voter turnout and a few culture war complaints in public schools that were more hype than reality.
Voters were not totally fooled by all the Governor's rhetoric on these controversies. The new poll reveals 42% of the voters want the governor to have "less power" in local school decisions. (19% wanted more, 21% wanted things to stay the same.)
The lesson for the Democrats is to focus on big picture issues like abortion and the economy over the next 13 months and bring out traditional Democratic voters on those issues.
A lot, of course, depends on who the Republican nominee is. If it's Donald Trump, the presidency rests almost completely on who gets their voters into the voting booth.
If the GOP picks someone else, more rational and more policy driven, keeping the White House could be a lot harder for the Democrats.
Yes, I know what the national polls say. Most put a Trump-Biden contest at a dead heat. But a lot can happen in 13 months.
Happy Birthday, Jimmy Carter!
Speaking of rational, practical leaders, former President Jimmy Carter turned 99 this past Sunday, living longer than any former president and out living two men who followed him into the Oval Office (Reagan and GHW Bush).
Mr. Carter was perhaps our last honest president,
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| (Courtesy The Carter Center) |
Political analysts will say his precedency was ineffective because he micromanaged everything, and maybe that's why his presidency failed during the long running Iranian hostage crises.
But Carter is who he purported to be--a highly moral man trying to function in an increasingly immoral world. And that is not what the presidency has ever been about.
His inauguration was the first I ever attended while in graduate school in D.C.
I met Jimmy Carter once almost four years later while he was President. I got a chance to shake his hand when he came to Perth Amboy, New Jersey. I was covering the event for WCTC radio, and a number of us in the local press got invited to meet with him briefly to ask questions. He had his guard up of course, because we were, after all, the media. The White House Press pool was watching. But he was gracious, warm and surprisingly informal.
Carter is quite ill today and probably does not have much time left on the Earth. The question we all should be asking when he goes? Was he the last president to rule with morality, vision and practicality instead of political expediency, misleading rhetoric and ego?
Small Towns Not Exempt!
The nastiness and rule breaking that has plagued our national politics continues to seep down into small town America. You may have heard about the raid of The Marion County Record's newsroom in Marion, Kansas and the publisher's home after the newspaper dug up some background information on a local restaurant owner they were looking into. The police took computers, cell phones, and a file server, as well as other equipment during the raid. Now the police chief may pay the price.
But the newspaper's information came from a computer search of public records, and the raids were really retaliation for their attempts to check the background of the new police chief who was appointed this summer.
The story made national news mainly because the publisher's 98-year-old mother became distraught during the search of her home and died a day later.
This type of battle between local police and the local press is becoming more common across the country as the national climate between politicians, police and the media continues to sour.
But now there is some good news. That police Chief, Gideon Cody, has now been suspended from his job pending the results of a state police investigation.
There's also a lawsuit filed by the reporter working on the story. The Marion County Record had the privilege of reporting this story to its readers this past Friday.
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
There was no government shutdown. As usual, Congress came up with a last-minute stop gap spending bill that kicked the can down the road for 45 days while they try to work out something more substantive. I will leave all the details to those political reporters who thrive on the back-and-forth and behind the scenes maneuvering and the aftermath it creates. I used to be one of those reporters, but I'm retired, so I look for other things to write about. I could not, however, let this comment from New York Republican Congressman Brandon Williams go by. He was asked on CSPAN if he would cash his own salary if there was a shutdown. He said "yes" he would because he is not "independently wealthy and we are like any other family." Okay, I will buy that. But then he said this about other federal workers:
"I don't think you will find a huge amount of sympathy for people that (sic) have been furloughed or early retirement or laid off with their pension going bankrupt. You not going to find a huge amount of sympathy out there."
Really, Congressman? Does that include the military personnel, border patrol agents or others who would have had to work without pay, or the 700,000 other federal workers who would have had no paycheck? Some members of Congress just have no clue.
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