I Haven't Got Words

 

Brandon Presley

I've been glued to various internet feeds and news sites, catching up on everything that happened last night in several states, including in North Carolina, where it was municipal leadership on the line, and in Virginia, where Democrats flipped back their House and held the Senate and caused Republican "Great-White-Hope" Glenn Youngkin some major agita, and in the whole wide world where Moms 4 Liberty apparently lost bigly. I'm only sorry about Mississippi, where Democrat Brandon Presley impressed me, tearing relentlessly into Republican Gov. Tate Reeves over the expansion of Medicaid and the price of groceries. If Presley had won, or come closer (the margin was about 5 points), he might have proven a political point that Democrats with fight in them do best in the reddest of spots.

I'm glad to give Thomas Mills the floor on what happened and how we might feel about it:

Democrats won up and down the ballot and across the country. Last night should be a cautionary tale for Republicans, but the party is still beholden to a man who lives in a fantasy world of stolen elections and imaginary fortunes. Democrats have messages that work and an organization that’s functioning. Ignore the narratives of Democrats in disarray. Republicans are the ones in the wilderness.

The Importance of Virginia

Virginia State Capitol, Richmond

News&Observer editorialist Ned Barnett got me focused on the vote happening next Tuesday in Virginia, ungerrymandered Virginia (compared to NC), where Democrats rule the state senate 22-18 and Republicans rule the state House also 22-18, and Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin is just itching to sign an abortion ban, he sez, when Republicans also control the senate. The elections for all those Virginia legislative seats happen next Tuesday, and Ned Barnett says it'll be a potential bellwether for North Carolina in 2024. 

Barnett wrote the words (which I turned into a more graphic display):

The Virginia vote will show whether ...

(1) new state abortion laws are a decisive issue for Democratic performance?

(2) whether right-wing attacks on school diversity policies is still motivating voters like it did in 2022?

(3) whether Black voters and young voters are motivated enough to turn out and vote?

I have not researched any of the Virginia legislative races this year, so I'll have to rely on mass media come Wednesday morning for numbers and analysis. 

On the potency of the abortion issue for Democratic performance, North Carolina has already done -- banned abortion after 12 weeks -- what Glenn Youngkin in Virginia promises to do (though Youngkin is more comfortable with 15 weeks).  We expect the resentment against the abortion ban to remain strong in urban and suburban North Carolina, but this state is much more blatantly gerrymandered now for partisan advantage, with "communities of interest" "cracked and packed" to smithereens.

I'll be watching Virginia, you bet!

If You Dine With the Devil, Better Use a Long Spoon

Roe on the left, with Youngkin

Jeff Roe is a Republican political consultant who guided Glenn Youngkin's recent successful campaign to become Virginia's governor. Roe had a fraught history with Donald Trump going back to the 2016 Republican primary when he was working for the Ted Cruz for President campaign. He advised Youngkin to enthusiastically embrace Trump during the primary and then get the hell away from him for the general election -- which actually worked and which majorly pissed off DJT.

The Washington Post recently reported that Roe was forced to get himself to Mar-a-Lago to smooth Trump's ruffled feathers. Trump was said to believe that Roe had "belittled" his role in Youngkin's win. And it's true enough that "after winning the GOP nomination and Trump’s endorsement, Youngkin stopped dropping Trump’s name."

Trump had told the “John Fredericks Radio Show” ("America's Godzilla of the TRUTH!" which broadcasts out of Goochland, Va.) that “the only guys that win are the guys that embrace the MAGA movement. When they try to go down a railroad track … ‘Oh, yeah, love Trump. Love Trump. Okay, let’s go, next subject.’ When they do that, nobody, they don’t — they never win. They never win. They have to embrace it.”

Youngkin was still walking that tightrope when he gave his first post-election interview to Fox News's Tucker Carlson (the faint praise for an unnamed DJT got noticed): “We had help from everybody. We had a huge support from the Latino community. You know, the president made a call and asked everybody to get out and vote. And we had big turnout in southwest Virginia. We saw parents turn out.”

When you have an ego as large as Trump's and you're mentioned after the Latinos -- why, boy, you got some groveling to do!

"Roe told others privately that he did not want Trump to visit the state and that it would be harmful to Youngkin, according to a political operative who spoke with Roe about it. Trump told Roe that he would like to see his supporters publicly given more credit for the victory, two people familiar with the meeting said. Trump called Youngkin several times to give him advice in the race and talk about the numbers in the state...."

Youngkin's win, without throwing himself into Trump's arms, is supposed to signal that Trump's influence in the Republican Party is fading. That's a fiercely debated topic. But when you have to make your pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring, you're not a free man.

For a Republican To Win Virginia's Governership, He Needs To Hide

 

Interesting analysis by Laura Vozzella appeared yesterday in the WashPost documenting how Republican nominee for Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has gone all moderate-by-means-of-omission since winning the Republican nomination. The piece is headlined "Glenn Youngkin, GOP nominee for Virginia governor, goes mum on guns and abortion."

Whaaa! No guns and abortion? But that's the essential GOP kindling for a bonfire of the vanities.

But smart(er) Virginia conservatives are going "Shaaa! It's more important to win the suburbs than continue to stroke Jimmie Sue and Radley Joe in their post-rural cultural crusades. Youngkin's just being strategic." Also dishonest.

Get this: Youngkin didn't fill out a single candidate survey from interest groups, including the very long one from the National Rifle Association -- "a first in recent memory for a successful statewide GOP nominee." And his campaign website has no "issues" page, where he might stand a chance of scaring the soccer moms.

And he's gone cagey with the press: "Asked during an interview with The Washington Post on Friday how he would like to change state laws on guns and abortion, Youngkin repeatedly evaded the topics. When pressed, he noted that he is 'pro-life' and that he will 'stand up for our constitutional rights.' But to every request for specific policy goals on abortion and guns, two of his signature issues, Youngkin offered the same jobs-schools-safety mantra."

Will it work?

That depends heavily on who the Democrats nominate, which will happen in the June 8th primary. I tried to write thumbnail profiles of all the diverse Democratic candidates here. The eventual winner could end up being a dynamic Black woman, Jennifer Carolyn Foy. Or Terry McAuliffe.

Virginia Republicans Pick a Trumpist to Run for Governor, Though Not the Trumpiest

 

Glenn Youngkin.
Photo by Bill O'Leary, WashPost

Last Saturday, at their disassembled state convention, Virginia Republicans nominated Glenn Youngkin as their candidate for governor in this year's state elections. Youngkin is the former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group, a global private equity giant, and he had emphatically embraced the politics of Donald Trump. Worth an estimated $254  million, the political newcomer highlights his up-by-the-bootstraps biography, including a stint in his teens washing dishes at a Virginia Beach diner to help support his family. Youngkin claimed that he had raised $1 million from supporters in the first 10 days of his campaign.

Youngkin is a Trumpist running in a state that has turned decidedly bluer during the last several elections, but he wasn't the most dangerously Trumpist of the candidates running last Saturday. That would be Amanda Chase, currently the pistol-packing "Trump in high heels" who occupies a seat in the state senate (a seat recently encased in a plastic shield -- no, really -- because Chase refuses to wear a mask) who earned herself a bipartisan censure from her fellow senators for praising the Capitol insurrectionists as "patriots." She's the principal reason Republican Party leaders were desperate to keep this race out of a primary. They were terrified she could win a primary and go on to crash the whole party in November. 

Now that'll be Glenn Youngkin's job.

Footnote: The most qualified Republican candidate for the job, Kirk Cox, was eliminated from contention in an early round of ranked-choice voting. He's been in the Virginia House of Delegates for three decades, and in his party's salad days, he served as majority leader and then as Speaker of the House. His voting record is not that different from Amanda Chase's, but Cox tries to project a non-Trumpist and "sane conservative" image. His one striking departure from Republican orthodoxy: He swerved on the issue of expanding Medicaid in the state under the Affordable Care Act, so to the Trumpists he's a traitor.