The American Spectator

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(Page 2 of 15)

As David Holman points out, Jerry Kilgore ran a lousy campaign. More importantly, his campaign lacked ideas and themes, and took the Northern Virginia outer suburbs for granted.

The down-state good ol' boys have long regarded Northern Virginia as a cash register for the state and the outer suburbs as reliably Republican regardless of the candidate. After Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, they had better change that perception if they expect to win the governor's mansion back.

p>Tim Kaine ran an effective campaign that presented him as principled and interested in the problems of congestion and sprawl that plague Northern Virginia and the Virginia Beach/Norfolk areas. Kilgore's attack on Kaine's opposition to the death penalty was clumsy at best and morbidly opportunistic at worst. br> -- William L. Roughton, Jr. br> Fairfax Station, Virginia /p>

It's an off-year election. Democrats win the gubernatorial races in GOP-leaning Virginia and the blue state New Jersey. Republicans console themselves that at least they won the mayoral race in New York City, even though Michael Bloomberg is just a RINO (Republican-in-name-only).

Pundits wonder aloud, "Is Bush finished?" "Sure, he probably couldn't have done much to affect the outcome in New Jersey, but what about Virginia, a state he won comfortably just a year ago? That can't be good!"

And then comes the faux-sympathy comment: "It's going to be a long three years for Republicans."

But enough about 2001.

As you can see, that dismal night four years ago is almost a perfect replay of what happened last night, November 8, 2005. Of course, there are real differences: President Bush is coming off what is arguably the worst summer of his political career, and he will be blamed (unfairly, in my opinion) for losing Virginia. Never mind that the Democrat, Tim Kaine, was essentially running for popular governor Mark Warner's second term, and that Republican Jerry Kilgore ran a poor campaign, according to many accounts.

New Jersey is now unwinnable for Republicans, unless you're a RINO like Christie Whitman. Of course, it helps when the Democrat, Jon Corzine, is able to spend boatloads of his own money.

As for California, Ah-nuld bit off more than he could chew, and I think he realized a valuable lesson: never underestimate the demagogic power of left-wing unions. If you go after tenure, you can expect nasty ad's claiming that you are against the teachers who work so hard to educate children (no mention of the left-wing curricula they are using, of course). If you try to protect union members from having their dues go to pay for political ads they don't necessarily endorse, guess what? You're against Joe Six-Pack!

I'm glad Schwarzenegger made the effort; it's just too bad he got drowned out by all the vitriol.

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