Glad to See Virginia’s Sorry Race Over

By the time you read this, our long national and regional nightmare will be over.

Sorry, no, Obamacare has not been repealed, not for lack of trying. On the Internet, you can easily visit a dating site for farmers and ranchers, but not on the Obamacare site.

No, actually, we’re talking about the Commonwealth of Virginia’s race for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, a campaign during which District of Columbia residents have been bombarded just because of proximity with countless, perhaps more than countless, of television ads on an hourly basis.

This has been an annoying non-stop process for months, to the point where political junkies, to which we admit to being, are having a hard time to keep from pulling out their hair.

Here, in the Republican corner, we had Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia state attorney general, who almost caused a GOP civil war in gaining the party’s nomination to run for governor, pitted against Terry McAuliffe, who never previously held public office but has helped many people gain public office with generous support and donations, especially President Barack Obama—who carried Virginia twice—and Bill and Hillary Clinton, his very own BFFs, who have stumped the state for him.

Here, we had Republican state senator Mark Obenshain, a low key social conservative, and Democrat Mark Herrin, running for attorney general, while Democrat and physician Ralph Northam was pitted against outspoken anti-abortion Republican E.W. Jackson in the race for lieutenant governor. Long will their names be not remembered in the District of Columbia.
We have watched this campaign—by force—spiraling away every day. Cuccinelli vowing to create jobs, touting his early attempts to get rid of Obamacare, lambasting McAuliffe with a variety of questionable and not questionable negative ads, returned in kind by McAuliffe who attacked Cuccinelli for his stands on abortion rights for women, his social conservatism, and his failure to back GOP Governor Robert McDonnell’s transportation plan.

With McAuliffe holding a lead in the polls almost from the get go—a Zogby poll had him ahead by 12 percent, most others by much less than that—Cuccinelli failed to find traction in Northern Virginia. Cuccinelli’s best bet might have been President Obama campaigning for McAuliffe, giving him a chance to slam Obamacare. But McAuliffe—with no political experience or governing experience—seemed to have grown during the course of the campaign. He actually seemed to enjoy campaigning, a sharp contrast to Cuccinelli and his ads. The last image of the last ad for his campaign had a grim, unsmiling Cuccinelli walking toward the cameras. He might as well have said, “Vote for me, or I’ll arrest you.”

The odd part of the campaign was that neither candidate ever described himself or was described as a Democrat or Republican. Cuccinelli is a conservative, who was painted with the tar brush of the folks considered responsible for shutting down the government, our friends the Teaists, while McAuliffe was generally looked at as a liberal. Could this be the end of the party system as we know it? Doubt it.

There was another so-called race going on in New Jersey where Gov. Chris Christie was expected to win re-election over Democrat Barbara Buono by a hefty margin. Buono said that she was not running for president but that Christie is. Duh. Christie is so popular about the only thing that could derail him is an encounter with a lemon meringue pie. Hmm, make that a Key lime pie.