Well, they got what they asked for.
The Post’s latest poll finds Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell with a narrow, yet still strong, lead of 51-47 over the Democrat, Creigh Deeds, still outside the margin for error of three points.
However, the Post also writes of this poll in a self-congratulatory manner:
While the shift cannot be directly attributed to news about McDonnell’s graduate school thesis, Northern Virginian and independent women voters are now much more apt to consider McDonnell too conservative, and broadly disagree with the ideals McDonnell advocated in the paper.
Thank you for that blinding flash of the obvious.
While that seems to be all the Washington Post and Creigh Deeds would like to talk about, that hasn’t fooled a majority of Virginians. According to their poll, the sentiment among most respondents is that McDonnell will best handle the issues of the state budget, taxes, the economy, and transportation.
So, while it may be having some impact among women and Northern Virginia liberals who fail to look at McDonnell’s actual record of treating women in the workplace and look past Creigh Deeds condescending attitude towards them today, it hasn’t and won’t affect the rest of the electorate.
Right now, a majority of voters know that Creigh Deeds has no plan for transportation in Northern Virginia; no plan for bringing jobs to the region; no coherent energy policy. They know that there is only one candidate who they can trust who will take Virginia out of billion-dollar budget deficits, get people back to work, and end the gridlock.
Right now, the only candidate talking about those issues is Bob McDonnell.
Unfortunately, he’s the only one talking about these issues – period…and that includes those who tell us what to think, like the Washington Post.
But the Post’s poll only confirms what we already knew from two other recent polls – Rasmussen and Daily Kos, where McDonnell has the lead, but that the race is tightening. Which we expected all along anyway.
So, with the recent closure between Deeds and McDonnell in the polls, J.C. Wilmore has an interesting question for conservative bloggers:
“It seems like just a matter of time before the right wing bloggers lose their cool and begin frothing at the mouth. There’s no question that Allen’s “A-Team” hurt him with the press and with those following the race online. Will right wing bloggers shoot their candidate in the foot again this year?”
Wilmore also equates conservative bloggers with the tea-party movement, whose protests he says are “louder”, “nastier”, “crazier” and filled with “overt displays of racism.”
What Wilmore is actually saying is that he’s concerned that conservatives have grown a spine.
He doesn’t want conservatives standing up for a comprehensive energy policy.
He doesn’t want conservatives advocating for a solid, responsible transportation plan.
He doesn’t want conservatives pointing out Deeds inconsistencies and true feelings about women and gays. (“Young Lady” and “No special rights for gays!“).
He doesn’t want conservatives talking about the failed policies of Warner and Kaine which have cost Virginians jobs and foisted us into billion dollar deficits.
Wilmore writes this “warning” because he wants conservatives to sit on our keyboards. To slink into our accustomed role of allowing liberals to run roughshod over our country – and that includes what we allowed during the Bush administration.
But what Wilmore fails to see is that the genie is already out of the bottle and conservatives will not be silent anymore.
Conservatives know that we need to be getting out there, advocating loudly, strongly, clearly, yet respectfully, against government incompetence.
Conservatives know that in order to make any difference, we must defend and promote our ideas and our candidates.
Conservatives know that Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling, and Ken Cuccinelli are true leaders with grounded, proven and rational plans for dealing with our state’s most pressing problems – and so, conservatives know we need to get out there and make these policies known…despite the barricades that are set by the Washington Post.
Sorry, J.C. While you’d like the Post’s thrashing of McDonnell to be the end of this inconvenient conservative movement, it is likely only going to galvanize conservatives more.
