The Democratic flicker of hope

Jeff Schapiro’s Sunday sermon in the RTD strikes a tone of woe. For Virginia’s Democrats.

Their bench is thin and their cupboards nearly bare. Redistricting managed only to stave-off catastrophic losses in the Senate and apart from their largely urban strongholds, the party is almost an afterthought elsewhere in the commonwealth. Or at least it is for now (never forget that Republicans are past-masters at throwing away electoral advantages).

In short, Virginia’s Democrats really, really miss George Bush (just as Republicans may some day really, really miss President Obama).

While what color and life exists in his piece is provided by the irreplaceable Barnie Day, Jeff does manage to interject a bright, orange whopper. In Henrico, he detects a flicker of Democratic hope in the guise of Shannon Taylor. Taylor, you may recall, won the three-way race for commonwealth’s attorney:

Shannon Taylor pulled nearly 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race in which she was badly outspent. She cobbled for local office the kind of biracial, working class-professional class, eastern-western coalition that tipped Eric Cantor’s home county to Obama, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.

Taylor has four years to prove that her victory is more a reflection of Henrico’s political evolution than voter revulsion over the personal baggage of her two opponents; that it’s a genuine first step toward rebuilding the Democratic Party, which, like Barnie Day’s cows, quit giving.

That she has four years in office is correct. Though to quibble, she won just over 45 percent of the vote.

But do not forget that her win was a gift from the local Republican party. The apparatchiks intentionally split the vote by casting their own nominee aside in favor of an independent bid from former Del. Bill Janis. They then proceeded to write-off the eastern portion of the county (where an incumbent Republican Supervisor, Jim Donati, also lost…after conducting a lethargic campaign in the face of a determined challenger) and all but begged a Democrat — any Democrat — to win the CA race.

If this comedy of errors and hubris counts as a flicker of hope, then the Democrats’ darkness must be close to absolute. Their only real hope for a resurgence is if the local GOP decides to make its election day generosity a habit.

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About the author

Norman Leahy

Norm Leahy has written about Virginia and national politics online since 2002, beginning with One Man's Trash (OMT), and continuing through Bacon's Rebellion (both the blog and the e-zine), Sic Semper Tyrannis, NBC12's Decision Virginia, Richmond.com and Tertium Quids. He is the chief blogger at "The Score" and a producer of "The Score" radio show as well as being a Washington Examiner contributor.