Entering July, there has been little to note about any of the campaigns that hasn’t been negative. The press, happy to report attacks or start their own, has thrown a high level of ink at bashing candidates everywhere, while their editorial boards bemoan the negative campaigning that pays their salaries.
Here’s how it’s shaping up:
Ken Cuccinelli wants to debate. He wants to debate now, later, often…and if Terry McAuliffe isn’t up to the challenge, Cuccinelli will debate Vice-President Joe Biden. Guess he thinks it’s a 2016 preview.
Cuccinelli wants 15 debates and McAuliffe agreed to 5. I’m still hoping that one debate has Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling as the moderator and they put it on Pay-Per-View to benefit Bearing Drift, but I kind of doubt it.
I’ve met both candidates, and spoke at length with McAuliffe. He is very energetic and earnest, but when I spoke with him, he really didn’t have the details down about what he wanted to accomplish and how he wanted to accomplish it. He seems to be a big-time delegator. Not horrible if you’re a great communicator, but so far, he isn’t.
Cuccinelli, however, has a total command of details. He is brilliant and he’s a wonk. He can spend an hour talking about one law without notes. Democrats always make the mistake of attacking Cuccinelli and trying to lampoon him. Voters then hear Cuccinelli and come away impressed. Underestimate Cuccinelli at your own peril.
Race is pretty even right now, but Cuccinelli has the “Democrat in the White House” wind at his back. Voters are likely to see Washington’s scandals in the Executive Mansion, the national push for gay marriage, the Texas fight to abort babies at 6-month pregnancies and economic inertia and take it out on McAuliffe. Clinton gave Virginia Allen and Gilmore. Bush gave Virginia Warner and Kaine. Obama is likely to give Virginia McDonnell and Cuccinelli. That pendulum has held true since Watergate.
The press is trying to do the same by printing stories every other day that Governor McDonnell’s third cousin got a BOGO deal at Wal-Mart to buy a Christmas gift for McDonnell’s sister’s best friend’s husband.
It’s not punching through. Most people disregard this silliness, and the press’s repeated regurgitating of this is seriously making their calls for “campaigns on issues” to ring pretty hollow.
One Democrat operative told me earlier this year “I can’t believe we are running the only Democrat Cuccinelli can beat.” Not sure that’s true – Cuccinelli beats lots of Democrats – but it’s a common lack of excitement Democrats have for T-Mac. Does anyone really think Biden wants Clinton-aligned McAuliffe in the Governor’s mansion?
The race for Lieutenant Governor is a study in opposites. Republican E.W. Jackson is attracting all the attention, and all the attacks, while Cuccinelli smiles and shakes hands. Democrats are falling over themselves attacking Jackson (One can surmise that the Democrats didn’t name their “Jefferson-Jackson” dinners after EW). Problem is, they nominated lackluster Ralph Northam. Time hasn’t been good to poor Ralph. In slanted district 6, he can appeal to his Democrat base and win his Senate seat. Statewide, Northam has to hope for Jackson to lose for Northam to wind up winning by default.
Northam is no moderate. He votes party line, is an extreme social liberal, economic liberal. He campaigned far to the left to get his party’s nomination and can’t wait to run on social issues in the fall.
Jackson shouldn’t take the bait. Social conservatives are already there for him. When Ralph rants about wanting to kill the unborn and redefining marriage in Virginia, Jackson should just say “Ralph, when are you going to help people find jobs.”
That takes a focused, disciplined campaign from Jackson.
The race for Attorney General is already over. Democrats have lost every AG race in Virginia since the Berlin Wall fell, and nothing Democrat Mark Herring is doing is changing that dynamic. Mark Obenshain is smart and charming. Mark Herring is already flipflopping on what he thinks the job of Attorney General is – not good for July.
Obenshain’s problem is to not enjoy his providence of drawing such a weak opponent and campaign as if the Democrats actually took this office seriously. When Creigh Deeds has been your most competitive nominee in 20 years, you’re in serious trouble, Dems.
If Cuccinelli stays on offense, Jackson campaigns smarter than Northam, and Obenshain runs up a lead, all three have a path to victory.
Democrats, who have been telling Republicans to stop talking about social issues for years, are counting on social issues to win, despite all polling to the contrary.
It will be an interesting summer!
