Clinton Withdraws Ad Buys In Virginia
Congratulations. Virginia is no longer a swing state.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the super PAC supporting it have removed its state-specific ads in two battleground states, Virginia and Colorado, a sign of growing confidence in her position in the presidential race after both party’s conventions.
According to a Democrat tracking media buys, the Clinton campaign has renewed its ad buys in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. But it allowed its state-specific ads in Virginia and Colorado to lapse, though it is still airing ads on national during the Olympics.
There is no question that grassroots leadership has lost all confidence in its self-appointed leaders at this rate. Unity is code for force, Republicans are throwing people out of the party (or in many cases, are pulling the rip cord on their own), the policy of addition by subtraction in the pursuit of power has yielded its crop, and Virginia Republicans are perhaps at our lowest ebb since the 2006 defeat of George Allen and careening towards 2008 results in Virginia.
Of course, 2009 was a rebound — but Virginia Republicans were much stronger then.
Today?
The idea that Virginia isn’t even being contested?
I do not know what the path forward looks like. Those who have hijacked the passion and enthusiasm of the Tea Party movement for personal prestige and gain are just as much to blame as those who have held the reins of power and done little to advance the conservative cause. The whole thing has turned into a money making enterprise, with ideas borrowed only insofar as someone can raise money or aggregate power on the idea… does that sound jaded and cynical? Well, I am — I gotta say, I really am.
Across the pond, if leadership does not carry an election for their party? The leadership resigns to make way for new leadership.
What is clear is that however 2016 turns out, 2017 needs to look and feel like a reboot — and the old needs to clear way for the new. Whatever is working today clearly isn’t working for the conservative movement.
