Posts
The Washington Post just realized that Brian Moran is just as corrupt as his brother Jim. Let's hope that the Democrats don't find out until after they nominate Brian in the primary!
The corruption of the Morans should come as no surprise to people who follow politics. Jim is a powerful appropriator, that third party in Washington that includes other honorable public servants like Duke Cunningham and Jack Murtha. What comes to a surprise to me is that the Washington Post managed to write up an entire article on the ties between Jim, Brian, and key defense contractors and failed to mention the deep ties between Jim and the scandal-ridden lobbying firm PMA.
HELLO?!
Moran's ties to PMA and its network was worthy of a near page long analysis of the ties in Roll Call back in March.
When will this end?!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Big Ideas
Just saw this . . .
And the related website.
Let one thing be clear. If the Democrats define Bob McDonnell as a tool of the religious right, it doesn't matter if the Democratic candidate is Terry McAuliffe or Howard Dean, they'll win. The Republican Party is not going to win back Virginia by focusing on a narrow range of social issues. McDonnell needs to think big.
And the related website.
Let one thing be clear. If the Democrats define Bob McDonnell as a tool of the religious right, it doesn't matter if the Democratic candidate is Terry McAuliffe or Howard Dean, they'll win. The Republican Party is not going to win back Virginia by focusing on a narrow range of social issues. McDonnell needs to think big.
A Reboot, Blogging Thoughts & Teabag Foolery
After a little over a three month hiatus since my last two (and first two) posts, I'm back.
I expect I will swing back and forth between posting a lot for several days and posting almost nothing for extended periods of time. There are two reasons for this. First:
And second . . . read the whole thing. Yeah, I'm serious, go read it. And then come back. Thank you.
I think blogging should be like a journal or a collection of essays. You're never going to have the definitive post that explains everything, but you may have a post that makes a big stride in that direction. And so I'm going to be holding back on blogging until I've built up sufficient ideas for a a lengthy post. For some periods of time the ideas will be flowing day after day. Other times, not so much.
One key lesson so far: Virginia Republicans have serious problems with both new voters in 2008 AND with Bush voters that jumped ship.
In no particular order, this big picture concern includes several demographic problems for Virginia Republicans.
Democrats are surging among voters with college degrees. Take a look at the localities in Virginia: Charlottesville and Albemarle (UVA), Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, James City (William and Mary) and Montgomery (VT). The strong Democratic performance around Charlottesville contributed to the defeat of Congressman Virgil Goode. Obama pulled out a narrow 51.73% victory in Montgomery County and finished with a more distant 44.95% in James City County. But compare that to Kerry's 44.83% in Montgomery County and 38.39% in James City County. If this trend keeps up, how long until Williamsburg and James City County become a danger to Congressman Rob Wittman's reelection chances?
But it's ok if the Republican Party is alienating college educated voters, the new "creative class," if they keep bringing home white working class voters, right?
What if we have problems with white working class voters too?
Andrew Levison has an interesting white paper at the Democratic Strategist on Obama's performance among younger white working class voters. (PDF) You might not want to listen to a liberal publication founded by William Galston, Stan Greenberg, and Ruy Teixeira. But Teixeira in particular seems to have been right on the money about the "Emerging Democratic Majority" and what the coalition would look like, even if an election cycle or two late. Know your enemies, so they say.
McCain won white working class voters 58-40, a margin not that different from 2004 and 2000. But Levison notes that a Pew Research Center study indicated that younger white working class voters split almost evenly, 50-48. Republicans will not be politically viable if the white working class voters of tomorrow aren't as overwhelmingly Republican as they are today.
I don't want to belabor the point (or do I?), but the Republican Party has some serious problems, both nationally and in Virginia. It would be great if the LBJ-McGovern coalition of minorities, feminists, and professionals locked the Democratic Party into permanent minority status. It did, for a while. But now we are a less Christian nation. We are a less white nation and the attempt by Mel Martinez and Karl Rove to reach out to Hispanics collapsed in a Minuteman induced explosion.
If we allow the Democrats to box us in as the party of white Christians, almost by definition we will be in the minority when the country is no longer majority white and majority Christian. It's that simple.
And going around complaining that Obama is a tyrant, after eight years of Bush expanding government spending more than any President since LBJ, on top of his own misuse of executive power, isn't going to change the GOP's fortunes at the polls.
I expect I will swing back and forth between posting a lot for several days and posting almost nothing for extended periods of time. There are two reasons for this. First:
The strength of a blog is not in any individual piece, but in working through the ideas in real time, responding to each day’s news events in some small way, putting a spin, adding a bit of understanding. Even as I would do that, I would still attempt to write “the piece” that would make a difference, that would change minds.
Blogging is about writing dozens of pieces - which together form a kind of journal, allowing insights into thought processes that are not available in single articles which should be consistent and coherent. Instead, blogs at their best provide a messy view of the thought process that would go behind an article, behind an idea. As people respond and attack and support a blogger’s arguments, they evolve. And that it what makes blogs a strong medium - even if it also demonstrates why they can never replace more definitive works.
And second . . . read the whole thing. Yeah, I'm serious, go read it. And then come back. Thank you.
I think blogging should be like a journal or a collection of essays. You're never going to have the definitive post that explains everything, but you may have a post that makes a big stride in that direction. And so I'm going to be holding back on blogging until I've built up sufficient ideas for a a lengthy post. For some periods of time the ideas will be flowing day after day. Other times, not so much.
One key lesson so far: Virginia Republicans have serious problems with both new voters in 2008 AND with Bush voters that jumped ship.
In no particular order, this big picture concern includes several demographic problems for Virginia Republicans.
Democrats are surging among voters with college degrees. Take a look at the localities in Virginia: Charlottesville and Albemarle (UVA), Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, James City (William and Mary) and Montgomery (VT). The strong Democratic performance around Charlottesville contributed to the defeat of Congressman Virgil Goode. Obama pulled out a narrow 51.73% victory in Montgomery County and finished with a more distant 44.95% in James City County. But compare that to Kerry's 44.83% in Montgomery County and 38.39% in James City County. If this trend keeps up, how long until Williamsburg and James City County become a danger to Congressman Rob Wittman's reelection chances?
But it's ok if the Republican Party is alienating college educated voters, the new "creative class," if they keep bringing home white working class voters, right?
What if we have problems with white working class voters too?
Andrew Levison has an interesting white paper at the Democratic Strategist on Obama's performance among younger white working class voters. (PDF) You might not want to listen to a liberal publication founded by William Galston, Stan Greenberg, and Ruy Teixeira. But Teixeira in particular seems to have been right on the money about the "Emerging Democratic Majority" and what the coalition would look like, even if an election cycle or two late. Know your enemies, so they say.
McCain won white working class voters 58-40, a margin not that different from 2004 and 2000. But Levison notes that a Pew Research Center study indicated that younger white working class voters split almost evenly, 50-48. Republicans will not be politically viable if the white working class voters of tomorrow aren't as overwhelmingly Republican as they are today.
I don't want to belabor the point (or do I?), but the Republican Party has some serious problems, both nationally and in Virginia. It would be great if the LBJ-McGovern coalition of minorities, feminists, and professionals locked the Democratic Party into permanent minority status. It did, for a while. But now we are a less Christian nation. We are a less white nation and the attempt by Mel Martinez and Karl Rove to reach out to Hispanics collapsed in a Minuteman induced explosion.
If we allow the Democrats to box us in as the party of white Christians, almost by definition we will be in the minority when the country is no longer majority white and majority Christian. It's that simple.
And going around complaining that Obama is a tyrant, after eight years of Bush expanding government spending more than any President since LBJ, on top of his own misuse of executive power, isn't going to change the GOP's fortunes at the polls.
Monday, December 29, 2008
The Shape of Things to Come
If my first blog post didn't reveal it already, I'll come out and say it: I'm a numbers guy.
And, ultimately, no matter how much I like a candidate, what matters most is if they are electable. Someway, somehow.
But to understand the concept of electability, Virginia Republicans need to understand the New Dominion that has replaced the Old.
I noted that 2008 saw an increase of over half a million voters overall in Virginia, 524,893, with that voter growth favoring Obama by almost two to one. There was no question for first time voting in the 2004 exit polls, but the raw vote totals showed Bush picking up 279,469 votes from his 2000 showing and Kerry picking up 237,452 over Gore. From 2000 to 2004, the number of voters in Virginia grew by a little less than half a million: 458,920. This indicates that not all of Kerry's gains over Gore came from new voters, some were certainly Nader voters.
Two elections cycles, both with similar increases in total voters. But two very different stories. In 2004, both parties dug down and managed to expand their base by similar numbers. With Virginia tilting Republican, it wasn't enough for John Kerry to pull off a win. But four years later, Obama pulled out almost 330,000 new voters, while McCain fell behind and increased his base by less than 200,000 new voters. Add on top of that the swing of 125,000 odd Bush-Obama, and Virginia went blue for the first time in decades.
What went wrong?
First, with Bush's historically low approval ratings, it's understandable that the Republican Party brand was tarnished in Virginia as in the rest of the country.
Second, Barack Obama's campaign knocked the socks off of John McCain's in voter registration and mobilization.
But if John McCain had had the resources to invest in boots on the ground, would he have been able to match Obama for the surge in new voters?
Or, have the Republicans in Virginia tapped out their base? Maybe there just aren't new voters out there for the current GOP to mobilize?
That's a worrying thought for Virginia Republicans.
But let's set that thought aside, for just a moment.
Looking ahead to 2009, it's helpful to look back at 2001 and 2005.
In 2001, voter turnout dropped from 2000's 68% to 46%. In 2005, turnout dropped from 71% in the 2004 election to 45%. In 2008, voter turnout in Virginia hit 75%. I mentioned that there are some who are optimistic that the Obama side of the turnout surge will fade away without Obama on the ballot. But voting can very quickly become a habit. Turnout in the 2009 election will probably be in the mid to high 40s, with the total number of voters topping 2 million.
The 2009 election will be a lower turnout affair. In many ways, it will be a contest over mobilizing the base. But with the New Dominion tilting Democratic, the Republican Party has a higher hurdle than in the past in order to win.
I'm sure that some will make the argument that the Obama voters are temporary, that McCain failed to "activate" non-voters sympathetic to the GOP, and that all we need to do in Virginia is tap into the base. 2009, 2010, 2011 will have lower turnout and without Obama on the ballot, the GOP will out compete the Democrats. By the time 2012 comes around, we'll have a new Republican nominee who will be able to match Obama's cult of personality with his (or her) own appeal to the mysterious Republican non-voters of 2008.
Because the next three elections in Virginia will not feature Obama on the ballot, giving Democrats their own concerns about how to mobilize their base without the Messiah leading them, the prescription is not entirely a bad one. But Virginia Democrats won without Obama in 2005, 2006, and 2007. There's more to worry about than just Obama. Obama winning Virginia in 2008 is not a warning, it's not the first sign of trouble. It's the end result of years of ignoring a growing problem.
I attempted to outline some of the problems with the Republican Party of Virginia in an old blog post at the Next Right. Long story short (a story I will continue to come back to as I blog), the Republican Party failed to define itself as offering an alternative to the Warner tax hikes. Ever since, the Democrats of Virginia have ran as "Mark Warner Democrats" that focus on solutions, while the Republicans are cast (by the Democrats and a willing media) as do nothing defenders of the old status quo.
Going forward, the Republican Party of Virginia should focus on connecting with its base and mobilizing conservative voters for the next three election cycles. Conservatives need to be mobilized not by defending the status quo, but applying conservative principles and conservative values to solving today's problems. But there also needs to be due diligence paid to exploiting cracks in the Democratic coalition in order to win over voters.
And, ultimately, no matter how much I like a candidate, what matters most is if they are electable. Someway, somehow.
But to understand the concept of electability, Virginia Republicans need to understand the New Dominion that has replaced the Old.
I noted that 2008 saw an increase of over half a million voters overall in Virginia, 524,893, with that voter growth favoring Obama by almost two to one. There was no question for first time voting in the 2004 exit polls, but the raw vote totals showed Bush picking up 279,469 votes from his 2000 showing and Kerry picking up 237,452 over Gore. From 2000 to 2004, the number of voters in Virginia grew by a little less than half a million: 458,920. This indicates that not all of Kerry's gains over Gore came from new voters, some were certainly Nader voters.
Two elections cycles, both with similar increases in total voters. But two very different stories. In 2004, both parties dug down and managed to expand their base by similar numbers. With Virginia tilting Republican, it wasn't enough for John Kerry to pull off a win. But four years later, Obama pulled out almost 330,000 new voters, while McCain fell behind and increased his base by less than 200,000 new voters. Add on top of that the swing of 125,000 odd Bush-Obama, and Virginia went blue for the first time in decades.
What went wrong?
First, with Bush's historically low approval ratings, it's understandable that the Republican Party brand was tarnished in Virginia as in the rest of the country.
Second, Barack Obama's campaign knocked the socks off of John McCain's in voter registration and mobilization.
But if John McCain had had the resources to invest in boots on the ground, would he have been able to match Obama for the surge in new voters?
Or, have the Republicans in Virginia tapped out their base? Maybe there just aren't new voters out there for the current GOP to mobilize?
That's a worrying thought for Virginia Republicans.
But let's set that thought aside, for just a moment.
Looking ahead to 2009, it's helpful to look back at 2001 and 2005.
In 2001, voter turnout dropped from 2000's 68% to 46%. In 2005, turnout dropped from 71% in the 2004 election to 45%. In 2008, voter turnout in Virginia hit 75%. I mentioned that there are some who are optimistic that the Obama side of the turnout surge will fade away without Obama on the ballot. But voting can very quickly become a habit. Turnout in the 2009 election will probably be in the mid to high 40s, with the total number of voters topping 2 million.
The 2009 election will be a lower turnout affair. In many ways, it will be a contest over mobilizing the base. But with the New Dominion tilting Democratic, the Republican Party has a higher hurdle than in the past in order to win.
I'm sure that some will make the argument that the Obama voters are temporary, that McCain failed to "activate" non-voters sympathetic to the GOP, and that all we need to do in Virginia is tap into the base. 2009, 2010, 2011 will have lower turnout and without Obama on the ballot, the GOP will out compete the Democrats. By the time 2012 comes around, we'll have a new Republican nominee who will be able to match Obama's cult of personality with his (or her) own appeal to the mysterious Republican non-voters of 2008.
Because the next three elections in Virginia will not feature Obama on the ballot, giving Democrats their own concerns about how to mobilize their base without the Messiah leading them, the prescription is not entirely a bad one. But Virginia Democrats won without Obama in 2005, 2006, and 2007. There's more to worry about than just Obama. Obama winning Virginia in 2008 is not a warning, it's not the first sign of trouble. It's the end result of years of ignoring a growing problem.
I attempted to outline some of the problems with the Republican Party of Virginia in an old blog post at the Next Right. Long story short (a story I will continue to come back to as I blog), the Republican Party failed to define itself as offering an alternative to the Warner tax hikes. Ever since, the Democrats of Virginia have ran as "Mark Warner Democrats" that focus on solutions, while the Republicans are cast (by the Democrats and a willing media) as do nothing defenders of the old status quo.
Going forward, the Republican Party of Virginia should focus on connecting with its base and mobilizing conservative voters for the next three election cycles. Conservatives need to be mobilized not by defending the status quo, but applying conservative principles and conservative values to solving today's problems. But there also needs to be due diligence paid to exploiting cracks in the Democratic coalition in order to win over voters.
Ol' Virginny is Dead
The opening days of 2009 are just around the corner, and with this new year comes a new blog: my blog, this blog. 2008 was an eventful year for politics in the Commonwealth of Virginia, bringing with it the death of "Ol' Virginny" and my first adventure into blogging. After some thinking over the holidays, I have decided I want to try blogging on my own.
I want to start blogging because we need more voices on the right that come to bury ol' Virginny, not to praise it. If there's any state where the rightroots can help rebuild the once Grand Old Party, it's Virginia, a state where where the left's netroots have already shown power and influence in the candidacy of Jim Webb. My due diligence as a citizen and a conservative is to help put Virginia and the GOP back on track.
First things first, ol' Virginny is dead. Virginia's GOP cannot be allowed to fool themselves into believing that they can simply bounce back from Barack Obama winning the Commonwealth in 2008. It's the same tom foolery that made them overconfident of McCain's chances of holding the state before the election.
Take a look at the numbers.
In 2004, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry by 1,716,959 to 1,454,742. An assortment of other candidates pulled in 26,666 votes. Four years later, John McCain brought home a very similar number to Bush, 1,725,005. But Barack Obama's vote total surged ahead to 1,959,532. The rest of the gang pulled in 38,723 votes, for a total of 3,723,260. The 2004 election had 3,198,367 total voters.
An increase of over half a million voters. John McCain received a grand total of 8,046 more votes than George W. Bush. Barack Obama brought home 504,790 more than John Kerry. Young voters, African-Americans, new transplants to Virginia, etc. New voters by this rough estimate made up 14% of voters.
The exit polls suggest a similar story, with 13% of the voters saying it was their first time voting ever. They favored Barack Obama over John McCain 63% to 35%.
The argument, propelled by the results of the Georgia Senate Runoff and the results of the Louisiana House Races, is that these new voters, devout followers of the Cult of Obama, will slowly fade away, make a brief reappearance in 2012, but will generally not impact races outside of the Presidential. That's a possibility nationwide, but it ignores the rest of the exit poll in Virginia: 87% had voted before, and they split evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain 50% to 49%.
Take away the new voters, roughly half a million split two to one in favor of Barack Obama, and you're still looking at a pool of 3.2 million voters in Virginia evenly split between Obama and McCain. That's a shift from the 2004 results, where Bush finished ahead of Kerry by 8 points. We have around 125,000 Bush-Obama voters floating around statewide, probably more when you consider the Kerry-McCain voters in Southwest Virginia. Virginia Republicans can't just wish the new voters away, they have to figure out how they lost voters to the Democratic Party.
To pretend that it's just new voters that will disappear ignores the trends in Virginia politics in recent years. Mark Warner in 2001, dragging along Timmy Kaine into the LG's spot. Kaine's own election in 2005. Jim Webb in 2006. The State Senate in 2007. Barack Obama, Mark Warner, Gerry Connolly, Glenn Nye, and Tom Perriello in 2008.
The problem is (almost) statewide, not confined to any one region (almost).
1st District:
McCain: +4,856 over Bush
Obama: +56,671 over Kerry
2nd District:
McCain: -4,372 behind Bush
Obama: +40,681 over Kerry
3rd District:
McCain: -7,053 behind Bush
Obama: +71,261 over Kerry
4th District:
McCain: +6,669 over Bush
Obama: +53,631 over Kerry
5th District:
McCain: +6,306 over Bush
Obama: +35,402 over Kerry
6th District:
McCain: +5,440 over Bush
Obama: +33,651 over Kerry
7th District:
McCain: +1,676 over Bush
Obama: +49,623 over Kerry
8th District:
McCain: -4,064 behind Bush
Obama: +44,678 over Kerry
9th District:
McCain: +6,562 over Bush
Obama: +6,558 over Kerry
10th District:
McCain: -2,873 behind Bush
Obama: +60,223 over Kerry
11th District:
McCain: -5,101 behind Bush
Obama: +52,411 over Kerry
The 9th District is the only silver lining, if that. Everywhere else, Obama picked up significant gains over John Kerry and left McCain either behind Bush or posting only minor gains.
The Democrats now control the Congressional Delegation from Virginia. They have both Senators for the first time in decades, and control six out of the eleven House seats. Two Democratic Congressmen, Boucher and Perriello, represent districts that voted for McCain. The rest of the Democratic delegation hails from districts that voted for Obama. Republicans Wolf and Forbes represent districts that voted for Obama.
So, the Republican Party of Virginia is at a low point. If they aren't careful, it could get even lower. A lot is on the line in 2009, the last round of state elections before redistricting. If the Democrats control redistricting, or at least are able to negotiate from a position of strength, their gains Congress could be reinforced and the 10th, the 4th, and perhaps even the 1st could be put into danger in 2012. The state legislature would shift even more to the left. Virginia's welcoming business climate would fall apart, leaving the state economically dependent on the federal government. Not that the Democrats would mind.
But there is also a great opportunity for the Republican Party of Virginia. They could start to turn the tide in 2009. The next few election cycles could return a Republican to the Governor's House, turn back the trend of Democratic gains in the House of Delegates, take back seats in the House of Representatives, defeat Jim Webb, and even turn Virginia red in the presidential election.
I want to start blogging because we need more voices on the right that come to bury ol' Virginny, not to praise it. If there's any state where the rightroots can help rebuild the once Grand Old Party, it's Virginia, a state where where the left's netroots have already shown power and influence in the candidacy of Jim Webb. My due diligence as a citizen and a conservative is to help put Virginia and the GOP back on track.
First things first, ol' Virginny is dead. Virginia's GOP cannot be allowed to fool themselves into believing that they can simply bounce back from Barack Obama winning the Commonwealth in 2008. It's the same tom foolery that made them overconfident of McCain's chances of holding the state before the election.
Take a look at the numbers.
In 2004, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry by 1,716,959 to 1,454,742. An assortment of other candidates pulled in 26,666 votes. Four years later, John McCain brought home a very similar number to Bush, 1,725,005. But Barack Obama's vote total surged ahead to 1,959,532. The rest of the gang pulled in 38,723 votes, for a total of 3,723,260. The 2004 election had 3,198,367 total voters.
An increase of over half a million voters. John McCain received a grand total of 8,046 more votes than George W. Bush. Barack Obama brought home 504,790 more than John Kerry. Young voters, African-Americans, new transplants to Virginia, etc. New voters by this rough estimate made up 14% of voters.
The exit polls suggest a similar story, with 13% of the voters saying it was their first time voting ever. They favored Barack Obama over John McCain 63% to 35%.
The argument, propelled by the results of the Georgia Senate Runoff and the results of the Louisiana House Races, is that these new voters, devout followers of the Cult of Obama, will slowly fade away, make a brief reappearance in 2012, but will generally not impact races outside of the Presidential. That's a possibility nationwide, but it ignores the rest of the exit poll in Virginia: 87% had voted before, and they split evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain 50% to 49%.
Take away the new voters, roughly half a million split two to one in favor of Barack Obama, and you're still looking at a pool of 3.2 million voters in Virginia evenly split between Obama and McCain. That's a shift from the 2004 results, where Bush finished ahead of Kerry by 8 points. We have around 125,000 Bush-Obama voters floating around statewide, probably more when you consider the Kerry-McCain voters in Southwest Virginia. Virginia Republicans can't just wish the new voters away, they have to figure out how they lost voters to the Democratic Party.
To pretend that it's just new voters that will disappear ignores the trends in Virginia politics in recent years. Mark Warner in 2001, dragging along Timmy Kaine into the LG's spot. Kaine's own election in 2005. Jim Webb in 2006. The State Senate in 2007. Barack Obama, Mark Warner, Gerry Connolly, Glenn Nye, and Tom Perriello in 2008.
The problem is (almost) statewide, not confined to any one region (almost).
1st District:
McCain: +4,856 over Bush
Obama: +56,671 over Kerry
2nd District:
McCain: -4,372 behind Bush
Obama: +40,681 over Kerry
3rd District:
McCain: -7,053 behind Bush
Obama: +71,261 over Kerry
4th District:
McCain: +6,669 over Bush
Obama: +53,631 over Kerry
5th District:
McCain: +6,306 over Bush
Obama: +35,402 over Kerry
6th District:
McCain: +5,440 over Bush
Obama: +33,651 over Kerry
7th District:
McCain: +1,676 over Bush
Obama: +49,623 over Kerry
8th District:
McCain: -4,064 behind Bush
Obama: +44,678 over Kerry
9th District:
McCain: +6,562 over Bush
Obama: +6,558 over Kerry
10th District:
McCain: -2,873 behind Bush
Obama: +60,223 over Kerry
11th District:
McCain: -5,101 behind Bush
Obama: +52,411 over Kerry
The 9th District is the only silver lining, if that. Everywhere else, Obama picked up significant gains over John Kerry and left McCain either behind Bush or posting only minor gains.
The Democrats now control the Congressional Delegation from Virginia. They have both Senators for the first time in decades, and control six out of the eleven House seats. Two Democratic Congressmen, Boucher and Perriello, represent districts that voted for McCain. The rest of the Democratic delegation hails from districts that voted for Obama. Republicans Wolf and Forbes represent districts that voted for Obama.
So, the Republican Party of Virginia is at a low point. If they aren't careful, it could get even lower. A lot is on the line in 2009, the last round of state elections before redistricting. If the Democrats control redistricting, or at least are able to negotiate from a position of strength, their gains Congress could be reinforced and the 10th, the 4th, and perhaps even the 1st could be put into danger in 2012. The state legislature would shift even more to the left. Virginia's welcoming business climate would fall apart, leaving the state economically dependent on the federal government. Not that the Democrats would mind.
But there is also a great opportunity for the Republican Party of Virginia. They could start to turn the tide in 2009. The next few election cycles could return a Republican to the Governor's House, turn back the trend of Democratic gains in the House of Delegates, take back seats in the House of Representatives, defeat Jim Webb, and even turn Virginia red in the presidential election.
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