Social Issues and the Virginia Race

I have been beating the drum for some time on the need of Creigh Deeds and other Virginia Democrats to smoke out Bob McDonnell's views on social issues because the minute his record becomes widely known, his disingenuous campaign presenting him as a moderate will disintegrate. No moderate has Taliban Bob's voting history and less than tolerate legislative efforts. I have known Bob McDonnell for 15 years and during that time period he has always been the darling of Pat Robertson - who I suspect has given him a sizable campaign contribution - and The Family Foundation, Daddy Dobson's poisonous Virginia affiliate that wants nothing less than a theocracy. Fortunately, a new Washington Post editorial has raised the question of why Taliban Bob doesn't want to discuss social issues, particularly abortion. I hope Deeds and other Virginia Democrats take the cue and start educating voters on McDonnell's real far right agenda. Here are some highlights:

*

ROBERT F. McDONNELL, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, has an admirably detailed Web site. It devotes thousands of words to his plans to create jobs, end gridlock, improve education, enhance public safety, clean up the environment, tighten public spending . . . well, you get the idea. However, Mr. McDonnell, the former attorney general, gives relatively short shrift -- just two or three sentences -- to the topic of abortion, a subject that preoccupied him so much during his career as a lawmaker that he introduced some 35 bills to restrict access to the procedure. Mr. McDonnell is not trying to hide his absolutist opposition to abortion, which extends even to cases of rape or incest; let's just say he's not advertising it too loudly.

*

So why is Mr. McDonnell's campaign complaining that it is unfair of Mr. Deeds to raise social issues? The short answer is the Deeds message dents the moderate, pragmatic image that Mr. McDonnell has nurtured in the past few years. To win in November, Mr. McDonnell needs to appeal to centrist Democrats and independents in the state's most populous region, Northern Virginia. And a fair number of his positions -- for instance, allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives or banning college health centers from distributing morning-after pills while opposing abortion in all instances -- may not sit well with middle-of-the-road voters in Northern Virginia and elsewhere.

*

Mr. Deeds's strategy of stressing abortion may work or backfire; time will tell. But to suggest, as the McDonnell campaign has, that a campaign discussion about abortion "is engaging in the politics of division" is disingenuous and wrong.

*

When the subject changes to LGBT rights, McDonnell is equally out in the far right fringe. Indeed, other than perhaps Del. Robert Marshall, McDonnell has done more than most Virginia elected officials to keep LGBT Virginians third or fourth class citizens. If you want Pat Robertson and The Family Foundation setting social policy, the McDonnell's your man. If you do not, then he MUST be defeated in November.