One can only assume that the Republican Party of Virginia learned absolutely nothing from the election earlier this month. How else to explain the fact that Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli - one of the most extreme and deranged politicians in Virginia today other than perhaps Del. Bob Marshall - will be the GOP standard bearer in the 2013 race for governor of Virginia. Kookinelli is virulently anti-gay rights, anti-women's rights, a full blown science denier, and makes Bob McDonnell look like a flaming liberal. I'm sure that the Christofascists at The Family Foundation will be orgasmic, but anyone sane in Virginia ought to be terrified. Kookinelli belongs in an asylum and is like Rick Santorum, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock all rolled into one. The job will be for the Democrats to turn out their base and hopefully see Kookinelli defeated by a landslide. Politico looks at this situation as Bill Bolling drops out of the GOP race. Here are highlights:
It’s only been three weeks since Republicans explained their thumping in the 2012 elections by saying they needed to reach out to women, Hispanics and young voters.
But it now seems that one of their chief standard-bearers in 2013 will be a national conservative firebrand who has aligned himself with some of his party’s most controversial causes: Virginia Republican Ken Cuccinelli.
On the day his chief rival for the GOP gubernatorial nod dropped out of contention, Virginia Republicans rallied around Cuccinelli — their attorney general who spearheaded a lawsuit against Obamacare and ruled in 2010 that police officers are allowed to check the immigration status of those they stop or arrest.Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling dropped out of the governor’s race Wednesday after it became abundantly clear he had no real chance to win the nomination at a May party convention that will be dominated by conservative activists.
Many party leaders and top GOP strategists on Wednesday hinted at private anxieties about “Cooch” — his nickname — and his position on the right side of the ideological spectrum. But most Republicans think that clearing the field now improves their chances of winning the governorship next fall by allowing Cuccinelli to move early into general election mode.
But there’s no doubt that picking the high-profile Cuccinelli as their standard-bearer could cause something of a public relations headache for Republicans, fresh off a defeat of Mitt Romney that was largely caused by his inability to attract enough non-white, non-male voters.
As attorney general, Cuccinelli sued the Environmental Protection Agency over greenhouse gas regulations. He lost a court fight to release the emails of a University of Virginia professor who studies climate change. He pushed for building regulations that make it harder for abortion clinics to operate. He issued advisory opinions that made it harder for schools to prevent students from bringing guns onto campus.
On immigration, Cuccinelli’s own language on his 2013 gubernatorial campaign website is harsh in tone.
“It’s going to be a hard race mostly because the image people have of Ken Cuccinelli … is not good,” he said. “I’m a moderate. He’s a conservative. But he’s a very, very smart and honest person. Ken’s always supported me, too. He’s not one of these guys on a mission to eradicate all people [from the GOP] who aren’t super conservative.” Albo tells constituents who express concerns about the tea party favorite that they should go listen to him speak, believing that the more people get to see him, the more they will like him.
A top Democratic strategist involved in the race said that one of the major knocks on the presumptive Republican nominee will be that he has traded everyday issues that voters care about for the national spotlight.
“I would love Bolling to stay in and have a bloody primary,” the strategist said. “But there’s always the fear that Bolling could win. Cuccinelli is the perfect candidate for us. He has the potential to say any of these outrageous things. He’s got a lot of baggage and a lot of great quotes to pull out from the past. He’s divisive. He’s not focused on jobs and the economy.”
By most accounts, many Germans thought Hitler was a good speaker. That did not make him any less crazy and any less of a threat to many Germans such as gays, Jews and those who tried to oppose him. Kookinelli needs to be defeated and the Democrats will need to pull out the stops to defeat him and his Christofascist backers decisively.
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