Tears and Denial In The Cuccinelli Camp

I truly do not want to appear mean spirited or even cruel, but I find it nearly impossible to feel any real sympathy for failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli.   So far, it appears that Cuccinelli wants  to blame anyone but himself - not to mention his extremism and obsession with controlling the sexual behavior of others.  Cooch has tried to say even in his concession speech that the vote in Virginia yesterday was a "referendum on Obamacare." Never mind that other than Medicaid expansion, there is nothing that a Virginia governor has any control over in the roll out of the Affordable Health Care Act.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the recriminations and self-delusion gripping the failed Cuccinelli organization.   Here are excerpts:

In a brutally negative campaign, McAuliffe pulled out his narrow victory with a massive financial advantage and by painting Cuccinelli as an extreme social conservative. The Democrat also took advantage of Cuccinelli’s refusal to condemn the Republican tactics that led to the government shutdown. The issue was particularly potent in Northern Virginia, where many residents work for the government or for government contractors.

By contrast, Cuccinelli sought to focus on McAuliffe’s business deals and to turn the race into a referendum on Obamacare, which Cuccinelli has steadily opposed. While the strategy rallied ardent Republicans to his banner, it also may have energized some Democrats. Carrie Thierry of Henrico told The Daily Beast that Obamacare was one of her strongest motivations for supporting McAuliffe. Although she has always had health insurance, she said, she knows many people who are not so fortunate and said it is important they be covered.

McAuliffe’s key advantage lay in social issues such as abortion and birth control. He capitalized on Cuccinelli’s record of taking deeply conservative positions on those issues, most notably his defense of Virginia’s ban on sodomy laws. McAuliffe’s ads emphasized Cuccinelli’s absolute opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and described him as anti-birth control.

But Steve Waters, a prominent Republican strategist in Virginia, said Cuccinelli was simply stabbed in the back by his own party. Waters said the narrow loss was the result of fellow Republicans who jumped ship to back McAuliffe or, in the case of Bill Bolling, the state’s GOP lieutenant governor, simply sat on their hands. Bolling’s actions were emblematic of moderate establishment Republicans trying to undermine conservatives in the party, Waters said, comparing the lieutenant governor to the Washington Republicans who didn’t stand by Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in the government shutdown. 

The defection of many Republicans, particularly those in the donor class, helped McAuliffe put together a whopping financial advantage. He outspent Cuccinelli by $15 million before taking outside groups such as the League of Conservative Voters and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Independence PAC into account. McAuliffe also put together a far more effective ground operation than Cuccinelli, led by veteran Democratic organizer Robby Mook.

One silver lining for the GOP in Jackson’s shambolic campaign was the optimism that the Republicans could pick off Northam’s state Senate seat in a special election. But that paled in comparison to the costs of a statewide campaign with an outlandish, gaffe-prone candidate. By contrast, the tightly matched race for attorney general between Republican Mark Obenshain and Democrat Mark Herring was too close to call on Election Night and was poised for a recount.

The contrast between the two gubernatorial candidates was never more clear than in their Election Night speeches. Both cited Thomas Jefferson and the importance of principle. Cuccinelli expressed his awe at the possibility that he might have succeeded the third president as governor of Virginia. He then went on to emphasize the importance of “first principles” of constitutional government and said his philosophy when he first ran for attorney general was “if there are enough people in Virginia who share our commitment to those first principles, we can’t lose and if there aren’t...we can’t win.”.

McAuliffe, meanwhile, cited Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural speech in 1800, saying his own differences with Cuccinelli and the GOP were “differences of opinion, not differences of principle.”

I honestly believe that Cuccinelli needs a mental health care intervention.  It will be most telling to see how he deals with defeat and whether or not he will go even more fully over the edge.