Virginia to be Presidential Battlegound Again

Virginia 2013 vote when Democrats won every statewide office

Once upon a time Virginia was so predictable in how it would vote in presidential elections that the elections in the state were almost boring.  Now, with the Republican Party increasing unable to win statewide - the urbanized areas now can out vote the extremists in the rural areas - and Obama having won the state in 2008 and 2012, things have become more interesting and tumultuous.  For political junkies, that's a good thing, even if more nerve wracking.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the coming presidential battle for Virginia.  Here are some highlights:

Virginia has so far mostly been flyover country for presidential contenders zooming between New Hampshire, South Carolina and Iowa - the early primary and caucus states in next year's election.

But it won't stay that way: Virginia is viewed as key to victory in 2016. As one of a handful of "must win" states, several in the growing field of presidential candidates are building campaigns in the Old Dominion.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz launched his bid for the Republican nomination in March at Liberty University in Lynchburg. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is the school's commencement speaker Saturday. Those appearances likely have more to do with wooing support from conservative Christians who flock to the school, founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, from around the country.

What isn't yet evident is the money that's beginning to flow and the strategies that are beginning to form as political consultants try to figure out the key to winning a state that twice voted for President Barack Obama.

Larry Sabato, a University of Virginian political scientist, stressed that it's "ridiculously early" to draw any conclusions about what might happen given the large field of [GOP] candidates. Three more Republicans entered the contest this week: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former high-tech executive Carly Fiorina and neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

There no sense in trying to handicap the race at this point, Sabato said, noting that the parties' primary debates begin in August. "Some of these candidates won't even make it to Iowa," he said.
Nonetheless, says Curtis Colgate, GOP chairman for the 2nd Congressional District, "Your hardcore activists are already choosing sides."

The first critical decision may come in June, when Virginia Republicans will determine what method they'll use to decide whom to back at the national convention, Colgate said. The state central committee is expected to decide whether to conduct a preference primary on March 1 - as the Democrats expect to do - or to assign their national delegates through a state convention.

The convention can be moneymaker for the state party, as presidential candidates reach out to local party groups and individuals rather than conducting broad media campaigns aimed at all voters. A convention also can give committed GOP activists more say than a primary that is open to all voters.

In the competition for the Democratic nomination, Clinton has a lock on support from top state Democrats.

Sabato, who leads U.Va.'s Center for Politics, predicted that once the parties have their nominees, Virginians can expect to see a lot of them and their surrogates during the general election.
Virginia will be one of seven states that will decide the presidency, "unless it turns into a landslide," he said.

Look for the presidential campaigns and their supporting PACs to spend considerably more in 2016 than they unloaded in 2012, when a blizzard of ads and voter outreach efforts on behalf of President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney blanketed the state, Sabato said. The two campaigns collectively spent roughly $2 billion.

"Believe me, if I had the cash right now, I'd invest in any TV station in Virginia," Sabato said.

The Struggle to Turn North Carolina Blue

Living in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, one cannot escape North Carolina news because (i) some of the newer "bedroom communities" for the area are located just across the Virginia/North Carolina border and (ii) local news coverage includes northeast North Carolina.  As a result, it is easy to watch a struggle going on in North Carolina that mirrors Virginia: modern, progressive, urban parts of the state are trying to out vote the rural areas that embrace religious extremism, the GOP's reverse Robin Hood agenda and which view outsiders and modernity with a mindset not so far removed from that on display in the old movie "Deliverance."  For progressives, it's hard dealing with the batshitery that such backward areas support.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the ongoing struggle.  Here are excerpts (note the elderly voter who bemoans what has become of the GOP):

Charlotte, the largest city, the “research triangle” cities (and college towns) of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, and cities like Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Asheville are turning more blue than red, partly from an infusion of new workers in finance, health care, technology and education. But the state as a whole is more of a tossup.

Last year, Republicans took control of the governor’s mansion and increased their majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, giving them total control of state government in Raleigh for the first time in over a century. The new governor, Pat McCrory, thought to be a moderate when he was Charlotte’s mayor, helped lead a sharp turn to the right. He signed laws that slashed unemployment benefits; opted out of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion; toughened voting requirements; made it harder for abortion clinics to operate; and repealed a law that allowed death row inmates to have their sentences converted to life in prison without parole if they could prove racial bias in their cases.

The resulting backlash — a series of weekly sit-in protests known as “Moral Mondays” — has given pause even to Republicans such as Sally Dalton Robinson, whose family has been central to the life of Charlotte and the state. Her husband, Russell, was a founder of one of the state’s largest law firms; his grandfather was the principal author of the state’s 1868 Constitution.

“Russ and I see so much the same way,” said Mrs. Robinson, who is 80. “Our whole voting lives, we’ve been registered Republicans, and we don’t intend to change.” Her husband’s great-grandfather came over to Goldsboro, N.C., from Ireland before the Civil War and was a Republican when that meant opposing secession and slavery, supporting President Abraham Lincoln, and being at dangerous odds with their neighbors, who were overwhelmingly white Democrats.

“What we feel is that the Republican Party we have voted for and supported most of our married life has really gone off and left us — that’s sad to us,” Mrs. Robinson said. “A lot of that — not all — is social issues. I’m very opposed to what Republicans in this state have done in terms of abortion, making it harder. I’m opposed to putting into the Constitution that marriage is between a man and a woman. I think it’s very detrimental that we’ve cut back on the days that we have for early voting.

She added: “I grew up in a city that was very segregated, and I did not question that as a child. When I would get on the bus as an 8-year-old to go to town, the African-Americans were seated at the back and I was seated at the front. I didn’t question it. It’s hard for me to take that in about myself, but it’s true.”

North Carolina, like Sally Dalton Robinson, has changed. Still, in 2014, it’s a state that is still weighing what it wants to be now and will be in the future. This midterm election could give us, and the rest of the nation, a clue.

Let’s Give Mississippi - and Rural Virgina - Less Federal Money

Mississippi Republicans

I noted yesterday how compared to many other states, on a per capita receipt of federal funds, Mississippi is like a pig gobbling down food at a trough.  One Mississippi politician even remarked that without the large volume of federal that it receives, Mississippi would be a "third world nation."  I'd argue that with or without federal funds, much of the Mississippi electorate acts as ignorant as voters in a third world country.  In the wake of Tuesday GOP primary election, perhaps the solution is to give Mississippi Republicans what they want: less government spending by slashing the funds sent to Mississippi.  The same approach should be applied to rural areas of Virginia controlled by GOP elected representatives to Congress and the Virginia General Assembly.  These regions receive far more state and federal funds than they pay out.  Give them what they want and see how long they want to have to be self-sufficient.  A column in the New York Times looks at giving the Tea Party lunatics what they want by first slashing the government spending that they receive.  Here are column highlights:

Good news, Mississippi! This is your week. On Tuesday, the state had the most dramatic election of this primary season, and we are all looking your way. Actually, we are fascinated to know exactly what you had in mind.

Voters dealt a stunning rebuke to their courtly Republican senator, Thad Cochran, who is famous for his ability to direct federal cash in Mississippi’s direction. Cochran, who’s been in office since 1978, failed to win the necessary 50 percent of the ballots cast. Now he’s headed for a messy runoff with a fiery state legislator who opened his campaign by announcing: “For too long we’ve been addicted to federal monies.”

 Perhaps you did not expect a state that gets $3 back from Washington for every $1 it sends to be so bitter about federal spending.

“Sadly, Thad Cochran voted for billions in wasteful spending — like the Bridge to Nowhere,” said the anno uncer in a McDaniel campaign ad, as a grainy black-and-white picture of Mississippi’s senior senator flashed over a map of Alaska.

“Some cuts to spending have to take place, and Mississippi is a good place to lead that charge because we are still the most conservative state in the Republic,” McDaniel told Breitbart News. Notice that he did not say that Mississippi was a good place to lead the charge because federal spending accounts for 46 percent of all the state’s revenue: defense contracts, Social Security, farm aid, highway building, you name it.

McDaniel has been pretty darned vague. . . . .  

It may be up to us to suggest ways the state might want to trim back. What about the cotton farmers? “Their subsidies are even more generous than the usually ridiculous subsidies,” said Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group. From 1995 to 2012, he noted, the state’s cotton farmers got $4.6 billion from Washington. The top 1 percent of the subsidy recipients got an average of $4.8 million while the bottom 80 percent got $20,372.

Great way to begin! Obviously this is the sort of thing a waste-hater would be adamant about.

“The Cochran campaign never effectively responded with an argument of: Look what I’ve done for the state,” said John Bruce, the chairman of the political science department at the University of Mississippi. “Their strategy was to ignore.”

One thing the Mississippi Republican establishment and the Tea Party seem to agree on is that you’re not supposed to remind people that their state is way more dependent on Washington than the average food stamp recipient.

Again, if rural and southern Republicans want spending cuts, let's start by ending the lopsided amounts of government spending they receive.  I suspect if this happened, the Tea Party would disintegrate were quickly.   They need to be careful what they ask for.