Is it “Game Over” for the Republican Party of Virginia?

As noted in the last post, with the apparent confirmation that the Virginia GOP's entire slate of crazies went down to defeat in the 2013 Virginia elections, the question becomes - along lines parallel to the issue facing the national GOP - whether or not anything will be learned from the fiasco/  My vote is a resounding "No" because the base of the Virginia GOP has become so utterly insane, racist and deep into religious extremism that anyone and everyone will be blamed for the rout rather than face the reality that the Christofascists and white supremacists need to be thrown from control of the Republican Party of Virginia ("RVP") if a way forward is to be found.  Winning elections requires being in touch with objective reality, something the RVP has lost completely. A post in Bacon's Rebellion provides a dead on analysis of where the RVP finds itself now.  Here it is in its entirety:

Spin cycle.  The election is less than a week past, the Democratic Party seems to be on the verge of winning all three state-wide races and the Tea Party faithful are in full denial.  Here’s a smattering of the rampant excuse making going on in some RPV circles:

We beat the spread.  Some Republicans are throwing their shoulders out of joint trying to pat themselves on the back for only losing by two and a half percentage points rather than the 8 – 12% that some polls predicted.  Wow.  The RPV ran a multi-term state senator, sitting Attorney General and darling of the national Tea Party.  The Democratic Party ran a candidate who lost his party’s primary badly in 2009, has never held elected office and seems to be perpetually mired in some scandal or another.  And many Republicans are celebrating the “closer than expected” election.  Let me get that little “L” hand signal up to my forehead.

Poor, poor pitiful me.  Many RPV types are decrying the lack of financial support from the national Republican Party.  The RNC, in turn, says it didn’t see a lot of fundraising success from the RPV.  Since when did the Republicans become the impoverished party?  The wealthiest congressional district in America is Virginia’s 10th district.  That district has re-elected Republican Frank Wolf every two years since 1980.  Since 1984 Wolf has averaged 67% of the vote in his 15 consecutive victories.  The RPV lacks competence, not potential donors.

McAuliffe’s gain is Warner’s loss.  I am not making this up – there is a vein of RPV diehards who claim that Cuccinelli’s loss to McAuliffe last week sets him up to defeat Mark Warner for US Senate in 2014.  If Obamacare spontaneously turns into fissile material, reaches critical mass and explodes in a national nuclear explosion – Warner would still win.  RPV reality check – if you can’t beat McAuliffe, you can’t beat Warner.

The butler Lt Governor did it.  Under this theory Cuccinelli would have won if only the guy he screwed in the primary / convention fiasco went out and campaigned for him.  Maybe the RPV can hire Richie Incognito as its director of political strategy.

Back to reality.  The Republican Party of Virginia got its ass kicked because it is a broken down disaster of a political party.  Here’s some reality:

Wrong candidates.  The RPV decided to reenact the Cantina Scene from the original Star Wars rather than hold a primary.  By the time the critical last ballots were cast two thirds of the delegates had gone home.  What a different election it would have been if Bill Bolling and Pete Snyder had been at the top of the RPV ticket.

Horrible campaigns.  Candidates need to raise money.  The Republicans failed.  Cuccinelli’s sole strategy of painting McAuliffe as corrupt disintegrated as each and every new Star Scientific and CONSOL misdeed came to light.  Yet the Cuccinelli campaign never changed course.  Cuccinelli stood up and called McAuliffe a crony capitalist while Star Scientific money figuratively dropped out of his pockets.  EW Jackson never had a clue what he needed to do.

Civil war.  The Republicans in Virginia never stopped fighting each other.  They showed their true colors – petty, angry, adolescents who were only too happy to throw each under the bus.  Another reality check for the RPV – do you really think the Democratic Party of Virginia was fully and squarely behind Terry McAuliffe’s candidacy?  The RPV civil war started with Cucinelli trying to throw McDonnell under the bus for the transportation funding and never let up.  I see no reason to expect a change in behavior from the Republican politicians or activists in Virginia.

Maryland, my Maryland.  Virginia will look a lot like Maryland (politically speaking) within 10 years.  The Republicans have no cohesion, no leadership and no bench.  They have no chance of unseating Mark Warner and they may well lose Wolf’s seat when he retires (he’s 74).  The RPV will continue to lose a few HOD seats here and a few state senate seats there until Richmond becomes Annapolis South.

Final note: As an independent voter I have no interest in seeing Virginia become a “one party” state like Maryland.  However, the gross incompetence and culpable negligence of the Republican Party of Virginia is well on the way to making Virginia a Democratic Party stronghold for years to come.

Mark Herring Declares Victory - GOP Demand for Recount Likely

While the Virginia State Board of Elections has not yet updated its website, Mark Herring has declared victory in Virginia's attorney general contest, apparently having won despite the Virginia GOP's voter suppression efforts and Ken Cuccinelli's 11th hour change in how provisional ballots would be counted in Fairfax County.  Once official, Herring's victory will confirm a complete blow out across the board with all three of the Extremist candidates nominated by The Family Foundation and its Tea Party allies going down to total defeat.  The result is a good one for Virginia and those who value sanity and our constitutional form of government.  Here are excerpts from the Washington Post and the Virginian Pilot, beginning with the Post:

State Sen. Mark R. Herring padded his still-narrow lead over state Sen. Mark D. Obenshain on Tuesday night in the race for Virginia attorney general, giving the Democrat an apparent 163-vote advantage before the results of the contest are certified.

The Fairfax County Electoral Board finished reviewing provisional ballots – mostly cast by people who did not have ID or went to the wrong polling place – and added 160 votes to Herring’s (Loudoun) total and 103 votes to the Republican’s. Herring already led on the State Board of Elections Web site by 106 votes.

The additional 57-vote margin from Fairfax was expected to give Herring a statewide lead of 163 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast – barring any last-minute changes from other localities, which had until 11:59 pm Tuesday to submit their numbers to the state election board.

A recount appears all but certain after the statewide results are certified Nov. 25, and the Obenshain campaign made clear that it considers the race far from over.

 Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

Democrat Mark Herring declared victory in the attorney general’s race Tuesday night after a canvass of Fairfax County provisional ballots left him with an unofficial 163-vote lead over Republican Mark Obenshain out of 2.2 million cast last week.

“Over the course of the past week, a thorough and extensive process has ensured that every vote has been tallied and accounted for,” said Herring, a Loudoun County state senator. “The margin was close, but it is clear that Virginians have chosen me to serve as the next attorney general.”

Late Tuesday, he [Obenshain] stopped short of calling for a recount allowed by law in a race as close as this one, saying only that further announcements would come “in the days ahead.”

Defeated candidates have 10 days from when a vote is certified – Nov. 25 this year – to request a court-supervised recount they pay for unless the vote difference is less than 0.5 percent of the total votes cast. The public pays the tab in that case. Herring was ahead of Obenshain by a one-hundredth of a percentage point as of midday Tuesday.

A Herring victory this year would give Democrats, who won the races for governor and lieutenant governor last week, a sweep of statewide offices. That hasn’t occurred since 1989.

We can expect lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Christofascists and their political prostitutes in the Virginia GOP who simply cannot comprehend that the majority of Virginia voters do not want the poisonous agenda that The Family Foundation controlled Virginia GOP seek to inflict on all citizens.   Even an across the board loss will not jolt these people out of the alternate reality in which they live.

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

What Do I Mean by Christofascist?

I am criticized frequently for being too hard on Christians and here the constant refrain that not all Christians are horrible people.  Yes, it is true that not all Christians are what I call Christofascists, but sadly, most seem to be sitting on their hands and doing nothing to counter the hate and extremism that are the hallmarks of their religious brethren who readily buy into Christofascism.  What do I mean by Christofascism?  Wikipedia has some good definitions/descriptions of what this means:

1. the embracing of authoritarian theology by the Christian church.. . . .  it is an arrogant, totalitarian, imperialistic attitude, characteristic of the church in Germany under Nazism

2.  the churches' teaching about Christ has turned into something that is dictatorial in its heart and is preparing society for an American fascism". Christofascism allows Christians, or disposes them, to impose themselves upon other religions, upon other cultures, and upon political parties which do not march under the banner of the final, normative, victorious Christ.

There are other related definitions, none of which are positive.   Those who march to the Christofascist banner are a dangerous element and need to be regarded as such.

How the Tea Party is Destroying the Republican Party

If the Virginia GOP ends up 0-3 in this year's election, it will be but the latest example of the damage being done to the GOP brand by the Tea Party and the Christofascists which I see as pretty much as one and the same, especially since polls show that 85% of the Tea Party consist of far right Christians.  Indeed, at times I believe that the Tea Party label was dreamed up as a way to disguise the Christofascists who are not viewed in a good light by a majority of Americans.  A column in The Daily Beast looks at the apocalyptic extremism of the Tea Party/Christofascists and the damage they are doing to the GOP.  What's frightening if one is a sane Republican - admittedly, a vanishing species - is that the extremists do not seem to care.  It's all about their way or the highway.  Here are column excerpts:

Want to know why the Tea Party so eager to grievously wound the Republican Party? The answer is as simple as it is counterintuitive: its leaders view themselves as modern prophets of the apocalypse.

Consider the results of last week’s elections, which offer clues to the internecine GOP battles that lie ahead. Although it’s much too early to draw hard conclusions, Chris Christie proved that a moderate, common-sense Republican could win in deep blue New Jersey, while in purple Virginia the wild-eyed social reactionary Ken Cuccinelli failed to gain traction outside his uber-conservative Christian-right base.

Yet the Tea Party is willing to defy overwhelming negative public opinion, wreck the government, risk plunging the world economy into chaos and invite political defeat. The driving force behind this destructive strategy is that Tea Party zealots answer to a “higher calling.”

They believe America teeters on the brink of destruction, and hold as an article of faith that liberals, gays, Democrats, atheists and the United Nations are to blame. This “end-times” world-view is a foundational precept of the evangelical movement, from which many of the so-called Tea Party favorites spring. Scholars call it apocalypticism
[T]he Tea Party is not just composed of members of the Christian right. Many are genuine libertarians. Some nurse an unreconstructed Confederate grudge, while others harbor a thinly disguised racism. However, the real energy, the animating force for the movement comes from evangelicals, of whom Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin are the most strident. These are the modern-day ”apocalyptic prophets.”

Although the issues are secular, the prophets’ anti-Obamacare rhetoric rings with religious, end-times cadences. So to understand why they invoke chaos, we need to know where their ideas about an “apocalypse” came from.  . . . . Apocalypse literally translates as “the revealing” of God’s will.

Lest this sound far-fetched to modern ears, listen to our modern Tea Party prophets in their own words:

“You know we can’t keep going down this road much longer. We’re nearing the edge of the cliff . . . We have only a couple of years to turn this country around or we go off the cliff to oblivion!” - Ted Cruz at the Values Voters Summit, Oct. 11

I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture . . . . what we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this, that these days would be as the days of Noah. We are seeing that in our time.” - Michelle Bachmann, Oct. 5, 2013

“The fight for religious freedom starts here at home because we are one nation under God.” - House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Values Voters Summit

For these apocalyptic prophets, the issues aren’t even political anymore; they’re existential, with Obamacare serving as the avatar for all evil. In this construct, any compromise whatsoever leads to damnation, and therefore the righteous ends justify any means.

Their dogma springs from Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, through James Dobson’s Family Research Council, to the eerily omnipresent Fellowship and its C Street house.   

Ted Cruz’s father, Raphael was seen in recently uncovered videos calling for America to be ruled by “kings” who will take money from anyone who is not an evangelical Christian and deliver it into the hands of fundamentalist preachers and their acolytes. This is a movement is called “Christian Dominionism,” and it has many adherents the evangelical right. It is also obviously and dangerously anti-democratic.  

Like the Jewish zealots at Masada, it’s better to commit glorious suicide than make peace with the devil. There can be no truce with the Tea Party because its apocalyptic zealots can never take “yes” for an answer.

Since the apocalyptists cannot compromise, they must be beaten. President Obama and congressional Democrats seem to have finally grasped this fact, and are learning how to deal with them. By refusing to knuckle under to extortion in the government shutdown drama, Obama exposed their reckless radicalism and won resoundingly.

But Democrats can’t solve this problem alone. To bring any semblance of order back to the American political system and restore a functioning two-party system, the GOP has to find its own equilibrium.

The Christofascist, including those masquerading under the Tea Party label are a clear and present danger to America's constitutional form of government and to democracy.  They are insane zealots and need to be treated accordingly.  The media needs to do far more to expose just how dangerous they are to the rule of law and principles set forth in the nation's founding documents.

 

The High-Stakes Virginia Election Recount

Virginia continues to make the national media coverage with the closely contested Attorney General Race still unresolved.  Between Ken Cuccinelli clearly trying to suppress votes through his last minute rule change directive to the State Board of Elections and third world like incompetency in some precincts, Virginia is hardly putting its best face forward to the rest of the nation and the world.  I continue to hope for a Mark Herring victory because we do not need another lying extremist as Attorney General of Virginia.  Four years of Ken Cuccinelli is far too much as it is.  A piece in The Daily Beast reflects the attention the still unresolved race is receiving.  Here are highlights:

Now this is very interesting indeed: It suddenly looks as if the Democrat may win the attorney general election in Virginia. It seems they found a missing ballot box from Richmond on Monday afternoon, and Mark Herring vaulted to a 115-vote lead over Mark Obenshain, out of 2.2 million cast. The counting of the provisional ballots is supposed to end Tuesday, and then there will be a recount, if the tally is within 1 percent (it is) and if the loser requests it. But as of Monday afternoon, those following the proceedings closely said it seems highly unlikely that Obenshain can make up the difference, narrow as it is.

Is this a big deal? You bet it is. If Herring wins, the Democrats will have the run of Virginia. The governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and both senators will be Democrats. In Virginia! That hasn’t happened since 1969, which was a completely different political universe. One of those senators, Harry F. Byrd Jr., was a thoroughgoing segregationist. So that’s good news for the Democratic side.

And likewise it’s terrible news for the Tea Party. The Virginia GOP went ultra-hard right this year—instead of primaries, it held a nominating convention over-attended by ideologues who chose the medieval Ken Cuccinelli, about whom we know; the Bronze Age lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson, who made a series of outlandish and reactionary comments and got mopped up by double digits; and Obenshain. He of course underwent far less national observation and scrutiny than Cuccinelli did, and he drew far fewer cameras than the bombastic Jackson, but his views are essentially indistinguishable from the gubernatorial candidate’s—transvaginal probes, criminalization of any failure by a woman to report a miscarriage to the police, hating on gay people, the whole ball of fetid, intolerant wax.

[A] Herring win would seem to make a future Obenshain gubernatorial term that much less likely.

It’s not for want of trying. As recently as Friday, the Virginia State Board of Elections, controlled by Republicans, voted to change a rule in the law that covers how provisional ballots are scrutinized. This business is a little technical and confusing, but basically the question revolved around whether a voter had to be present if he or she wanted the government body going through the provisional ballots to count his or her vote. Heavily Democratic Fairfax County and the state disagreed about both the rule and past practice, and the state overruled the county, which appeared to give Obenshain the advantage because the ruling would have the effect of making it harder for Fairfax voters, who are more Democratic than not, to have their ballots counted. That ruling is still in effect and still would help Obenshain, but it now seems mooted by the late developments from Richmond.

If the Virginia GOP ends up going 0-for-3 here, that’s a watershed moment, I think. I know; we’re just talking about a few hundred votes shifting around. But winning is winning and losing is losing. Bill Buckner only missed that ball by 2 inches. If the Republican Party of Virginia has no statewide officeholder for the next four years—and of course if the Democrats from McAuliffe on down do their jobs adequately—it would, speaking of climate change, alter the political temperature of the state considerably between now and 2016.

[I]f the results as of Monday evening hold, 2013 will stand as the most embarrassing election in Virginia for Republicans in years. Maybe in recent history. So maybe Virginia is for lovers. Of sanity.

Those Virginians who value reason and sanity need to hope that Herring maintains his lead.  The thought of Obenshain as Attorney General is nothing short of frightening.

More Monday Male Beauty

With Obenshain Lagging, Cuccinelli Changes Rules for Counting Provisional Ballots

Working to Steal an Elections?

Through out his time as Virginia Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli has consistently shown that he believes he is above the law and has sought to ignore rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Now, Cuccinelli may be taking this arrogance - and I would argue lawlessness - to new heights as he directs the Virginia State Board of Elections to change the rules for counting provisional ballots in a fairly transparent attempt to save GOP extremist from joining Cuccinelli and "Bishop" Jackson" in the loser column.  Had Cuccinelli resigned from office to run for Governor like his predecessors over the past 30+ years, this obvious conflict of interest would not exist.  (Rachel Maddow had a great overview of this situation on her show this evening).  Here are highlights from Election Law Blog:

While most of the provisional ballots across the state have already been counted, that’s not true in Fairfax County, where Democrats expect they would pick up further gains for Herring. So this development reported by WTOP was a big surprise:

A last-minute change means Fairfax County voters who cast provisional ballots may face troubles getting them counted.

Nearly 500 voters cast provisional ballots in the county, many more across Virginia, in Tuesday’s election. But the promise from Democratic and Republican parties to make sure their ballots got counted is now no good.

The state Electoral Board decided Friday to change the rules that had been followed in Fairfax County and ban legal representatives from stepping in to help get the ballot counted, unless the voter him or herself is there.

County Electoral Board Secretary Brian Shoeneman says he and board chairman Seth Stark disagree with the ruling, but they have to comply.

“The office of the Attorney General advised us that this was the correct reading of the statute,” State Board of Elections Secretary Don Palmer says.

[I]it seems that the rule goes against both Fairfax County practice (which allowed legal representatives to argue for the counting of ballots rather than the voter in person), as well as Virginia’s Board of Elections posted rules (see page 21 of this pdf: among people who may attend decisions on counting provisional ballots: “Legal counsel and representatives of the person who cast the provisional ballot.”)

There are a lot of factual and legal things unclear (to me at least) at this point.  (1) Is the new VA rule a change in practice? (2) Was it necessary to assure uniformity so as to prevent a Bush v. Gore type inequality in vote counting problem? (3) Did the rule timing mean that it did not assure uniformity even if that was its intent? (4) If a court reviews this question, which trumps: assuring uniformity or following written, past practice put in place before the current decision? (This is an issue I wrote about in The Democracy Canon in the last part of the article.) (5) Will any of this make a difference to the election outcome?  Presumably, if there are provisional ballots not counted in Fairfax because of the lack of the voter’s presence in person, then a court could later order those ballots counted—but there’s a lot riding on being out in front at the time of certification on Tuesday. (6) Was the rule pronounced Friday for sound election administration reasons, or to give the Republican the edge (as Democrats have already suggested)?

The sooner Ken Cuccinelli permanently leaves the Virginia political scene, the better it will be for  the residents of the Commonwealth who value honesty, integrity and democracy.  

Mark Herring Pulls Ahead of Cuccinelli Clone Mark Obenshain

Click image to enlarge

After canvassing votes in precincts in Richmond and elsewhere, Democrat candidate Attorney General Candidate, Mark Herring, has retaken the lead from Ken Cuccinelli clone and far right extremist Mark Obenshain.  Now, the  Virginia State Board of Elections website has been updated, and Democrat Mark Herring now leads by 117 votes over Republican Mark Obenshain. :)  

The closeness of the vote underscores the reality that EVERY vote does make a difference.  To me, it is important that the entire hand picked slate of the extremists and hate merchants at The Family Foundation go down in defeat.   Here's a sampling of the batshitery coming out of The Family Foundation now that their attempt to take over Virginia's top statewide government positions has failed (Note: gays, as always, are a favorite target of scorn for these foul modern day Pharisees):

Regardless of the reasons for Tuesday’s results, we have a new political climate in Richmond that in many ways will be far more hostile to our faith and principles than anything we’ve seen before. Make no mistake: the abortion industry that spent well over $1 million to elect Terry McAuliffe and the homosexual rights lobby that spent thousands expect payback – and they expect it quickly. While there will be claims that “social issues” will take a back seat, do not be deceived. The first actions of the Governor-elect will not have anything to do with jobs or the economy, but they will have everything to do with social issues – beginning with executive orders that grant special status to people based on their sexual behavior. The appointments he will make to his administration will not be to help your job situation; they will be to reward those who helped get him into office.

The new political climate will mean that the Founding Fathers' goal of a secular government and a clear separation of church and state.   Ms. Cobb and her fellow hate merchants might do well to look in the mirror as they read the following - Thomas Jefferson's preamble to Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom (emphasis mine):

Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

The agenda of The Family Foundation is the antithesis of what Jefferson and his fellow Founders sought to uphold. With the defeat of Ken Cuccinelli, "Bishop" Jackson, and seemingly Mark Obenshain, perhaps Jefferson's ideals can begin to again be realized in Virginia.

Remembering and Honoring Our Veterans

Today is Veterans Day and it is timely to remember those who have served and sacrificed.  The image above is my late father who served in WWII.  He served in the Army Corps of Engineers and landed in France the day after D-Day.  Before returning to America and continuing his college education, he served in various parts of France, spending time in Paris and ended the war as Fire Marshall for the city of Marseilles.   The image below is of my daughter and her husband who did three deployments in Afghanistan in the Stryker Brigade Engineer Company before being serious wounded just less than a year ago.  Thankfully, he has recovered well and is back in Washington State.  

I thank them for their dedicated service.