As of 5 AM (99.6% of votes in)
****Bill Bolling (R) 978,835 (50.66%)****
Leslie Byrne (D) 949,811 (49.15%)
****Bob McDonnell (R) 966,284 (50.05%)****
Creigh Deeds (D) 962,806 (49.87%)
House of Delegates: 58 Republicans (a loss of 2 seats), 39 Democrats (a gain of 1 seat), 3 Independents (a gain of 1 seat)
So here are a few thoughts. My Top 10, actually, in semi-disorganized order.
1) Governor. I'm very excited and happy that Tim Kaine won. Even beter, Kaine didn't just win, he won CONVINCINGLY, by nearly 6 points (actually, 5.69 points) over Jerry Kilgore. This was, no doubt in my mind, a strong repudiation by Virginia voters of Jerry Kilgore and his relentlessly negative, nasty campaign. This was also one of the first defeats in memory for Scott "Black Hands" Howelll, hopefully the first of many and he continues to practice the politics of division, race baiting, and smears across the nation. Finally, this was a clear and strong affirmation of Mark Warner's loyal lieutenant, Tim Kaine, a clear and strong reward for Kaine's positive campaign, and a clear and strong mandate to continue the Mark Warner policies the next 4 years.
The question is, was it also a reward for Kaine running as a "moderate") as the Washington Post emphasized in its analysis this morning) and de-emphasizing progressivism/liberalism, or was that not the issue? Was it a reward for a Democrat willing to talk about his religious faith in highly personal terms? Was it simply that voters LIKED Tim Kaine better than Jerry Kilgore, as they got to know each candidate? Is that how Kaine went from 10 points down in the polls a few months ago to a 6-point victory on Election Day? Lots more analysis needed on this one...
2) Lt. Governor. Leslie Byrne's loss to Bill Bolling -- although not by a great margin -- leaves in limbo the entire question about whether Democrats are better off running as "proud progressives," "moderates," or even "conservatives." On the one hand, a proud liberal woman ran quite well, thank you, in a conservative "red state." On the other hand, that proud liberal woman still lost! So what does this tell us? Was the liberal message flawed? Was it the messenger? Or, more likely, was it the fact that Bill Bolling raised more than TWICE THE MONEY Leslie Byrne raised, which he used to pound Leslie Byrne relentlessly? Ding ding ding: ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner! How much can $1.6 million extra smackers buy you, even when you're the other candidate with FAR more integrity, competence, and effectiveness than the other guy? How about, some more signs? How about, some more TV ads? How about, "the election?"
3) Attorney General. Creigh Deeds' loss to Bob McDonnell -- if it holds up -- is extremely disappointing to me. In fact, it almost counterbalances my joy at seeing Tim Kaine elected. Frankly, if you had asked me a few months ago which member of the Democratic ticket I thought had the best chance of winning on November 8th, I would have said CLEARLY and WITHOUT HESITATION, Creigh Deeds. I mean, this one wasn't even close in my mind. Simply stated, Deeds is a class act all the way, a super-competent attorney, and a great guy. He appeared to be a perfect fit for Virginia and would have made a fantastic Attorney General. So what on earth happened?
Here's a hint: $$$$$. Here's another hint: $$$$$. The bottom line, in other words, is the "bottom line." And in this case, Bob McDonnell somehow managed to acquire -- we won't get into HOW he did so right now, but I urge you to re-read Waldo Jaquith's fine work on this subject -- $4.7 million, or $2.1 million more than Creigh Deeds. This enabled a hard-right, gay-bashing, sodomy-obsessed, ethically challenged, Pat Robertson clone to (probably) become our next Attorney General. Frankly, that's frightening and disturbing. Something the media needs to scrutinize with a microscope, as Waldo has started to do. (Hint: you think $2 million extra could have bought Creigh Deeds a few more road signs (I saw almost none anywhere in Northern Virginia), or a bit more TV exposure (it seemed like "all McDonnell, all the time" up here)?
4) The House of Delegates. I'm thrilled about a couple of House races - Chuck Caputo defeating Chris "Anything with a Pulse" Craddock ranks high. But overall, I'm EXTREMELY disappointed. For instance, how on earth could Greg Werkheiser lose to a guy from "Planet Albo?" How could Hilda Barg lose to a right-wing extremist like Jeff Frederick? How could a fantastic candidate (Vietnam vet, fire fighter, educator) like Bruce Roemmelt not defeat "Sideshow Bob" Marshall, another sodomy- and sex-obsessed weirdo? How did Lowell Fulk and Eric Ferguson lose? Lots of questions, but for today I'll just try to be console myself with the defeat of Dick Black by Dave Poisson, and Chris Craddock by Chuck Caputo. But I've got to say, the other ones really hurt.
5) Governor Warner. Tim Kaine's win yesterday was a great victory for Mark Warner, no question about it! All rumors (and irresponsible disinformation) to the contrary, Warner obviously wanted Tim Kaine to win - big time. Clearly, Warner worked his butt off for Tim Kaine. And guess what? It worked! In fact, Kaine's victory margin in 2005 was even higher - 6 points for Kaine vs. 5 points for Warner in 2001. Obviously, Virginians love Mark Warner, and they're very happy to continue those policies under Tim Kaine. This should set Mark Warner up nicely for, ahem, whatever it is he's planning for his future. Certainly, there will be plenty of, ahem, "business" opportunities that arise for Gov. Warner in 2006, 2007, and especially 2008! :)
6) Northern Virginia. It looks like the saying "it's all about Fairfax," as Gerry Connolly -- Board of Supervisors Chairman in the state's largest county -- liked to repeat, was true again this year as it has been...well, FOREVER! That's right, Fairfax is the only county in the state that has correctly picked the winner in every Virginia gubernatorial election, and its string remains unbroken this year, having swung for Kaine by 22 points (!), 60%-38%.
Aside from Fairfax, Tim Kaine performed well throughout Northern Virginia, the state's largest region. Overall, Kaine racked up a margin of 100,000+ votes in this part of the state, almost identical to his overall margin of 105,000. Alexandria, for instance, gave Tim Kaine a 15,000-vote margin. Arlington came through with a nearly 30,000-vote margin -- wow! Outside the inner suburbs, though, Kaine also won Loudoun County by over 2,500 votes and Prince William by about 1,200 votes. Not good news for Republicans in this key part of the state.
7) The rest of the state. Meanwhile, Kaine managed to hold down Kilgore's margin of victory in rural parts of the state, while racking up impressive wins in the Hampton Roads area (+15,000 votes in Norfolk; +10,000 votes in Hampton City, +7,000 votes in Newport News). Kaine also did great in Richmond City (+ 27,000 votes) and the conservative Richmond suburb of Henrico County (+7,500 votes). Kaine also won by 6,000 votes in Roanoke City and 6,000 votes in Charlottesville. Not bad, not bad at all.
8) The media. In my opinion, the "mainstream media" was a big, huge, massive disappointment in this election. Frankly, they did a piss poor job of really digging into the candidates, their campaign contributors, their ties to questionable figures, their ideologies, and much more in this election. Fundamentally, the "mainstream media" failed, in my opinion, to inform the public - also known asdoing its freakin' job! Yeah, ok, I'm very disappointed and even angry with the "mainstream media." I mean, seriously, even when bloggers like Waldo and Kenton and Raising Kaine and others led the media 50% or even 90% of the way there on a story, they rarely took the ball and ran with it. Sure, there were exceptions, like the Washington Post's James Grimaldi, but those were too few and far between, in my opinion.
More broadly, I believe that the "mainstream media" coverage of this race was largely shallow, superficial, and focused far too much on "controversy" (e.g., over the Herndon day laborer center) and the "horse-race" (who's up and who's down; the LATEST POLL RESULTS!!!!) - and far too little on real digging for information and analysis. I mean, seriously, whatever happened to journalism a la Woodward and Bernstein? You know, the kind of journalism that PAID, WORKING reporters are supposed to be doing.
Seriously, how is that a 14-year-old boy and a bunch of part-time citizen/bloggers can kick the powerful "mainstream media's" butt in terms of depth of coverage and tenacity of reporting? Are reporters lazy? Hamstrung by resource constraints? Overwhelmed? Not interested? Or, perhaps, do newspapers see themselves merely as "infotainment" these days, in a desperate struggle for their very viability as an industry and relevance as a source of information in the age of the "blogosphere?" Lots of questions here, few immediate answers. But overall, I give the "mainstream media" very low marks on their coverage of this election. Lame.
9) The blogs. No doubt, this was an eventful year for the "blogosphere." Looks like blogs are really starting to come into their own, with some outstanding coverage of this race by Waldo Jaquith, Not Larry Sabato/Ben Tribbett, Kenton Ngo, Brian Patton, Bacon's Rebellion, and many more (see the Raising Kaine links for starters). We also had the interesting case of an elected Republican official (Chad Dotson) blogging, as well as many candidate websites incorporating blog features in one way or the other.
Then we had Raising Kaine, which I will let others discuss, except to say that I am very proud of the effort that the entire team here -- Brian, Mary, Teddy, Josh, Dan, Rob, Eric, Kenton, Sam, Nichole, Genevieve, Corey, Steve, Tabitha, and many others brought to bear the past 10 months. This was an amazing effort by an extremely talented group of people, and I hope that I have the opportunity to work with all of them on future projects as the "fighting Dems" that we all are.
I'll just end by saying that we started as an independent blog, ended as an independent blog (and PAC), and plan to continue in some way as an independent blog and PAC. We fought the good fight in 2005, but to paraphrase John Paul Jones, I am hopeful that "we have not yet begun to fight!" More on this later...
10) National implications? We'll hear a great deal of analysis on this one in coming days and weeks. For what it's worth, here's my 2 cents. Sure, I agree that Tim Kaine's victory was in PART a repudiation of George W. Bush and the national Republicans. But, frankly, I'm not certain it was more than a small part. Frankly, if rejection of Bush and the national Republican leadership had played a larger role in Virginia yesterday, it seems to me that the Democrats would have won at least the Attorney General's race, and would have performed FAR better in the House of Delegates than they did in the end.
Bluntly stated, this was NOT a great Election Day for Virginia Democrats overall, even if many spend today patting themselves on each others' backs. Sure, it was a great day for Mark Warner. Absolutely, it was a great day for Tim Kaine! But a great day for the Democrats overall? Sorry, but I don't think so. A tremendous repudiation of Bush and his entire agenda? Ditto -- I don't see it. Maybe I'm blind...please enlighten me as to how I'm wrong here! :)
Perhaps the lack of clear Democratic victories yesterday -- Tim Kaine excepted -- has something to do with the fact that, as unpopular as Republicans are these days, Democrats aren't seen much more positively by the American people. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Democrats are widely seen as weak, lacking ideas/vision, ?knowing what they stand for,? and "faltering in the battle for ideas, purpose, strength, values and advocacy?" That they don't have a clear, coherent message (Progressivism? Populism?) for which they're willing to fight hard? That they still haven't caught up to the Republicans on organization, on getting out the vote, and on many of the other essentials if you want to be a successful political party? Questions to ponder.
Or, is it simply that Democrats weren't/aren't as effective at raising money as the Republicans? That they still haven't managed to tap into the "netroots" to the extent that they could and should, or even to the extent that Howard Dean (and Wes Clark, and John Kerry) did in 2003/2004? Or how about the fact that Democrats still accept wads of money from many of the same corrupt and/or questionable sources as Republicans, making it very difficult if not impossible to criticize since they don't have "clean hands" themselves? Can we say "Smithfield Foods?"
Anyway, enough for now. Frankly, I'm exhausted and pondering my future in blogging, politics, etc. Right now, I kind of feel like I just need a good long break from all this...except for one problem: I love writing and I find politics fascinating, if sordid and frustrating at times. I also feel passionately about the future of our country, our environment, and our world. And I'm angered by what the Republicans are doing to all those things. So, maybe I won't take too long a sabattical after all! :)
Thanks, and don't stop raising Kaine! :)