I Only Had 2 Minutes to Say Farewell

I just want to thank everyone for coming out tonight, and Ben for organizing this event.

Four years ago, when Eric and I started a little blog called "Raising Kaine," Virginia was generally considered a solid red state which hadn't gone for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. John Kerry had just lost an ugly election to George W. Bush, who had won Virginia by 8 points.  I remember reading the comments at Daily Kos and thinking that the entire blog needed to be put on suicide watch, people were so despondent (and rightfully so) at the thought of 4 more years of disastrous policies - foreign and domestic - by Dubya. I was anxious/depressed as well, and finally decided to "think globally/act locally" by starting up a blog. I didn't know if anyone would read it, and I didn't know anything about Virginia politics - although I'd lived here for 20 years, I'd mainly been focused on international energy markets and national politics.  But, I figured, what the heck.

Also, back in the dark days of 2004, the Commonwealth also had two Republican U.S. Senators - John Warner and our friend George "Felix Macacwitz" Allen - and 8 out of 11 members of the House of Representatives delegation.  Republicans controlled both the House of Delegates and the State Senate.  We DID have the governor's mansion, with Mark Warner doing a great job there, but the 2005 governor's race looked like it would be tough, with AG Jerry Kilgore widely considered the favorite over LG Tim Kaine.  Finally, there wasn't much of a netroots movement to speak of in Virginia; if anything, the Republicans had the advantage in political blogs, with Waldo Jaquith the main person holding down the left side of the aisle (and doing an excellent job of it) in the Virginia blogosphere.

Fast forward four years. Today, we have a thriving progressive blogosphere. In a few weeks, Virginia will have two Democratic U.S. Senators - Jim Webb (who many of us here helped elect) and Mark "Radical Centrist" Warner. We will have a 6-5 edge in the U.S. House of Representatives delegation, as soon as Tom Perriello's amazing victory over Virgil Goode is officially certified (and/or Virgil gets his head out of his you-know-where and admits HE LOST!). We've got control of the governor's mansion and the State Senate, and we're within striking distance in the House of Delegates as well. And last but not least, Barack Obama carried Virginia on November 4. That's a pretty amazing turnaround in just four years, and obviously it's the result of many factors, demographic and otherwise.  

In my opinion, one of those factors definitely is that Virginia has a strong progressive, people-powered, netroots movement, including one of the best (if not THE best) Democratic state blogospheres in the country. Among other things, we helped persuade Jim Webb to run against George Allen (the "draft" movement started right here on RK, co-founded by Josh Chernila, Lee Diamond and yours truly).  Webb's netroots supporters (leg by the incredible Mary Detweiler) got his name on the ballot. We helped organize a 10,000-strong "ragtag army" of volunteers in support of Webb, and of course breaking the "macaca" story - which Ben did on NLS. I'm glad that RK has been a part of that the past 4 years, and I'm confident that this will continue for years to come, especially with people like Jeff Frederick "leading" the Republican Party of Virginia further and further out of the mainstream and off the cliff.  In 2009, I think we've got a good chance of holding the governor's mansion, and also winning both LG and AG positions.

Getting back to the 47th House of Delegates district and Miles Grant, I definitely want to thank Miles for his contributions to the blog, particularly on environmental issues, and wish him luck in his run for House of Delegates. Arlington's 47th House of Delegates district is about as blue as they come, which in my mind means that we should be sending strong progressives to Richmond with energy and a willingness to fight for the environment, human rights, and other important values we care about. Having worked with Miles the past couple of years, I can definitely say that he has that fighting spirit, energy, and can-do attitude.  When Miles gets to Richmond, one thing's for sure - he won't be a shrinking violet.

Believe it or not, I've actually had one or two people tell me that Miles should "wait his turn" or "wait in line" for this seat. As far as I'm concerned, that's antithetical to everything we netroots, bottom-up, citizen activists democrats (small "d") believe in.  Think about it; if Barack Obama had "waited his turn," he might have been president in...oh, 2028 or so. If Jim Webb had opted out in 2006 because he hadn't spent years in the Democratic Party of Virginia trenches, George Allen would have been reelected to the U.S. Senate, run for president, and might even have won (god forbid). In short, NO THANKS to this antiquated, top-down, anti-democratic "wait in line" mentality. As far as I'm concerned, "the more the merrier" in the 47th HoD primary, and "let the best person win!"

Last but not least, I just want to thank my wife Kelly for all her support and encouragement over the past four years.  Without her, I doubt I would have started Raising Kaine and I definitely wouldn't have quit my job in March 2006 to devote myself full time to this and go work for the Webb for Senate campaign.  In just about every way, Kelly's my better half.

Anyway, it's been a great four years, now let's keep it going! As Jim Webb liked to say at the end of his speeches in 2006, "there will be beer!" Well, here at Piola tonight there's excellent beer...and pizza. So, enjoy, thanks again for coming out, and let's keep moving Virginia in the Democratic and progressive directions!

P.S. There were a number of highlights for me last night, including meeting the amazing Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com. Also, it was great seeing Leslie Byrne, although she could only stay for a little while, and a lot of other cool people.  Overall, there were probably 60-70 people there (at least), and I hear Miles raised a chunk o' change.  Although I don't plan to be blogging, I'm very much looking forward to watching this 47th House of Delegates primary play out, especially as I hear that several more candidates are likely to throw their hats in the ring shortly.

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