A Californian's View of Virginia

By: Ellen
Published On: 3/3/2005 2:00:00 AM

Virginia politics is on the radar at my home blog, BOPnews. I've written two posts there recently that talk about Virginia (here and here) and others have chimed in with excellent comments.

Why do I care, from 3,000 miles away, from the safe haven of my "blue" state? Quite possibly because Virginia seems to have some of the most tortured politics anywhere in the United States and I find that fascinating.

You've got a strong "blue" governor whom many Democrats would like to see run for president in 2008; and moderates like Tim Kaine, who would, in my humble opinion (and at this point, thanks to this site, it's a fairly well educated opinion) make a worthy successor to Mark Warner.

But then you've got whole swaths of red-zoners who seem to want to revive the second most offensive use of the letters "KKK" ? that is to say the agonizingly repressive notion of "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche" (children, kitchen, church) expressed in a number of legislative measures that seem to want to set the clock back to before the Age of Enlightenment. Considering that our Founders, so many of them Virginians, were imbued with the Enlightenment spirit, this strikes me as being evidence of a self-contradiction in the collective cognitive process of Virginians.

I would like to see the South rise again ? as it did when we elected Bill Clinton president. I was an early and vigorous supporter of Wes Clark. I'm also partial to Betty Castor in Florida. There's a great Democratic talent pool south of the Mason-Dixon line.  I would like to see Virginia take a leadership role. So I'll keep watching this site (and thanks to Lowell's kind invitation, chime in from time to time), wishing Tim Kaine and the cohort the very best of luck.

I'd also like to see laws on the state's books confirming the enduring slogan, "Virginia is for Lovers" instead of making a mockery of it.

Ellen Dana Nagler
Santa Barbara, CA

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