Elizabeth Colbert Busch is a good candidate facing a damaged politician in a tough district. Terry McAuliffe is a shitty candidate facing a not-as-damaged politician in a much less tough state (PVI Even) and it doesn’t look good:
ix months before Election Day, Cuccinelli (R) has a slender 46 to 41 percent edge over McAuliffe (D) among all Virginia voters and a significant 51 to 41 percent lead among those who say they’re certain to cast ballots in November.
Reading the details on that poll, the good news is that voters don’t know McAuliffe, so he has a chance to define himself in a positive light. Do you think that bloviating, monied ass will be able to make a good impression on voters? I don’t, but perhaps that’s just my anti-white-male prejudice showing.
Update: Here’s how you counter the Cooch the woman-hater rhetoric. Show that McAuliffe is a big jerk to his wife. Yeah, they’re not the same thing, but that’s Chinatown, Jake.
RosiesDad
I wouldn’t get out of bed to vote for Terry McAuliffe.
Also, if the people of VA are stupid enough to elect a POS like Cucinelli, they get what they deserve.
MikeJ
@RosiesDad: If cooch goes to the senate, the rest of us will get what they deserve too.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
Choosing between Cooch and McAuliffe is like having to choose between herpes and the clap. At least you can cure the clap.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@RosiesDad: And if those are your only choices?
Cacti
When Terry Mac was DNC chair, all the party did was lose national elections to increasingly wingnutty Republicans.
I have about zero faith in his ability to win one for himself.
GregB
The country obviously needs more religious fascism and Randian austerity shoved down their throats by insecure, dishonest and mean men.
Good luck in Virginia with that sausage brained shitheel.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Meh. We’re not choosing a spouse, we’re choosing someone to sit in the governor’s mansion and keep the crazies at bay for 4 years. Terry may not be the 2nd coming of RFK, but Cooch would be a disaster.
He has some good policy proposals and is working on getting people to know where he stands. http://www.bluevirginia.us/diary/9243/mcauliffe-officially-launches-campaign-in-norfolk-lays-out-transportation-platform
It would be nice if people would at least give him a chance in this campaign before feeding the disillusionment meme that is hard enough to fight as it is; a meme that only benefits the people who are pushing the policies we abhor…
Cheers,
Scott.
kindness
They may not know McAuliffe but they have to know Cuccinelli. You know, the God botherer who seems to only know the fundamentalist version of anything? How is it that a state like Virgina could even support such a crazy man? Makes me wonder about ’em…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Kinda how I feel. I can’t get excited about McAuliffe, but he’s trailing in the polls to a guy to the right of Governor Transvaginal Probe, who had favorability ratings near sixty at the height of that story, IIRC. Put Virginia (Obama won it twice, two Dem Senators) on the list of states I just don’t get, right after Maine.
The difference between registered and likely voters is the scarier number, since it probably reflects a national trend that we need to reverse.
mike with a mic
As a VA resident, Terry should, and will lose.
It’s not really anything but a red state. Sure, NOVA is “blue”, but not really. We’re rich as fuck and love us some social liberalism but when you get down to it, we are hard core plutocrats and hate that our money is paying for dumb ass rednecks in SOVA. They were white so they had their chance, they blew it so fuck them. Why should we pay for it? We’d rather pay for the people in DC who are poor because we work there, and they aren’t white so they didn’t have their chance and it’s not their fault. Plus, it looks cooler and makes us feel better to help poor black people, poor white people are just racist hicks. And… well… we won’t get mugged by the poor white people because none of us would get caught dead in SOVA, it’s a shithole full of rednecks we’d never go there, just being seen there would be humiliating.
The issue with Terry is he pretty much shows what a “white male liberal” is. And we’re fucking ashamed of it, because he is all of us to a T. And while we don’t like the Tea Party (they are going to kill the DOD gravy train that let’s us NOVA liberals earn a paycheck, and they might make it harder for us to get away with knocking up the mistress) we really aren’t all that liberal. We just enjoy fucking with rednecks and hate poor white people.
Terry will crash and burn because someone is going to point out that “NOVA liberals just hate you people, are all about money, and love to pick on poor whites who aren’t in NOVA and keep fucking you over each time they pass a budget and then laugh at your culture”. It’s going to stick because it’s true, and Terry is the perfect punching bag for that.
Each time Terry is on TV it’s just another reminder that SOVA rural whites, well to us NOVA liberals the only reason we allow them to live is their daughters make good strippers and their taxes pay for our jobs and subway system. And we’re laughing at them all the way to the bank.
DecidedFenceSitter
Ayup, I’m going to vote for McAuliffe if only to avoid the worse condition. It would be nice for the machine to be able to develop better candidates, but well it is what it is, and I know I don’t have the time/experience/talent to do something productive about the talent development side of the machine.
Ken
Terrible Terry has no shot. Everyone I know will vote for him here in Virginia (and that includes me), but that doesn’t amount to much, and mouthbreather turnout is guaranteed to be high for Cuccinelli.
We have decent Democrats in this state. The fact that McAuliffe is our nominee is a shame.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@mike with a mic: you are not a liberal.
SatanicPanic
I would be hard pressed to think of a race where the absolute worst of both parties were better represented.
JMG
FWIW I note that one of my brothers, a Republican but not a fanatic about it, is one of McAuliffe’s neighbors, and says he’s a delightful guy if every bit as nuts as he appears to be on TV.
Betty Cracker
I utterly despise McAuliffe, but if I were a Virginia voter, I’d damn sure get my ass the polls and vote for the son of a bitch. Sure, McAuliffe is a self-aggrandizing prick but Kook-inelli is a theocratic fascist. This isn’t a difficult choice.
mike with a mic
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
The new deal old democratic party is dead. I’m a modern liberal, social liberal and die hard against the new deal. That’s what a liberal is now. If you want an old school populist liberal you’d have to give up social liberalism as well, and most don’t want that.
The cost of social liberalism is hardcore neoliberalism on the economic side. That’s a trade liberals made, we should all embrace it.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
So Virginia is going to become even more of a slash-and-burn Free Market Jesus Rantopia than it currently is. Nice to know.
Why do we have to put our faith in Terry McAuliffe again? Was no one else with a modicum of competence able to push him out of this in favor of someone without a proven DLC losing record?
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@mike with a mic: nope, sorry. If you’re the result, I don’t have to embrace it.
Betty Cracker
@mike with a mic:
That’s a mighty bold claim you make there, sparky. Care to back it up with something besides your say-so?
mike with a mic
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Because Virginia liberals are only social liberals. When it comes down to it we hate that our tax money goes to conservative whites and rednecks in SOVA. We complain about it constantly while gobbling up federal bucks. We’re more vicious than Wall Street when you get down to it. Which is why the top two richest counties in the US are in NOVA, and three of the top 5 if you want to go there.
Socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and just out to fuck over the poors in SOVA. That’s what the “blue” part of this state is. Were the Republicans not insane over gay marriage and birth control, we’d be blood red. And if you look at our “Democratic senators” well, they’re plutocrats. Because that’s how we like our Democrats here. Pro choice, pro fucking over rednecks.
Virginia liberals are the sort that Fox News pretends all liberals are. We have the money to do it, and we do it and love it.
Anya
@mike with a mic: Stench of fake liberal is so strong here.
f space that
Be against all Republicans all the time. It isnthe only way to make progress.
mike with a mic
@Anya:
I’m a liberal on social issues, and the cost of my vote is neoliberal economics. I don’t pretend to be anything but. The cost of my support on abortion and gay rights, is free trade and free markets. That’s how it is here in VA, or with the NYC democrats, or the CA democrats.
Again, the cost of social liberalism is neoliberal economics full speed. If we don’t get ours on the economic side, I have no issues turning your daughters over to the Santorums of the world and washing my hands of it. Social liberalism is neoliberalism, has been since the 70s, and it will always be so in the USA. Accept it, because you can’t change it.
Yutsano
@mike with a mic: Ahh Steve. Defining the entirety of Democratic ideals upon your own narrow worldview. Got news for ya dude: most Democrats are more than capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. And economic issues more often than not are also social issues. But hey it’s your tax dollars, if you can’t be bothered to help your fellow man there’s a party for you. They’re represented by elephants.
EconWatcher
I’m a Virginian. Having voters get to know Terry McAuliffe will not improve his poll numbers, I can assure you.
The only thing that might possibly save his worthless, uhm, self, is a relentlessly negative campaign to expose what a nutjob Cuccinnelli is.
But in Virginia, that has to be done with great care and focused in the NoVa suburbs, while some other line of attack has to be found and used in what Sarah Palin called “real Virginia.”
Creigh Deeds, another worthless candidate, was running ads statewide about how McDonnell was not a progressive on women’s rights. That probably lost more votes than it gained because of the poor targeting.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@mike with a mic:
hahahaha
fuck you. I’m going to bring my unregistered pets to your sister’s house, just to piss you off, “liberal.”
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Yutsano: Is that Steve in DC? gawd I haven’t heard that name in ages. Explains a lot.
Betty Cracker
@mike with a mic: Thanks for clarifying that YOU are just a dick rather than the vanguard of some sweeping social movement. Pro-tip for avoiding confusion in future communications: the term “liberals” does not mean “a subset of self-interested dickheads, of which I am one.”
FlipYrWhig
This is stupid. What is Terry McAuliffe’s worst offense? Being too hyper on TV? Playing some sort of role 10 years ago in the Dean/Emmanuel fights? Who gives a shit? He’s not even ideologically “wrong” the way other blogospheric whipping boys like Manchin and Feinstein are.
EconWatcher
@Betty Cracker:
Betty, you are correct, and I will go to the polls and do my duty. But I don’t have to like it. I expect to remember this along with my glorious votes for Joe Lieberman and John Edwards for VP.
Shalimar
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Now now. Being an asshole is usually a good marker of republicanism, but not always.
eemom
@Yutsano:
Thank you.
@mike with a mic:
Go fuck yourself, asshole. Your simpering ass doesn’t speak for me.
Anya
I don’t understand why people hate McAuliffe so much? If you do then you should hate Bill and Hillary Clinton with the same intensity.
Yutsano
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Bingo. I figured the general assholishness and insistence that all Democrats/liberals are like him would be the sufficient tell. But hey I got called a troll yesterday too, so my universe is already in a weird position.
angler
McAuliffe reminds of the bad guy in Ghost. in fact, he may have been that guy.
Shalimar
@mike with a mic: So, socially liberal with neanderthal economic beliefs. Sounds exactly like Terry McAuliffe. Why isn’t he your dream candidate again? Oh right, he shows what you really are and you’re ashamed. Picture of mental health you are.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@FlipYrWhig:
@Anya:
With McAuliffe, I believe the problem is less one of ideology and more one of proven ineptitude.
Drew
@Anya:
Bill Clinton? Wasn’t he the best Republican President we ever had?
Drew
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
And thank you, too, because I can’t believe the shit I’m seeing here this morning. I mean we are literally facing the worst nightmare this state has seen since it was the fucking capital of the Confederacy…..and so now’s the time for this blog to get its collective bitch on about McAuliffe??
Fuck y’all with asiangrrl’s rustiest pitchfork. Srsly.
Drew
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Really though… for Governor we (VA) have always seemed to have terrible candidates… Tim Kaine was halfway decent, but the one before him is a cowardly fool (albeit with lots of money).
As I have said since I started voting, I wish I didn’t have to choose the lesser of two evils. I certainly don’t want Cooch to be elected Governor, so I will do what I can, even if it is for a slimeball like Terry.
Drew
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Drew: Well, to be fair, it’s a pretty stupid system – one and done with a 6-year term. I can’t think of a good reason to run.
Cacti
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
+1000
When it comes to winning elections, Terry Mac couldn’t find his butt if it had a bell on it.
Waldo
@EconWatcher:
Agreed. Best-case scenario for Terry McUnctuous: Cooch pulls a Todd Akin early (and often) and his nuttiness dominates the race.
I’d give ’em even odds.
EconWatcher
@Cacti:
He also comes across as a brazen huckster, and I think people pick up on that right away.
Drew
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Very true… and maybe if Mark Warner would’ve been able to work through 2 terms, he wouldn’t be as bad in my mind as he is.
Term limits are funny things… too few and people can’t get things done, too many and they just get used to it.
Drew
Drew
@Waldo:
I think that there might be more to the McDonnell/executive chef issues. One can hope that Cooch gets dragged into that!
eemom
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
4 year term.
marshall
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Don’t feed the troll.
I live in Northern Virginia, and know plenty of Democrats and Republicans here. There is a general perception here that Richmond short-changes NOVA in transportation spending (and that is pretty constant, across both Republican and Democratic administrations), but I have never once heard anyone complaining about social programs spending money on whites in the rest of Virginia, and obviously Virginia revenues do not support any social programs in DC. (Heck, a good fraction of my neighbors are from the rest of Virginia.)
I think that Terry McAuliffe will win. He needs to accentuate the Cuccinelli crazy, and beat the ties between Cuccinelli and the burgeoning McDonnell scandal like a drum.
Villago Delenda Est
@Drew:
Best Republican President since Eisenhower!
gene108
@GregB:
Unless the DoD shuts down completely, it’ll be hard to stick VA on austerity, as they are the largest recipient of DoD dollars and if not the top, pretty damn close the top, in federal money/jobs received by a state.
This makes being a Republican governor super easy, because the Feds are basically giving you a certain level of guaranteed employment to soften/hide the damage you do to the state.
belieber
lol…the fact that “Sarah Palin is gonna run in 2012 and might win” mistermix thinks McAuliffe has a chance makes me absolutely certain he doesn’t.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@eemom: I stand corrected, and that makes it even stupider.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@RosiesDad: Exhibit A for “what we can’t have nice things”.
THESE ARE YOUR ONLY TWO CHOICES AND THERE ARE NO OTHERS. GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED AND VOTE FOR THE MARGINALLY LESS OF TWO EVILS, DUMBASS
Patricia Kayden
@RosiesDad: So you wouldn’t get out of bed to vote for the lesser evil given how bad Cucinelli is going to be? I’m shuddering already and I don’t even live in Virginia (Marylander).
Patricia Kayden
@EconWatcher: Can’t you win Virginia just by winning the northern part? That appears to be how President Obama won Virginia twice. I doubt he won anything below Richmond.
EconWatcher
@Patricia Kayden:
Well, yes, but that’s not a very meaningful statement. You have to win really big in NoVA, and not lose too badly in other parts of the state. So it’s not as if you can focus on NoVA and blow the rest of the state off. You’ve got to have a two-pronged strategy.
And I bet the pounding on Romney’s 47% comments helped suppress a lot of votes that he otherwise might have reaped in “real Virginia.”
cckids
@Betty Cracker:
Yep. Unappealing & infuriating, yes. Difficult? No.
TriassicSands
@RosiesDad:
The problem is if you’re home in bed (and I don’t blame you), who is going to vote against Cuccinelli?
This is the constant dilemma in our current “lesser evil” system. McAuliffe is a horrible candidate — you could do better pulling a random name out of last night’s arrest roster, but the alternative is even worse. There is no telling what McAuliffe would do in office, whom he would sell out, what sleazy deals he would make, etc. But it’s no mystery what Cucinelli will do.
So, whom to vote for? Sitting out the election only helps Cucinelli. Voting for a third party candidate, will allow us to feel clean in the morning, until we remember that Cucinelli is sitting in the statehouse.
Faced with this kind of choice, I can see only three options. One I won’t mention because it’s against the law and something I would never do. The second is to commit suicide. And finally, and probably most appealing, would be to move to another state, preferably one that won’t nominate total PiecesOS to be governor. (The key word there is “total.”)
For those stuck in Virginia, you have my sympathy.
TriassicSands
@mike with a mic:
In your tidy little “formula” there will be plenty of poor whites who never had any real chance at all, and at least some privileged minorities who had great parents, and good, if modest, opportunities, but made terrible decisions all on their own. Every white who fails is not worthless and ever African American who makes it is not worthy. Basically, your “philosophy” just amounts to self-serving mush.
Your commitment to social justice is breathtaking.
RosiesDad
@MikeJ:
cooch is running for gubinator, not the Senate.
RosiesDad
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I choose to remain in PA, where we will hopefully send our own idiot governor packing next November.
RosiesDad
@Betty Cracker: @Betty Cracker:
I am pretty much with you but an electorate that gives itself McAuliffe vs. Cucinelli as their choices for governor clearly needs a few more years in the wilderness. If it was my choice, my choice might be to move.
RosiesDad
@TriassicSands: Yeah, that too. They have my sympathies.
But only a few of them because we still have Corbett.
eemom
@RosiesDad:
You won the Dick of the Day prize with your first comment, so howzabout you STFU now?
We, the sane contingent of the VA electorate, didn’t choose shit about this race. There was no primary for McAuliffe to lose like there was in ’09. He was shoved down our throats. WTF are we suppposed to do — break out the bully pulpit?
And as for “I’d just MOVE”, fuck you. I have a kid starting UVA in the fall.
FlipYrWhig
@TriassicSands: How is McAuliffe sleazy? He raised a lot of money for political candidates. He doesn’t seem like he’d be fun to have a beer with, but his reputation seems way, way out of whack with anything he actually did. Feeling this strongly about someone who’s, at worst, “slick,” is odd. What am I missing?
lol
McAuliffe’s reign as DNC chair gets a lot of shit for factors beyond his control much the same way Dean gets credit for things he had absolutely nothing to do with.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@RosiesDad: VA Gov is only a 4 year job and recently is often a stepping stone to the US Senate. If you don’t want Cooch in the Senate, the first step is to keep him out of the Executive Mansion.
Cheers,
Scott.
Van
Have to say he’s not the greatest, but I don’t think he’s really that bad. Yes he was part of the DLC crowd, but that’s pretty much what you get in statewide offices in Virginia. Also not sure what was so bad about his tenure in the DNC. Yes Dean had the 50 state project, which held up for like two elections. And anyone who thinks Dean was a flaming liberal has been smoking angel dust. Electing McAuliffe gets you two very important things:1) You can stop the teaparty from closing down all the abortion clinics with TRAP laws, and 2) The state takes the Medicaid expansion money from the Feds. So if you live in Va get out and work for McAuliffe or some other Dem running in the fall. Otherwise your just a Koch whore pretending to be a liberal.
RosiesDad
@eemom: You don’t have to get personal; I don’t view it as a personal thing. I view it as something that deserves all the limp sarcasm I can muster. Which most of the time isn’t all that much.
We have a Guinness Book shitty governor now; hopefully we toss his ass when he’s up for re-election. We also had Rick Santorum representing us in the US Senate for 12 years; the memory is still painful on some level.
Whether you get stuck with Cucinelli or McAuliffe, you are going to have a shitty governor who is term-limited to 4 years and then you get someone else. And I would bet that regardless of which of these assholes wins, your life will go on fairly uninterrupted.
Congratulations on your kid getting into UVA. We visited the school over spring break (my middle is a HS junior) and although it’s unlikely he would end up there (for a variety of reasons that include, but are not limited to, the fact that he would be an out of state applicant), we wanted to see the school that TJ founded and the town that brought us the DMB. Great town. Charming, like a small Ann Arbor, but warmer. One could do much worse than four years in Charlottesville.
RosiesDad
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Scott: Gotcha. OTOH, how much would you want McAuliffe in the Senate? Talk about having to choose the least distateful option.
I really do feel for Virginia but this sort of thing s just so representative of how perversely corrupt our political process is, sometimes all you can do is shake your head.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@RosiesDad: It’s easy for one person to do a lot of damage; it’s hard for one person to do lasting good. McAuliffe would be fine in the Senate for me if the choice is him or a Republican. For instance, I doubt he would be worse than Mark Warner.
Maybe I’m getting old, but I really don’t understand the visceral dislike that so many seem to have for so many Democratic politicians these days. Terry doesn’t support insane policies. Cuccinelli does, and has actively worked to have them imposed upon us.
The choice couldn’t be clearer, and I’ll be doing my part to make sure Terry is elected.
Reread John’s tire rims and anthrax post. Things aren’t going to change as long as these insane Republicans hold political power.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
eemom
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
This.
@RosiesDad:
Appreciate the pleasant response, but I honestly don’t see how you can equate the two.
Thoughtful David
What concerns me about a Cuccinelli win here in Virginia is this: allocation of Virginia’s electoral college votes by Congressional district, or proportioning of the electoral college votes by proportion of the vote each candidate received, á la Nebraska. Just a few months ago, we dodged that bullet. But I think it will come back. The legislature has three more chances to do it before the next presidential election, and they have no scruples in changing the rules to benefit themselves. Especially if it looks in March 2016 like the Democratic candidate has a good chance of winning, these ideas will be back. If Cuccinelli’s the governor, we’ll have little chance to beat it. If McAuliffe is, we can hold.
This could affect the next national election.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Thoughtful David: Very good point. I had a feeling of dread after the Republicans won the state in 2010 because I knew it meant they would have control over redistricting. They certainly are going to try to swing things their way again while they can…
Cheers,
Scott.
Dream On
“Terry McAuliffe is a
shitty candidatepersonal slimeball facing anot-as-damagedKing-Nobody-of-a-politician in a much less tough state and itdoesn’tlook(s) like what you’d expect.”Fixed.
Craig Pennington
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Worse, Cuccinelli has abused the authority of his office for political purposes — remember he got slapped down by a Judge several times for his attempted fishing expedition against Michael Mann.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/02/436701/virginia-supreme-court-tosses-out-ag-cuccinelli-inquisition-on-michael-mann
@Thoughtful David:
And this is why I’ll run to the poll on election day and cast my vote for McAuliffe. I wish we had an Elizabeth Warren for whom I could vote in every election at every level, but given what we’ve got, the choice is clear regardless.