I’ve been waiting for someone more knowledgeable than me to analyze the ramifications of the VA gubernatorial race. Harry Enten:
Historically, whichever party is in the White House loses the Virginia gubernatorial election, just as the White House’s party loses House seats in midterm elections. The last time this did not happen was 40 years ago, in 1973.
[….]That’s why we’d expect, all other things being equal, the Republican candidate, Ken Cuccinelli, to win Virginia’s gubernatorial election. And voters in Virginia did appear, at first, likely to follow the historical pattern.
[….]So, Republicans should have a bit of a sinking feeling when looking at Virginia. When presented with the choice between ugly and uglier, Virginians seem to have decided to go with ugly. This may not end up being predictive of next year’s midterms, but it should be unsettling, to say the least, to Republicans nationally.
I do think the shutdown will end up hurting the Cooch even more, and that he’ll lose by a ton.
And you all know what will mean, right? That the Cooch is not a REAL CONSERVATVE.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Cooch will return next time around, convinced that he just didn’t support invading a woman’s uterus enough the first time around. And that this election proved how dangerous teh gays…ahem, sorry…”child molestation lobby”…is.
Patricia Kayden
Virginia is a purple state so I’m not surprised that Cuccinelli is behind in the polls. He’s too extreme, especially for Northern Virginia voters.
piratedan
well lets wait until the votes are counted, but this is encouraging that perhaps a small majority of Virginians aren’t completely fucking crazy about having a vaginal probing hypocrite as their governor (faint praise yet, I live in Az and we couldn’t raise a majority to see what a dumpster fire Brewer is)
MattF
It’s not just that Cooch is conservative– on sexual issues he crosses the line into creepiness, and even the US Supreme Court agrees:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/us-supreme-court-wont-hear-cuccinellis-appeal-of-ruling-against-va-sodomy-law/2013/10/07/9d4f83f4-2f77-11e3-bbed-a8a60c601153_story.html
Cooch wanted the court to reverse its decision against sodomy laws, and the Court said “Umm, nope.”
Punchy
I prescribe some Massengill for that. Monistat-7?
Jeffro
He’s a loon and his Lt Gov candidate is even wackier…both are trying desperately to run away from their own words and positions, but (darn that Internet!) they seem to be unable to pull the wool over enough people’s eyes.
Trakker
I suspect Virginia’s demography is changing too rapidly to depend on long-term historical trends for predictive purposes.
Phil Perspective
Harry Enten is an idiot. He’s wrote a lot of bad crap the last 10 days. Anyway:
Historically, whichever party is in the White House loses the Virginia gubernatorial election, just as the White House’s party loses House seats in midterm elections. The last time this did not happen was 40 years ago, in 1973.
The Red Sox were always cursed by The Bambino(aka Babe Ruth) till they were cursed no more. Just look north of VA to PA. For the past 50 years or so, the incumbent governor has never failed to win a second term. Yet Corbett is doing everything in his power to become #OneTermTom. The mistake people like Enten, and those like-minded, make is that they refuse to see that today’s GOP isn’t the GOP of Ike or Fightin’ Bob LaFollette, much less Honest Abe.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Phil Perspective:
It’s not even the party of Ike anymore, and barely the party of Nixon.
Epicurus
While I live in NY and can not vote against the Panty-Sniffing Duo, I eagerly await the election results in November, and do hope to hear cries of “Fraud at the Polls.” Don’t worry, Kenny Boy, the Heritage Foundation awaits its next “intellectual.” When they can’t find one, they will hire you. The “Bishop” on the other hand? He’ll have to take the consolation prize of playing a smart man on Faux Snooze. See ya!
WereBear
I love the Wymyn Power this point spread (I’ve read the gender gap is as high as 35%) is bringing to the fight.
Of course, if anyone loves women, they should represent, too.
Zifnab25
Conservatives cannot fail. They can only be failed.
Elizabelle
@Zifnab25:
Is David Brooks on book leave?
Funny I had not noticed the absence of his fatuous columns.
But you’re right. He hasn’t had a NYT column up since September 30.
Happily for Driftglass, the Suicide Caucus of the GOP has taken up the slack.
scav
@Zifnab25: Those wimminz, not to be trusted. And now Jan Brewer is off script, wanting money from a not-shut-down govt. (dollars are mine minemine! but if it works. . . ). Tricksy wimmins, using their own greed against them.
(there are worse face-saving strategies that could be advanced).
Anoniminous
In 2010 Virginia had a 39.1% voter turnout. In 2012 it was 66.9%. Voter turn out in off-off year elections are notoriously low but even a minor turnout more comparable to 2012 than 2010 may lead to some interesting results in the state level offices and down ballot.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
If Bobo is indeed on book leave, that is a promise of good news: in a matter of months, he’ll bring out a new heap of high-faluting idiocy for us to make fun of.
andrewsomething
This being the internet, I feel obliged to leave this here: http://xkcd.com/1122/
Shakezula
It isn’t just Krazy Ken, Jackson makes Ken look … slightly less deranged. Plus, the GOP has done its damndest to become a racist sinkhole so I can’t see many staunch Republican voters delighting in the prospect of a black lt. gov.
However, Va. has jumped on the Voter Disenfranchisement train. Depending on the state of play when election day rolls around, The Old Dominion could have a dominionist douche in the governor’s mansion.
TG Chicago
OT, but here’s Ron Fournier doing the old dance:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/false-purists-and-their-false-equivalence-dodge-20131009
Liberals are right, but they’re right for the wrong reasons, so they’re wrong.
Derek Thompson has a good response:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/false-equivalence-that-leans-on-public-opinion-is-still-false-equivalence/280448/
EconWatcher
I think Enten’s analysis is silly. Virginia is a radically different state for electoral purposes than it was 40, 30, 20, or even 10 years ago, so positing some kind of broader signficance to a GOP loss this year because it breaks with a “40-year trend” is unfounded.
When I was in college 20-some years ago, Northern Virginia was generally very conservative, dominated by families who depended on the military, defense contractors, and the CIA for their livelihood. Obviously, it’s a very different picture now. The IT industry dominates, and at least in NoVA, they lean Dem. Percentage of non-whites way, way up. Etc.
I guess you could say that the country as a whole is undergoing somewhat similar demographic changes. But the change in the last 20 years in NoVA is really stark, it has changed politics statewide, and there is no real equivalent yet on the national level.
Belafon
@andrewsomething: I believe the correct phrase is “There’s an xkcd for that” because there’s always an xkcd for it, whatever it is.
Anoniminous
@Shakezula:
The answer to that: GOTV.
It’s going to be a low turnout election so every vote you can bring to the polls counts much more than Presidential or even Congressional elections.
Jeffro
@Shakezula:Plus, the GOP has done its damndest to become a racist sinkhole so I can’t see many staunch Republican voters delighting in the prospect of a black lt. gov.
Was out biking two days ago and one yard had those truly massive 3′ x 6′ campaign signs all the way down their fence, facing the main road. There was one for every R candidate running this year (state and local)…except one. Wanna guess who was excluded?
Side note: front yard also had a “Women for Cuccinelli” yard sign in it…now THERE’S something you don’t see every day…or ever…
Villago Delenda Est
There’s a reason they’re called teatards. The stupid is fucking cubed with these morans.
Supernumerary Charioteer
I’m getting bombarded by commercials on the few occasions when I have my TV on, and I’ve noticed the following:
1) McAuliffe’s running about two commercials for every one of Cuccinelli’s.
2) Judging the commercials completely on their merits, Cuccinelli has the better pitch. McAuliffe’s are vague and simple, while Cuccinelli’s, while also vague and simple, at least make him sound like he’s pointing at something to run on.
3) News coverage has been pretty neutral – they’ve noted that McAuliffe’s potentially something of a snake, Cuccinelli’s a True Believer, and that Cuccinelli’s been winning the debates but not the messaging war.
My theory (with little evidence to back it up) is that the socially liberal/economically moderate folks up here in NoVa feel that they got cheated by McDonnell’s 2009 campaign, where he was all ‘Business! Business business! Business business business!’, dismissing any evidence of having been a Bible-banging gladhandler in his past life, before proving to be a Bible-banging gladhandler and a crony politician when he actually got into office. Cuccinelli’s basically running his campaign from the exact same playbook… except he can’t run away from the fact that he’s positioned himself as the Most Holy Paladin of Conservative Social Mores for the last four years and beyond.
MattF
Also, supposing Cooch loses, I don’t think anyone will claim that it was because he isn’t a ‘real’ conservative. What I’ve seen is grumbling that he hasn’t run a good campaign.
Mandalay
@ Doug Milhous J:
Enten is a Nate Silver wannabe who spews conventional wisdom, and word salads his putrid package with irrelevant data. I’m astounded that you are going anywhere near him.
This is a good example of the shit he spews…
Well Enten could also have pointed out that a Republican has become governor in Virginia only six times since 1869. Enten constantly throws out meaningless statistics in the hope that nobody will notice that he has nothing to say.
Given your contempt for Brooks, I’m amazed you give this middle of the road fraud the time of day.
NonyNony
@andrewsomething:
Good thing I read the comments because I was about to post the exact same thing.
Turgidson
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
They’re only still the party of Nixon in the sense that they will do absolutely anything to attain and hold onto power, in terms of methods (but not ideology). Nixon, lying sonuvabitch and cancer on our democracy that he was, had no fixed ideology other than being a relentless opportunist and red-baiter, and did some things that were downright reasonable when he was in office. But only because he thought he stood to gain.
KG
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: the only thing left from Nixon is the paranoia. Hell, I maintain that the real Ronald Reagan would be too much of a squish today for the GOP base to tolerate.
Villago Delenda Est
@Phil Perspective:
It’s the GOP of RIchard Nixon with resentment being its primary motivator. However, it’s not the GOP of Nixon in the policy sense, nor is it the GOP of Reagan in the actually governing sense.
eemom
Enten more “knowledgeable”? Give me a fucking break. Anyone who waves around one of those “HISTORICALLY this NEVER happens” tropes like it means anything by definition knowns nothing.
Remember last year, when all the bobblebots were assuring us that that no president since whoever has won reelection with unemployment above X%? Boy were they knowledgeable.
AliceBlue
@Jeffro:
OT, but there’s a house in my mom’s neighborhood that still has a Romney sign in the yard.
MattF
And I’ll join the pile on Enten. If this is a sample of his expertise, then… not. Mysterious correlations are predictive until they’re not.
Mandalay
@eemom:
This. Enten is a dope and a fraud.
Villago Delenda Est
@TG Chicago:
Fournier is such a dependable tool. “Both sides do it! Both sides do it!”
1000 deaths are not enough for worthless scum like Fournier.
Xantar
Is that Enten’s picture in the article? I suppose I’m hardly the person to talk since I’m 29, but Enten’s f ace does not exude “knowledgeable” to me. More like, “Underaged know-it-all.”
handy
@Mandalay:
Sounds like the Ross Porter of pundits: “Pedro Guerrero hits .328 in day games played on astro-turf against left-handed pitchers with 3 or more vowels in their names.”
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF:
The entire thing is pure lazy bullshit. “Oh, I’ve found a pattern! Let’s pretend it’s an iron law!”
KG
@Turgidson: I really think that the 1960 election changed Nixon in a real way. Had he won in 60, I think it drastically changes the course of history. If only because I think his paranoia really manifested itself after the loss in 60 and then the gubernatorial loss in 1962. Plus, maybe we don’t get the Bay of Pigs or Vietnam… maybe.
KG
@handy: … after the third inning, with a runner on second and one out…
Belafon
@KG: I blame the Doctor.
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
It’s actually worse than that. It’s very carefully crafted bullshit masquerading as insightful analysis. He unearths some utterly meaningless chunk of data and then bravely proclaims: “Despite the vital importance of the meaningless drivel I’ve just presented, I’m gonna stick my neck out and predict a win for McCauliffe!”.
Enten’s columns are worthless.
Shakezula
@Anoniminous: Agreed, but GOTV will require more work in Voter ID states.
I’d be surprised if there were any women in that house. At least voluntarily.
Mandalay
@Xantar:
He graduated in 2011. I have no idea what he did to secure a regular gig with the Guardian.
KG
On the “this has never happened” punditry, this happens in sports all the time too… The Celtics have never lost a game 7 at home in the NBA Finals… that’s great, but since Russell and Bird aren’t suiting up for them, I’m not entirely sure how it matters.
scav
@Belafon: He’s still waiting for the real Daleks to arrive. These frauds just trundle about the halls of govt. bleating “Eliminate! Eliminitate!”
Redshirt
@KG: Nixon practically created the Red Scare witch hunts of the 50’s. McCarthy just picked it up and ran with it. Nixon was always terrible.
rk
@WereBear:
I don’t get this huge gender gap. Are men such jackasses that they’re O.K. with women being subjected to unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds?
EconWatcher
@Xantar:
I’m glad we have some 20-something folks like you here. Welcome, youngster. I thought Balloon Juice was entirely made up of portly, dyspepsic, middle-aged or older people like me…..
Villago Delenda Est
@TG Chicago:
Thompson pointed out, very politely, that Fournier is a sack of shit.
Well done, Derek!
piratedan
@rk: well yeah! chances are that they’ll be recorded and they can vicariously enjoy some hot probe on girl action! They have no problem shaming the sluts, denying care to soon to be moms and taking food out the mouths of poor kids, why is this behavior such a stretch?
Villago Delenda Est
@EconWatcher:
Dispeptic Booomers. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Villago Delenda Est
@rk:
These are white Christian straight men. Yes, they are such jackasses.
virginia
Coocher is toast, thanks in large part to his boss, McDonnell. And the latter’s charming wife. This little national conflagration hurting so many here in NoVa ain’t helping either. His, KC’s, long track record as a whacko dickhead is something many Virginians have been aware of forever. And the nutjob running with him is another definite liability. So … we end up with McAuliffe. Not exactly ideal but the lesser, by far, of the two clean-ups on aisle 4.
Besides, when the USA as a whole starts to blow up, most folks look for the other side to get in there and stabilize the patient.
Elizabelle
Oh Gawd, those crazy ass truckers are allegedly still planning to circle the beltway tomorrow.
If anybody asks me about them, I’m going to say it’s a Truckers for Cuccinelli Rally.
Gex
@Villago Delenda Est: I am reminded of how they started calling themselves Teabaggers, which we gladly signed on to. Then they found out what it means and started taking offense that we called them the name they chose for themselves.
I could really enjoy messing with and laughing at their idiocy if it wasn’t all in service of hurting their fellow citizens and the country.
NonyNony
@eemom:
It’s like a mad libs form where you plug in “event” on one side and “mildly related fact” on the other and get “faux insightful comment” as a result.
“Well you know, historically, no Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia has won when the election was held on a day when a waxing moon is in the House of Saggitarius. It would certainly be unprecedented if McAullife were to win this year.”
MattF
@Elizabelle: I just don’t believe it. “Participants will have the honor of losing their truck driver’s licences and, consequently, their livelihoods.” Dumb, yes– but that dumb?
Chris
@Elizabelle:
Flying into DC tomorrow, and by DC I mean “BWI.” Those fuckers better not have clogged up the roads.
Chris
@Gex:
Who actually came up with “teabagger,” anyone remember? Or is it just a meme that started in the blogosphere and that no one can recall the exact origin?
scav
@NonyNony: “Well you know, historically, no Democratic candidate for governor of Virginia has won when the election was held on a day when a waxing moon is in the House of Saggitarius.”. Might make a good song though. “When the loooooons, are in the repub House . . . . “
Mandalay
@Gex:
And then there’s “Obamacare”. They threw it out there as a pejorative. It didn’t occur to them that our president would proudly embrace the term. I think that miscalculation is there forever…kids will be learning about the success of “Obamacare” fifty years from now.
It’s my nomination for new word of the year for 2013. Thanks teabaggers.
Gex
@Chris: I don’t recall, but it was just after they first donned their tri-corner hats and polluted a river in the name of advancing the debate. It didn’t last too long, I suppose. As idiodic as they are, they do have a fine-tuned sense of when they are being laughed at.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m all for Republicans being nervous and unsettled even if it’s because the rabbit Wolf Blitzer sacrificed under a full moon was shown to have a malformed liver, but I think this race is about as predictive of next year’s midterms as whether an NFC or AFC team wins the Superbowl (and we’re all agreed that’s gonna be the Broncos, right?)
And who the fuck is Harry Enten?
Chris
@Mandalay:
I’m looking forward to seeing them in fifty years running scare campaigns about how “the Democrats want to cut your Obamacare!”
Anoniminous
@Shakezula:
Sure. That’s what happens when 61% of the electorate sits out an election. it means 19.5% + 1 determines political control. I can’t do anything about it 2,000 miles away. It’s going to take a determined local effort to shank those racist sons-of-bitches.
Botsplainer
@Chris:
I thought Jim Robinson at FR used it first.
Mandalay
@Shakezula:
You deserve post of the year for that.
Kay
How many plans is this now? I’ve lost track. What do they want, again?
drkrick
@rk:
Of course not – the point is to scare women out of getting abortions. But we did really have a state legislator opine that since a woman seeking an abortion was obviously not a virgin they really had no right to object to anyone sticking something else up there. I suspect Cucinelli lost the election the day that hit the papers whether anyone else knew it or not.
I have to admit that the buyer’s remorse pattern for VA GOV has been kind of an amusing factoid, but obviously not a useful predictive tool.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer:
I recall the teatards festtooning their hats with teabags, and sending teabags to congressmen. They actually called themselves the teabaggers at first, until we on the left started making fun of them for using what they did not know was slang for a sexual act as their badge of honor.
Then the cretins changed the name to “Tea Party”, with all the historical knowledge of the actual Boston Tea Party they could muster. Which would be none.
Ripley
@Chris: Keep your government hands off my Obamacare!
NonyNony
@Mandalay:
I still contend that by 2016 Republicans will be taking credit for repealing Obamacare and replacing it with the Affordable Care Act.
They’ll to it subtly enough that Politifact will rate their claims as “mostly true”. (Which, I guess means they’ll say “vote for me, I helped repeal Obamacare and replace it with the Affordable Care Act that you all love.” It will get a “mostly true” because Politifact will note that among Republican voters the ACA only has a 75% approval rating in 2016 and so the “all” in “all love” was, in fact, incorrect.)
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: but I think this race is predictive for next year. Right now, no one really fears Democratic voters. It is important to win this election to break the “black folk and kids only come out for Obama so we can kick them around without consequences.”
Shakezula
@Chris: Earl Conlon has said that it was just a “disastrous threat” to get the media’s attention. Because threatening to shut down interstate traffic and arrest members of Congress and the PotUS is just a funny thing he likes to do.
In the real world, I haven’t heard anyone here mention it, even to laugh. And if on the very unlikely chance they do show up in significant numbers, God help them if they do anything that stops people from getting to IKEA.
Villago Delenda Est
@NonyNony:
It will work because if a lot of people are given an explanation of what the Affordable Care Act does, they like it, and some guy in Kentucky actually said “this sounds much better than that Obamacare thing”.
The stupid. IT BURNS.
Jeremy
Hey what do you guys think of the Oklahoma, Indiana lawsuit against subsidies in the ACA ? I think it’s going nowhere because the federal government is running the exchanges but they are still defined as state exchanges, and I can’t see any of the courts entertaining a lawsuit like that especially after the damn thing was ruled constitutional by the courts.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gex:
I recall arguing in the WaPo comments section with some mouth breathing twit about how “teabaggers” was their self chosen name and aforementioned twit denying that they had ever called themselves teabaggers.
They are seriously stupid versions of the people Orwell warned us about.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeremy:
Dick Morris ASSURES us that these suits will destroy Obamacare.
What this means in the real world is that they have no chance of succeeding.
Jeremy
@NonyNony: I don’t think that they will be able to play that card. The scorched earth strategy against health reform has been observed by everyone including foreigners who are bewildered by it.
JoyceH
Here in a very red county in Virginia, I keep seeing little clusters of Jackson signs. Just Jackson. He’s THE candidate of the wingiest of the wingnuts. The last time I saw signs focusing on a down-ticket candidate exclusively was Farris in ’93. That was the year we got a Republican Gov and Democratic Lt. Gov because Farris was too wacko for all but the wackiest. I’m just afraid that ‘moderate’ Repubs will vote for Cooch and against Jackson as their nod to ‘moderation’. Hey, it happened before.
? Martin
@Villago Delenda Est:
Actually, Tea Party did come first. TEA stands for ‘Taxed Enough Already’ which was their battle cry when they were all convinced Obama was about to raise their taxes, when in fact he lowered them within a month of taking office.
Teabagger got coined pretty much from day one from the tea party themselves as they were making the sexual reference “Tea bag the Dems before they tea bag you”. Then others got involved, unaware of the sexual reference, and as soon as they self-described as ‘teabaggers’ the left jumped all over the term as fair game, and before long memos were going between tea party groups to disavow the term. All of this transpired a period of maybe 2 weeks or so, so the generous interpretation is that it was a collective effort.
I’m well aware of this as one of my neighbors slapped that ‘Taxed Enough Already’ sticker on her car damn near the same day Obama got inaugurated.
patrick II
@NonyNony:
I saw a Youtube of California navigators going door-to-door and asking people if they wanted help signing up for Obamacare. Not the ACA, but Obamacare. People in California will be calling it Obamacare for a long time.
TriassicSands
In the end, the Virginia gubernatorial election may come down to whether rank and file Democrats (and Independents?) can be bothered to vote. After all it doesn’t matter who wins, they’re all the same. I mean if Mitt Romney had won it wouldn’t have made any difference at all.
(I remain astounded that there are still people either ignorant enough or stupid enough to believe that.)
shortstop
Here and here, some handy history on teabaggers naming themselves, then becoming all indignant when we simply honored their verbiage.
Botsplainer
Here’s a teabag reference from February 13, 2009
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2185420/posts?page=1
Shakezula
@TriassicSands: Imagine being so secure that you’re safe from Bad Things happening that you don’t have to worry that (for example) some godbothering pin-head will get in office and decide you don’t qualify for full autonomy over your body because your genitals are innies rather than outies.
Yeah, I can’t do it either.
catclub
@Jeremy: They have more legs than they should, because the writers of the bill could not imagine various horrors.
1. States refusing to run their own exchanges
2. States refusing Expansion of Medicaid when over 95% of the cost is paid for by the Federal Government.
The law seems to be that the subsidies are for the state exchanges, so if they are federally run, the pinheads can argue this is different, and the subsidy does not apply. Never mind that the subsidy is for insurance in your state, bought on the exchange that is for your state and the insurance companies bidding on the exchange for your state.
Jeffro
@Botsplainer: Maybe OT, maybe not, but can I just say how glad I am that EVERYONE – even the right-wing media, much less the mainstream media, much less my friends, relatives, and neighbors now understands that “Tea Party” = “the bitter, IGMFY rump of the Republican Party”
Remember back in 2009, when it was promoted (by all of the above) as this amazingly organic, independent and label-free people’s movement? I almost want to scream just thinking about how frustrating THAT crap was…
boatboy_srq
@MattF: Not so sure about that. Can’t help thinking that Kookynellie will get blamed for trying to “pander” to the Blueness of Fairfax/Alexandria/Arlington. It’s worked well enough for Delgaudio to keep his Supe seat in Loudoun, so soft-pedaling Teh Crayzee could have worked for the Kookster. Trouble is the Governor Ultrasound policymaking is still in the public awareness, and Star Scientific is still making local news, so even without the True Believing Wingnut on display he’s still in trouble. Jackson (the LtGov candidate) isn’t making things easier, either, and he’s overtly True Believing Wingnut enough for both of them.
McAuliffe’s campaign ads sound just specific enough to keep pro-biz and pro-choice happy without actually committing anything to either.
boatboy_srq
@Jeremy: Not sure, but it’d be nice to see DoJ rebut the suits with “COMMERCE CLAUSE….. The defense rests.”
boatboy_srq
@? Martin: Taxed Enough Already. Too true.
Even more gobsmacking when it comes from volk who pay more in HOAs than in all their taxes put together.