These posters (click to embiggen) are clever, true, stylish, relevant to the target audience, and probably effective. Therefore, the Virginia Democratic Party wants to take them down immediately on college campuses across the state.
Reader Interactions
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Elizabelle
Ah, but the images are already out there on blogs and social media, no?
I think they’re clever.
mai naem
Those are funny. I just wonder if da Cooch would use them with his GOTV with his old fart teabagger/fundies supporters.
MomSense
Do we know anything new about the voter purge in VA?
Linda Featheringill
Is this true? Cucci wants to make oral sex a crime? Wow. I’d heard that he wanted to make homosexual activity illegal but this is a new one to me.
I think the folks in Virginia should stage a two-week, very public, rather loud argument over the offending posters. That would bring us up to Nov. 5.
Anya
@mai naem: Would they understand it though? I think the meaning will be lost in the translation. Also, too, the old racist farts were gonna vote for the nutso anyways.
Anya
@Linda Featheringill: Apparently yes.
Marc
@Elizabelle: Yeah, and the controversy gets them more free media than the signs alone would ever reach. I’d call that a win.
mai naem
@Anya: The fundies were going to vote for Cooch but I am talking about helping with GOTV.
I just remembered while I was getting pissed off watching Bill Kristol on Morning Ho that he’s always wrong about everything. The warmonger was saying Cruz wasn’t that bad, the govt. shutown wasn’t that bad, the business interests not helping the GOP is a good thing, Obamacare is bad bad bad. All the stuff I’m right about and Bill Kristol’s wrong about.
Ash Can
@Linda Featheringill: IIRC, he wanted to take the issue all the way to the Supreme Court but was told to get a life. Just another small-government Republican.
nineone
Well of course they do. Real adults don’t talk about sex. They keep it on the down low, don’tcha know.
Baud
Pruds vote too!
Anya
OT — Durbin: House leader told Obama ‘I cannot even stand to look at you’
Possible media reaction: Yet another example of the toxic tone in Washington and both sides are guilty of this. Just this week Florida Congressman Alan Grayson compared teabaggers to the KKK.
agrippa
Those posters are amusing.
They are, probably, effective.
MattF
Note this:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rasmussen-poll-mcauliffe-50-cuccinelli-33
Also, this morning, WaPo has an article about how SW Virginia, which is the Red Fortress of Virginia, doesn’t like Der Cooch. I just hope McAuliffe doesn’t turn out to be awful a la Jon Corzine.
jefft452
@Elizabelle: LBJ never ran the famous “Daisy” ad, yet everybody saw it
GregB
Cuccinelli blows but he doesn’t want to let anyone else.
raven
There goes your social life.
evap
I got my VA voter card in the mail yesterday and discovered my voting place is across the street from my apartment. Looking forward to casting my vote in two weeks!
NotMax
@jefft452
It did run – once. And yes, I saw it.
The man behind that ad, Tony Schwartz, was an interesting fellow. Attended a course he taught, which was held at his home due to his being a full-blown agoraphobic.
Thunderbird
@jefft452: They only ran it once.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_(advertisement)
MomSense
@Anya:
Wow. Setting aside for the moment the disrespect this President has faced from the Republicans, it is also impossible to negotiate with a party/group that can’t follow through on the deals they make. Boehner, Reid and the President made a deal to pass a clean CR at sequester levels and Boehner couldn’t keep his end of the deal. That is the issue–not this zombie criticism that the President can’t lead or doesn’t schmooze enough.
Kay
@MattF:
Good for them. Why don’t they like him? I have my own theory. I think he has Federalist Society Lawyer disease. Some of them are unbearably sanctimonious, in my experience. They don’t talk with people, they lecture AT people.
My favorite encounter with one of them ended with him telling me “if you knew how this country was supposed to work, you would be outraged”. He said it regretfully, sad that I’m such a moron. They are incredibly arrogant. He seems like one of those. He has the wide-eyed sorrowful look, gazing down on the corrupted world.
Nina
I was in Williamsburg a few weeks back. It was amazing how many usually red-ribbed Republicans were grumbling about the shutdown and talking about crossing the aisle. Williamsburg itself is a private corporation, but Norfolk felt the military shutdown badly, and Yorktown and Jamestown are federal properties. Tourist traffic was way down, which was nice for my photographer-husband.
It’s amazing how politically clear someone can get when their paycheck is threatened by ideology. Suddenly paying (low) taxes isn’t such a bad deal.
Cassidy
You’d think the party of family values would be promoting more oral sex. One regular blowjob a week would practically eliminate divorce and most marital issues.
MattF
@Kay: The article itself is somewhat weirdly noncommittal about the reason SWers dislike Cooch, but it quotes a lot of people saying “I don’t trust him.”
Elizabelle
@MomSense:
Great question. Found nothing on whether the Democratic Party of Virginia decided to appeal, but a few tidbits in earlier reporting.
Had not realized the voter purge dovetails with a Republican-controlled effort across several states.
(Background: Issue is list of 57,000 voters presumably ineligible — some because of duplicate registrations in other states; ca. 40,000 were purged; case heard three days after Virginia voter registration deadline passed, and less than a month before the gubernatorial election; Democratic Party of Virginia challenged but didn’t prevail in first round.)
From Bloomberg News:
[Virginia is in the “both” category.]
and, a well-reported piece from The Washington Times (!); reader comments are toxic, but story’s accurate:
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/13/virginia-democrats-fight-purge-of-voter-rolls-orde/#ixzz2iY0UUwPR
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
FYI: Chesterfield County is just south of Richmond, has a lot of affluent African American families.
Also: wouldn’t Chesterfield registrar have to devote more than 70 man hours to reviewing the voter rolls, this after the registration deadline had passed and mere weeks before a gubernatorial election? That sounds onerous. Good on Registar Haake, who spot-checked the rolls and demurred.
Hawes
It’s a long way between cunning strategy and cunnilingus apparently.
Kay
@MattF:
Oh, that must kill him. How could he not be trustworthy? He’s so clearly their moral and intellectual better. We have one around here, a prosecutor, and he writes “in the year of our lord…” on his letters. I have to say to him “don’t lecture me” because walking away didn’t work. He’ll follow you.
raven
@Nina: We’re headed to the Lynchburg area for a family reunion and are plotting how to stay OUT of political conversations.
Ash Can
@Cassidy: If the viability of one’s marriage hinges on blowjobs, one should probably rethink the entire idea of being married.
NotMax
@Kay
“I don’t trust him.”
That’s saying a mouthful.
JPL
@Anya: Durbin should name the person. Boehner of course has no recollection because he was recovering from the night before.
Maybe one of the front pagers will write about this.
Cassidy
@Ash Can: That’s an incredibly simple and wrong way to look at it. Many times, believe it or not, the whole tone of a marriage can change with simply knowing someone loves you enough to pay focused attention to you for 10 mins. I’ve seen it more than once. It’s the same thing when the woman says “I want you to take me out on a date/ be romantic/ talk to me about stuff/ cuddle with me, etc.
Jay in Oregon
@Kay:
He’s right. 5 years of unprecedented obstructionism and outright sabotage by one of the two major political parties, on the heels of a major financial collapse that sandbagged the economy? More people should be pissed about that.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
It does sound onerous, downright disenfranchisey even.
slim shady
Do they have similar posters for the sodomy side of the issue? I have ideas. ‘Stick it where the Sun don’t Shine” would be one. I have a few more where that came from.
raven
The Cry of the True Republican
chrome agnomen
@NotMax:
heh
jonas
Why were these so controversial? Cuccinelli *did* advocate — somehow thinking he could circumvent Lawrence v. Texas — reviving the state’s anti-sodomy law which would, in effect, outlaw sexual activity such as blow jobs. Why is he running away from this and why isn’t McAuliffe’s campaign willing to bludgeon him with it more? Virginia is for lovers, after all.
Elizabelle
@Anya:
From Anya’s Slate link:
Maybe that’s why voters don’t trust him.
A commenter on a Washington Post thread was wondering why Republicans wanted to be the party against non-reproductive sex.
PS: Cooch apparently swears he won’t apply the law to consenting adults. Just like he promised a Northern Virginia tech council: don’t worry about me and my conservative social views. I’m all about jobs.
Elizabelle
@jonas:
Only vaginal lovers.
And married ones, at that.
(fine print: does not apply to lesbians, and other “crimes against nature” “likely Hillary Clinton supporter” types.)
JPL
@raven: Thank you for the link..
Somehow, I imagine John Taft, hanging his head in shame after reading the information that a repub showed disrespect to the President.
Waspuppet
God I hate us sometimes.
Elizabelle
@Waspuppet:
You don’t think those posters will not become collector’s items, and be displayed in student dorm rooms? Or sent around by iPhone pics?
But I agree: show some backbone, Dems. The posters are not inaccurate, and Cooch has the prudes vote locked up.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
Sounds like Cooch is taking a page from Republican hero and “former” communist Vladimir Putin.
FoxinSocks
Just a reminder, while we’re all rightfully piling on Ken Cuccinelli, that the Republicans’ candidate for Attorney General, Mark Obenshain, makes Ken look sane and has a real shot at winning his race.
This is the guy who in 2009, introduced a bill that would require women who had had miscarriages to report them to the police within 24 hours or face arrest or a fine.
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/20/gop_attorney_general_candidate_tried_to_force_women_to_report_miscarriages_to_police/
fuddmain
Seems to me that the Virginia Democratic Party is getting a lot of publicity for the posters and Cooch’s extremism by taking them down.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Cassidy:
That’s a bit one sided. Let me guess…you’re male.
luzeelu
I’ve been tempted to make a couple of bumper stickers that say, “Hate blow jobs? Vote Cooch!” and “Down on going down? Vote Cooch!”
I guess the Virginia Dems would disapprove.
Cassidy
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): I don’t think so. There’s plenty of “rules”, blog posts, opinion pieces, etc. that state how a man should act in a relationship to give their spouse the kind of engaged partnership women want, per the multiple “what women want” articles and fluff pieces you can find in every magazine and paper. I don’t think it’s a stretch to realize that men have the same kinds of needs and wants; they just manifest in different ways.
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: by making this a public controversy, those posters will be selling on eBay for over 1000 each by sundown
scuffletuffle
Where’s the love of first amendment rights now?
Elizabelle
@FoxinSocks:
I’ve been canvassing in Northern Virginia and telling voters that the AG race is the closest of the three, and what Republicans will want as a consolation prize. It’s very important to elect Mark Herring AG.
The Richmond Times Dispatch did not endorse for governor, endorsed the DEMOCRAT (Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon from Norfolk) for lt. governor, then strongly endorsed the GOP AG candidate, Mark Obenshain, for his “moderate temperament.”
Obenshain’s record is anything but moderate: 100% approval rating by the American Conservative Union, zero % from the Virginia Education Association, and 92% by the NRA. Plus the birth-control pill bothering.
Incidentally, I’ve had voters tell me they’re really excited about voting for Ralph Northam, and they hope he will next be governor.
He’s a pediatric neurosurgeon and state senator from Norfolk, previously Major Northam, an Army physician, and a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute.
Republicans tried to recruit him a few years ago; sadly, he might have been receptive to the switch then.
But this is a different state GOP now.
Tom Q
I have no problem with the official party position being “tut-tut” on these posters. The people who’ll respond to them will see them and laugh with them, and whatever percentage of potential McAuliffe voters who’d be offended by them won’t be as apt to be swayed by a “Dems are hedonsitic Satanists” campaign thanks to the disavowal.
Yeah, we’d love for Dems to be full-out cool, but we have to deal with the fact that a certain sliver of the vote they need is wobbly and relentlessly un-hip.
mai naem
@Anya: I wonder who it was. It says Obama met with a GOP House ;leadership group. I am guessing the group consisted of Cantor, Ryan, McMorris Rodgers, Kevin McCarthy Roskam, and Boehner The only two I can see saying something like that is Ryan out of frustration(remember when Obama humiliated him at that stupid budget conference way back) or Cantor. I would think Cantor is too polished to say something like that to Obama’s face.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
I saw it too!
And I always thought I saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot in real time, but lately I think maybe I fantasized that.
Gene108
Those posters blow. They truly suck. I do not understand how you can swallow what they are pushing.
FoxinSocks
@Elizabelle:
Thanks so much for getting the word out about Obenshain’s craziness. And I had no idea Northam was such a good guy.
Though I’m in Maryland, have been doing some data entry for the McAuliffe campaign. I’m very much an introvert, so I don’t know if I can bring myself to knock on doors. I’ve done it before, I’ve even made calls, but it’s extremely stressful and leads to migraines.
...now I try to be amused
@Elizabelle:
(Only) Vagina is for lovers!
Anya
@mai naem: I think it’s Ryan. He has more personal reasons to hate Obama. But I agree with@JPL: Durban should name the asshole.
catclub
@JPL: Best as I can tell, Mr Taft has been asleep since about 1993. He had no problems with the responsible party when it was led by GWBush into Iraq.
And blew the budget with tax cuts and Medicare D.
Rip Van Taft
Steve in the ATL
I thought oral sex was already illegal in Virginia. When I was in college there the story was that sex was illegal except for a married couple having intercourse, missionary style, for purposes of procreation. Any other position or purpose was considered “deviant.” Any Virginia lawyers here who can confirm or deny?
Snarla
The Va Republican party is claiming to have ‘debunked’ the story that Cuccinelli wants to make oral sex a felony.
Somebody please explain to them what ‘debunked’ means.
Also “Hurr hurr blowjobs–amirite” *high five* :rolleyes:
LanceThruster
Trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time and again.
[face palm]
Elizabelle
@Steve in the ATL:
If memory serves, I remember my dad telling me, during the early1970s, that cohabiting before marriage was legally grounds for not being granted admittance to the Virginia state bar. Questionable moral character.
He thought that was loopy. He’d just finished law school, and was studying for the bar. (I don’t know if state bar was enforcing the “no cohabitation” clause; probably very selectively.)
Marriage across racial lines in Virginia was only legally permitted with 1967’s Loving vs. Virginia Supreme Court case. (That dealt with a white husband and black wife; I don’t imagine Virginia had that much trouble with Japanese or Korean brides of GIs.)
Another Holocene Human
@Nina: Yeah, you’re right–it’s not as if this corporate whore third way conservaDem is going to do something radical as in making Virginia’s income tax more progressive and less burdensome on poor people and students. Get out!
Elizabelle
@FoxinSocks:
From Ralph Northam’s website:
It’s even more clear we need a reasonable Attorney General. Mark Herring. Not Mark Obenshain.
Elizabelle
@…now I try to be amused:
Well done.
Elizabelle
@ fox in socks:
Aha. Another case of “what would the Fox say?”
Good on you for doing the data input. Major assistance.
Boots Day
Cooch apparently swears he won’t apply the law to consenting adults.
IANAL, but that strikes me as one of the wackiest and most dishonest parts of this whole tale. The governor backs a proposed law, but promises he will apply it only to people he doesn’t like, and not to people he likes? That makes no sense to me.
Jay C
I guess Ken Cuccinelli’s relentlessly retrograde “anti-sodomy” campaign – complete with gratuitous references to “child molesting” – is meant to nail down his support among the godbotherer fringe: though I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t vote the straight “R” ticket in any case (no pun intended!). Of course, this sort of legislation is almost certainly unconstitutional and almost certainly unenforceable, but since when that ever stopped Republicans from promoting prejudicial legislation?
Woodrowfan
By asking the posters to be taken down the state party gets to do 2 things,.
1. Appease those who thought they were over-board.
2. Call even more attention to them among the people they’re aimed at.
I think they knew exactly what they were doing…
Woodrowfan
@Elizabelle:
One of my students is from the county where the Lovings were from. he told me that interracial marriage between blacks, whites, and native Americans was pretty common there until a local sheriff decided he wanted to make a name for himself by arresting the Lovings. He wrote a really interesting paper using the county’s marriage records.
? Martin
Those are fantastic design.
CarolDuhart2
@Waspuppet: I don’t get this at all. College students are adults. Why not an adult message? And anyone who is offended would never vote Republican anyway for any reason.
Sometimes I think local Democrats are still scared of their shadow and think it’s 1968 when even the mention of sex would outrage older voters. Hey, it’s 2013. Moms pose naked on Instagram, YouTube has explicit video, and even an unfocused search on Google turns up stuff that used to be banned by Simon Leis.
I’m old enough to remember the outrage over Mapplethorpe and Hustler. Now Hustler has two stores downtown (Cinci) and these days if Mapplethorpe pictures showed up, they could be sold as prints at the local art museum with proof of age. (The ones that weren’t sold over the net anonymously with crossed fingers over age).
If a culturally conservative place like Cincinnati can pretty much give up on the culture wars, then it’s time for Democrats to stop being so scared about the subject-even in Virginia.
Librarian
I would be willing to bet that there are more than a few Virginians who won’t vote for Cuccinelli because of his funny name and the fact that he is an Eye-talian. This is Virginia, after all, the Old Dominion.
BruinKid
@MomSense: Yeah, my friend’s wife is one of the ones who got purged. And it’s too late to re-register in time to vote in two weeks. They’re pissed.
And guess what? They’re actually white people. Oh, and he was furloughed during the shutdown, so this hasn’t been a good month for them.
Elizabelle
@Woodrowfan:
Wow. That sounds interesting. Love that your student was using primary records.
And another case of “the law” being behind the community, in practice.
Like Cooch, now.
Seanly
@Linda Featheringill:
Many southern states (plus Utah & Idaho) still had various “crimes against nature” (sometimes called other names) statutes that expressly or implicitly banned various s3xual acts. While rarely enforced, they are still laws.
This wiki link has a very comprehensive roundup of what was illegal & for whom it was illegal in various states.
Anyone who wants to make laws restricting freedoms & then says he won’t enforce them is lieing & hoping that people don’t realize that maybe the next jerk won’t be so accommodating.
Seanly
@Steve in the ATL:
All such laws where invalidated by the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court decision (see the wiki link in my previous comment #79).
I don’t see how our Opus Dei dominated court voted in favor of Lawrence, but they did.
Elizabelle
@BruinKid:
See if your friend could vote a provisional ballot, and have him alert the local Democrats (they’ll have election protection types).
Per WaPost:
Elizabelle
That WaPost story glided right over the issue with the database, and why it’s coming up now.
Bloomberg News called it “the Republican-controlled Interstate Voter Crosscheck Program.” (comment 26, above)
Here’s the WaPost on the purging voters ruling:
Sounds like a nonpartisan good government tool, doesn’t it?
Here’s trackback to earlier WaPost story from April 2013, which never explicitly states the problem either.
Anything interesting about those “several states” Virginia has joined?
Another Holocene Human
@Woodrowfan: they still had to leave VA to get married… it would be like arresting same sex couple who got married overseas for sodomy pre Lawrence v Texas
Another Holocene Human
@Steve in the ATL:
VA’s sodomy law was overturned by Lawrence v Texas.
Ken Cuccinelli was trying to go to the Supreme Court to get it reinstated. He failed.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: Obviously it’s targeted at college students but wouldn’t this system also get all those “job creators” with properties in multiple states?
When you do motor voter you have the option to ask the previous jurisdiction to scrub you off their rolls, so the recently moved should be okay.
Really, it should only matter if you vote once in one election… why does it matter if you vote in village elections in the summer election in one jurisdiction and national/state elections in the fall in another. I have a problem with people who try to absentee ballot every place they have a summer house during federal elections.
chopper, interrupted
@GregB:
or, he blows so much it’s more than enough for everyone else.
Fred
VIRGINIA IS FOR… uh… MISSIONARIES
RAGGEDT
@MattF: An upside of VA’s one-and-done law is that if McAuliffe turns out to be awful, he has just one term to do damage. Alas, the downside is that the same is true if he’s doing a good job too.
Rebecca
I know this thread is dead, but Virginia’s sodomy law is unconstitutional due to Lawrence vs Texas, but it’s still on the books and still being used here in rural Virginia. Six years or so ago, the 18 yr old of a 15yr/18yr consenting lesbian couple was convicted of Crimes Against Nature (among other things – including possession of child pornography for a cell phone selfie from 15yr old). I think she got 5 years (not everyone has competent council). Coochinelli wants to reinstate prosecution of Crimes Against Nature, the law itself was never repealed, it’s just uninforcable against the educated and privileged.