DEEDS for Virginia GOVERNOR! Washington Post Rejects "Bogus" Bob McDonnell !
James Fenimore
clogged, backward-looking past!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_Me_Back_to_Old_Virginny
------------
"Mr. Deeds for Governor"
His transportation realism and Mr. McDonnell's bogus roads plan
present Virginians
with a stark choice on Nov. 3.
Editorial
The Washington Post
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A LEGACY of sound policies, coupled with the proximity of the federal
government, has partially protected Virginia from the harsh
retrenchments that the recession has forced on many states. Yet the
commonwealth faces a daunting crisis in the form of a drastic
shortfall in transportation funding, measured in the tens of billions
of dollars, that threatens future prosperity. If the current campaign
for governor has clarified anything, it is that state Sen. R. Creigh
Deeds, the Democratic nominee, has the good sense and political
courage to maintain the forward-looking policies of the past while
addressing the looming challenge of fixing the state's dangerously
inadequate roads. The Republican candidate, former attorney general
Robert F. McDonnell, offers something different: a blizzard of bogus,
unworkable, chimerical proposals, repackaged as new ideas, that
crumble on contact with reality. They would do little if anything to
build a better transportation system.
There are plenty of reasons why Mr. Deeds is the better choice for
governor in the Nov. 3 election. He has stood with Gov. Timothy M.
Kaine, the incumbent, and his predecessor, now-Sen. Mark R. Warner, in
support of the sane fiscal and budgetary choices that have made the
state one of the best-governed and most business-friendly in the
nation. Mr. McDonnell has generally spurned those policies, most
notably by opposing Mr. Warner's landmark tax package in 2004, which
attracted bipartisan support as it boosted public safety and education
and protected the state's finances. Mr. Deeds has compiled a moderate
record on divisive social issues that reflects Virginia's status as a
centrist swing state. Mr. McDonnell has staked out the intolerant
terrain on his party's right wing, fighting a culture war that seized
his imagination as a law student in the Reagan era.
But the central challenge facing Virginia and its next governor is the
deficit in transportation funding projected at $100 billion over the
next two decades -- and only Mr. Deeds offers hope for a solution.
Following a road map used successfully in 1986, he would appoint a
bipartisan commission to forge a consensus on transportation funding,
with the full expectation that new taxes would be part of the mix. Mr.
McDonnell, by contrast, proposes to pay for road improvements mainly
by cannibalizing essential state services such as education, health
and public safety -- a political non-starter. And rather than leveling
with Virginians about the cost of his approach, as Mr. Deeds has done,
Mr. McDonnell lacks the political spine to say what programs he would
attempt to gut, or even reshape, in order to deal with transportation
needs.
Mr. Deeds has run an enormous and possibly fatal political risk by
saying bluntly that he would support legislation to raise new taxes
dedicated to transportation. It is a risk that neither Mr. Kaine nor
Mr. Warner felt they could take. But given that the state has raised
no significant new cash for roads, rails and bridges in 23 years, Mr.
Deeds's position is nothing more than common sense. It is fantasy to
think that the transportation funding problem, a generation in the
making, will be addressed without a tax increase. A recent manifesto
from 17 major business groups in Northern Virginia, calling for new
taxes dedicated to transportation, attests to that reality.
Yet Mr. McDonnell, champion of a revenue-starved status quo, remains
in denial. He professes to feel the pain of Virginians struggling with
financial hard times. In fact his transportation policy, a blueprint
for stagnation and continuing deterioration, would subvert the state's
prospects for economic recovery and long-term growth. And it would
only deepen the misery of Northern Virginia commuters who already pay
a terrible price -- economic, personal and psychological -- because of
the state's long neglect of its roads.
Gleeful Republicans, convinced that Mr. Deeds has dealt his own
candidacy a lethal blow by his stance on taxes, have seized on it as
evidence that Mr. Deeds is heedless of the financial strains on
ordinary Virginians. A recession is no time to raise taxes, they say;
never mind that any solution is unlikely to be in place until recovery
is underway. Of course, these same Republicans, Mr. McDonnell
included, screeched about the Warner tax increase, first calling it
unneeded (during a short-lived budget surplus) and then -- when it
began to look inadequate -- preferring not to talk about it. In Mr.
McDonnell's view, there is never a good time to invest adequately in
the state's critical infrastructure.
Mr. Deeds has been broadly criticized, not least by stalwarts of his
own party, for putting too heavy an emphasis on negative ads about Mr.
McDonnell and failing to make an affirmative case for himself. If so,
it reflects a failure of campaign strategy and tactics, not a lack of
raw material. In fact Mr. Deeds -- a decent, unusually self-effacing
man who calls himself "a nobody from nowhere" -- has a compelling life
story and an admirable record of achievement as a legislator from
rural Bath County.
As we noted in endorsing Mr. Deeds in June's Democratic primary, his
record in the legislature ably blended the conservative interests of
his constituents with an agenda reflecting the prosperous, politically
moderate face of modern-day Virginia. He has been a longtime champion
of a more enlightened, bipartisan system of drawing voting districts,
a stance to which Mr. McDonnell only recently gravitated. He has
played a constructive role in economic development by shaping the
Governor's Economic Opportunity Fund, which provides incentives for
investors in Virginia, and he has stood for responsible environmental
policies, including green jobs and alternative energy research.
Despite his rural roots, Mr. Deeds has been ideologically flexible
enough to support abortion rights; press for background checks on
firearms buyers at gun shows; oppose displaying the Confederate flag
on state license plates; and warm to equal rights for homosexuals.
As for Mr. McDonnell, he deserves credit for having run a disciplined,
focused, policy-oriented campaign. As a candidate, a statewide
official and a lawmaker, he has maintained a civil, personable manner.
His intellectual agility, even temper and facility with the grit of
policy have inspired the respect of colleagues, staffers and rivals.
He is a dexterous politician.
Our differences with him are on questions of policy. The clamor
surrounding his graduate dissertation from 1989, in which he
disparaged working women, homosexuals, "fornicators" and others of
whom he disapproved, has tended to obscure rather than illuminate fair
questions about the sort of governor he would make. Based on his 14-
year record as a lawmaker -- a record dominated by his focus on
incendiary wedge issues -- we worry that Mr. McDonnell's Virginia
would be one where abortion rights would be curtailed; where
homosexuals would be treated as second-class citizens; where
information about birth control would be hidden; and where the line
between church and state could get awfully porous. That is a
prescription for yesterday's Virginia, not tomorrow's.
Mr. McDonnell has inspired a worthwhile debate over privatizing liquor
sales in Virginia, one of 18 states that control the wholesale and
retail trade in spirits. But by suggesting the state could use the
proceeds of privatization as an ongoing funding source for road
improvements, he has played fast and loose with the facts -- first by
plucking projected revenue figures from thin air and second by
glossing over the question of what state services he would cut if the
$100 million currently gleaned from annual liquor sales could be
diverted for transportation.
Mr. McDonnell has sought to corner Mr. Deeds by focusing on debates in
Washington over energy policy, labor union membership and other
contentious federal issues. But a governor of Virginia can do little
to influence the ideologically charged debates raging on Capitol Hill.
Mr. McDonnell also has claimed he would be more effective at creating
jobs. Yet while Mr. McDonnell has been an activist public servant, he
has no significant record, either as a lawmaker or as attorney
general, of promoting policies to encourage job growth.
Mr. Deeds, lagging in the polls, lacks Mr. McDonnell's knack for crisp
articulation. But if he has not always been the most adroit advocate
for astute policies, that is preferable to Mr. McDonnell's silver-
tongued embrace of ideas that would mire Virginia in a traffic-
clogged, backward-looking past. Virginians should not confuse Mr.
McDonnell's adept oratory for wisdom, nor Mr. Deeds's plain speech for
indirection. In fact, it is Mr. Deeds whose ideas hold the promise of
a prosperous future.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/17/AR2009101701477.html
Suppurating Tool
that McDONNELL is a direct disciple of Pat Robertson and a "graduate"
of Pat's so-called "law school."
So, it'll take educated Northern Virginians to vote with integrity and
insight, just as they did when they voted down George "Macaca" Allen
in favor of Jim Webb for U.S. Senate!
babeejm
>Sorry I don't go for the Washington Post line..It worked last year..
but it won't work this time..My vote will stay with MCD.
Wanting
Actually, some old-timers prefer the 19th century!