Category: Virginia Page 17 of 34

Vivian’s hosting the mutual amusement/pain/horror-fest tonight.  Head over and say hi (and if you’re not a regular reader, poke around.  Smart stuff, there.

Obviously the speech wasn’t aimed at me, and it isn’t exactly something an undecided would listen to and say “You know, what?  That there’s a smart woman who’s really going to get things done.”  Nor was it really aimed at any (of those few, those proud, those lonely) principled Republicans who are concerned about government spending, foreign policy, etc (If you have two brain cells to rub together, you already know she’s lying about her earmark opposition – certainly you’re not dumb enough to believe that she’ll be any more honest once in office).  So what was that all about, then?  I’ve been exchanging notes with a smart friend about this morning, and she boiled it down:

The culture wars are back.

Nothing much to say about that, really, other than that I believe she’s dead on.

Other takes worth perusing include James Fallows’ deconstruction of the speech.  I think Andrew Sullivan’s observation that:

the GOP reflects some of the most ADD elements in the culture. There is no sense of accountability, no real pretense that anything is for much more than the present, and reality is constantly shaped to fit the demands of the micro-news-cycle.

is really quite important.  If that’s what wins political races, we’re really screwed.  Personally, I just can’t go down that path.  But we have a major political party that seems to exist for little more than paving it.  Sullivan also tips us off to this example of it:

So you have Mitt Romney — one of the wealthiest men ever to run for office — critiquing east-coast elitism, and Mike Huckabee — who is an economic populist in disguise — critiquing big government, and Sarah Palin — who voters don’t know one iota about — critiquing Barack Obama’s biography.

We can point and yell about hypocrisy and intellectual bankruptcy all we want – but it doesn’t matter to them.  You can’t win people over with concepts that are meaningless to them.  There are vast swaths of Virginia, right now, where people went nuts over this speech.  Finally, someone just like us!  Yup.  Just *like* you.

For the vanishingly small number of people who wanted to go to the Arlington Civic Federation candidate forum but couldn’t make it*, I’m making my recording of the Congressional candidates available.  Here it is as a podcast (AAC format, with chapter markers showing speakers, questions, candidate urls, etc).  And here it is, as a straight MP3.

Roughly, you can find the introductions of Ron Fisher (Independent Green Candidate), Mark Ellmore (Republican Candidate), and Jim Moran (Incumbent Democrat), at 3:40, and 6:52, and 10:01 respectively.  There were really no fireworks, but I know at least a few of you will be interested to hear Ellmore (at 9:32) tell us that he is in favor of pulling US troops out of Iraq immediately (c.f., uh, everything he said about the subject in the primary).  Closing statements, from Fisher, Moran, and Ellmore, can be found at 38:04, 40:12, and 42:16, respectively.

I also recorded the County Board candidates, and may post that later.  I also started to record the School Board race, but I managed to throw my recorder on the ground about half way through.  Since this election is a mere formality for both of those candidates (boooo), I’ll not bother (except to say that if I ever need a spokesman, I’ll try to hire Libby Garvey.  She’s good.)

*I wonder if that’s a larger group of people than those who didn’t want to go, but made it anyway?

Update: And for sitting there for (at least) two hours taking notes, this is the best coverage that the Arlington Sun Gazette can come up with.  Seriously, it would be more helpful to just send that paper straight to a recycling station.

Update II: Oh, wait, here’s more “reporting” from the Sun Gazette.

I saw 95% of Mark Warner’s speech last night, and I have to admit to coming away confused as to why he talked up a claim “that may not go over too well in a hall full of 18,000 partisan Democrats[.]”  If it was saying that it going to be what most of his speeches are – generally uninspiring and constantly reassuring us that he won’t break out and ask us to do anything hard – well, okay.  But it struck me more that he was indulging – on a national stage – what Virginia Democrats have a particular talent for doing: running against the same non-existent scary liberal that populates the imaginations of Virginia Republicans.  It’s an ugly enough bit of theatre here in Virginia, and there was no need to bolster the myth when he had national attention.

Last we left the 8th Congressional District campaign, the Mark Ellmore campaign had just sent out a flier making false statements the weekend before the GOP primary. Well, it paid off and Ellmore won the primary. So now that Ellmore campaign is facing Democratic incumbent Jim Moran in the general, it looks like they’re reworking their political flyer strategy:

So, the other day Mark Ellmore came to my house.  [ . . . ] He was kind of shifty-eyed and sniffly, and of course my first thought was “drug addict,” but no, it turns out “congressional hopeful” was the right answer.

Anyway, he handed me this big blue flyer and asked if I had any issues I wanted brought up on a national level. I said no, and went inside to study his paper. Sneaky #1 – it’s a big blue flyer, so of course I read it instead of sticking it straight in the trash.  It was really confusing, though – I kept saying, “but I don’t agree with that! That’s a terrible idea! What kind of policy is that?” and it took me FOUR reads before I found the wee little 8-point “Republican Candidate” in the corner. (Sneaky #2!)

Hmm. Sounds like they need a little more work.

Waldo Jaquith just wrote the definitive analysis of what it means for Virginia if Obama taps Kaine for VP.