[Mb-civic] As Virginia goes - Thomas Oliphant - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

As Virginia goes

By Thomas Oliphant, Globe Columnist  |  November 10, 2005

WASHINGTON
FOR A FULL generation, the very conservative state of Virginia has been 
attempting to instruct the rest of the country on the perils of grand 
political and ideological theory.

With Ronald Reagan's stunning victory in 1980, all the rage in politics 
was over a supposedly looming realignment in American politics, a 
fundamental shift to the right every bit as momentous as the lurch 
during the New Deal and for a spell after Lyndon Johnson's landslide in 
1964.

The very next year, however, Chuck Robb was elected governor, the first 
of three consecutive moderately conservative Democrats who hoisted a 
large caution flag in the face of this alleged movement. The next year, 
conservatives lost working control of the House of Representatives, and 
in 1986 they lost the Senate.

When Democrats foolishly speculated that they had rediscovered electoral 
magic with Bill Clinton's election in 1992, it was Virginia that said 
not so fast the next year with the election of conservative Republican 
George Allen as governor, foreshadowing the 1994 GOP earthquake that 
lasted the decade, as did Republican control of the Virginia state house.

And when the post-9/11 politics of fear and war -- mixed with the 
venomous elixir of so-called social issues served up by the religious 
right -- both ensconced George W. Bush in the White House for two terms 
and solidified Republican control of Congress, it was chic to theorize 
that conservative voters in rapidly growing outer suburbs were again 
producing the long-awaited realignment.

But in Virginia, this week's election in fact pointed toward moderation 
and Democratic competitiveness in those very suburbs. First Mark Warner 
in 2001 and then Tim Kaine even more dramatically this week proved that 
a red state is not always what it seems. Instead of being increasingly 
populated havens for megachurch social conservatism and low-tax 
conservatism, these suburbs demonstrated that they are also places where 
middle-income adults flock in a desperate search for affordable housing 
and where they show a deep concern about threats to open space and 
wetlands, gridlocked traffic, and quality public education.

In Loudon County (Leesburg) and Prince William County (Haymarket and 
Quantico) and the city of Manassas, places where Bush trounced John 
Kerry a year ago, Lieutenant Governor Timothy Kaine beat 
superconservative Republican Jerry Kilgore on his way to an impressive 
6-point margin statewide.

Virginia also holds an important lesson about governance in this 
hyperpartisan era. The uncomfortable truth for those who worship 
ideologies is that common sense is a more useful tool in facing this 
country's serious problems than rigid tenets. Back in 1997, the GOP 
candidate for governor, Jim Gilmore, swept to victory on a promise to 
eliminate the state's onerous personal property tax on cars. It was 
great politics, but poor planning left a gigantic hole in Virginia's 
public finances as a result.

With the state facing a true crisis, Mark Warner and the Democrats got a 
mandate four years ago to fix the mess. With the Legislature in 
Republican hands, there was no option but a long campaign to build a 
coalition across party lines for a solution that mixed some reform with 
a serious increase in the state tax burden. It worked, but many 
Republicans could not come to terms with it; Kaine in effect ran for 
governor to keep the momentum going and was joined to Warner's hip 
throughout.

As attention properly focuses on Warner as a potential presidential 
candidate in 2008, the lesson of his tenure is clear for national 
Democrats. Success at the polls still leaves a stark political reality 
that demands bipartisan governance if huge budget messes are to be 
cleaned up and other major challenges are to be confronted.

It is a lesson still completely lost on President Bush, whose 
last-minute appearance in Richmond last Sunday was irrelevant. For the 
record, the latest opinion survey -- by the Pew Center -- put his job 
approval rating at a new low, 36 percent. His support among independent 
voters is an abysmal 29 percent, and even his Republican rating has shed 
12 points this year to 77 percent. At this rate, in the 2006 campaign, 
he will be the Flying Dutchman.

The only other major pol with numbers that horrendous is egomaniac 
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who lost on all four referendum questions he used 
to force California to go through another special election. What began 
with such promise two years ago has become just another 
special-interest-coddling administration that is developing many of the 
features of the Bush presidency.

Like opinion polls, off-year elections are just a snapshot, not 
necessarily a harbinger. However, they do have a tendency to deflate the 
expectations of the previous year's victors. In politics, the pendulum 
is always moving, and once again, Virginia is the primary reality check.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/10/as_virginia_goes/
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