I think the real issue to be recognized isn’t so much outcome of the vote, but the change in distribution of support for the parties.
Kaine carried several counties (particularly in very populous Northern VA and in Henrico) that have gone solidly Republican in previous gubernatorial races. He also carried several cities in southside that have traditionally gone Republican and that were practically in Kilgore’s backyard. The inroads made into traditionally Republican districts is the real story here.
Good point, but I think I’d be less concerned with losing ground in someplace with a smaller potential voter base (say, Greene County) if I’m making inroads in a locale with a much bigger potential voter base (say, Fairfax County).
Why does one place have a larger “potential voter base” than another place. We’re talking % here, so whatever change happened in one place, the exact opposite had to happen somewhere else, otherwise the % would be different. If Fairfax has many more people than Greene, then there was likely another county besides Greene that took up the slack. (All this assumes roughly equal voter participation in the varioius counties.)
I recognize that the percentages didn’t change much for this election - I’m looking toward future elections.
Because Fairfax (and the whole NoVA suburbs) are growing at a faster rate than Greene or other rural areas, and the rapidly growing population is also trending (I know, one race does not a trend make) toward changing its political stripes, then as a party the Dems have a little more cause for celebration.
Many people are this ill-informed. But to a large extent, I blame this confusion on the campaigns themselves. I did not see a single Kaine sign that had the words “Democratic candidate” on them. Not one.
Democrats will have to settle for such minor victories if they dont’ learn the Republican lesson. Play, play hard to the grassroots. Proclaim youself loudly. Claim your identity, always back your fellow party members no matter what they have done, and never, never, never apologise or back down.
For every Tim Kaine victory you have 50 Mayor Daleys forcing Senator Durbins to back down from their valid criticisms of Republican administrations. Democrats will not start winning on a large scale until they stop acting like losers.
What does it mean to your analysis that Republicans typically don’t put “republican” on their signs either? For instance, here’s Kilgore’s signs as per his website.
This I agree with. Unless someone is already convinced, you will never convince someone to go along with you if you appear sheepish, hesistant, or uncomfortable about where you yourself are going.
Oh, so the White House is no longer Republican. The chair of the Republican party isn’t a Republican?
It’s amazing the lengths some people will go in order to deny reality.
That might be the analysis if you carefuly avoid knowing anything more about the races than the bare facts of things. In reality, Kilgore was the golden boy with the full force and pocketbook of the national Republican party behind him. Kaine was billed as having NO chance, and indeed started by being down double digits. Republicans are on record all over the place as stating that Kaine could not win: that this was a done deal for their party. The House only HAD a handful of competative seats available for anyone to win, and the Dems managed to pick up seats in formerly reliably Republican areas. That Byrne came so close to beating Bolling is simply shocking, and anyone that denies that is simply being ridiculous. The fact is, everyone in the RNC said that Warner was a fluke: a normal Democrat, non-self funded, could never win Virginia.
Now of course, they must backtrack from all that. Oh, yes, it’s not a surprising victory! But sort of backtracking in order to save face is about as craven and transparently pathetic as it gets.
Wow: almost word for word right out of the talking points distributed by the RNC! Way to think for yourself!
I’ve already explained why these sorts of excuses are bupkiss. The talking points stand in direct contrast to everything Republicans said previous to this win, and the fact is that the Democrats outperformed expectations in virtualy every single race. They nominated a terrible LG candidate, and their two bottom ticket races were outspent so badly that it’s amazing that they did as well as they did (the AG race looks like it may irritatingly drag on for some time).
McClellan said that Kaine ran as a conservative, not that he was one. I said that he moderated some previously held liberal views to make himself more electable. I think the evidence is pretty clear that he did this.
As for Ken Mehlman, our party chairman (not chair, as that is a piece of furniture, not a position of authority) I haven’t seen any quotes that he claimed Kaine was a conservative. Do you have any?
My post about congressional races was just a caution that Warner’s popularity - and he is indeed popular, moreso than Kaine likely will ever be - didn’t translate to dramatic Democratic gains in power here in the state. Indeed, it seems limited to electing his successor, which isn’t a small thing, but is hardly transformative.
Indeed, Warner leaves behind a Democratic party that still has a very long way to go before they achieve dominance in this state.
I still don’t understand how this assertion helps to explain his victory. If people wanted to vote for the conservative, why didn’t they vote for Kilgore?
Defending the largest tax increase in Virginia’s history
Universal pre-K
The idea that good governance is better than partisan screeching
All those, especially the last, is pretty much diametrically opposed to movement conservatism. So, no, I don’t think the evidence is clear. But we’re talking about tlaking points, not evidence, so I guess it doesn’t much matter.
Sure, there was, for isntance, the list of talking point he issued that you quoted from almost verbatim. But then, you probably parroted it via a more circuitous route than directly from his memo.
Man, what failures the Dems must be, to not even win a single 2006 race… in 2005.
No one said they could gian dominance. Nevertheless, claiming that this is an unsurprising continuation of the status quo is painfully pathetic given the rhetoric used previously to describe Kaine and the disdainful chuckling about his or any Democrats chances in Virginia.
Did he? Did he ever support gay marriage? No. But he did speak out against treating gay people differently under the law, for instance denying them the ability to adopt if they were as fit as any other parent.
Did he ever support taking people’s guns away? No. He supported commonsense restrictions on gun sales and where you could take guns.
I know it was a major message to play up in the campaign for Republicans, but now that the campaign is over and we can stop spinning, he started as a moderate and remained one.
