# The Virginia Governor Race (and assorted state elections) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 24, 2009, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938 "2009-10-24T04:43:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/21 "2009-10-25T21:23:09Z")
He’s refuted the “women shouldn’t work” thing, by talking about how his wife works, his daughter’s in the service, and talking about all the women he hired as prosecutors when he was Attorney General. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/22 "2009-10-25T21:31:34Z")
He’s also come out and said that the government shouldn’t discriminate based on sexual orientation or ban conception, so he’s repudiated those views. ---
**Author:** ![Elza\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Elza\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elza_B)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/23 "2009-10-26T01:06:41Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > He’s also come out and said that the government shouldn’t discriminate based on sexual orientation or ban conception, so he’s repudiated those views. Do you have a cite for that? Not because I’m trying to challenge you and yell “CITE!” in the Pit ;), but I’d really like to confirm this for my own curiosity. The Post analyzed both candidates several weeks ago in the Sunday paper, and to be honest, they don’t particularly seem to like Creigh Deeds much more the McDonnell, even though they did endorse him. I’m surprised that they just didn’t refuse to endorse anyone. How much longer until this damn election is over again? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/24 "2009-10-26T01:45:18Z")
> [@Elza\_B](#): > > Do you have a cite for that? Not because I’m trying to challenge you and yell “CITE!” in the Pit ;), but I’d really like to confirm this for my own curiosity. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/29/AR2009082902434.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/29/AR2009082902434.html) 7th paragraph: > [@](#): > > McDonnell also said that government should not discriminate based on sexual orientation or ban contraceptives and that “I am not advocating vouchers as there are legal questions regarding their constitutionality in Virginia.” ---
**Author:** ![Elza\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Elza\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elza_B)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/25 "2009-10-26T02:04:15Z")
Thanks - fairly similar to what I’ve heard, but I do like that it went a little more in-depth. (And we’ve had Washington Post delivery issues, so I’m guessing that article was in one of the weeks where we never got a paper.) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/26 "2009-10-26T02:24:48Z")
My question is why did Deeds win the Democratic primary? From what I could tell of the three candidates at the time, he seemed like a solid third-place choice, stolid and dull, too conservative for the liberal wing but unlikely to win any votes from actual conservatives, quite likely to lose the general election. But people backed him (did the national party back him? don’t know) and _immediately,_ within days after winning the primary, were talking about the trouble his campaign was in and whether he could win the uphill fight in the general election. My reaction is, yeah, pick the loser in the primary, you deserve to lose the general. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/27 "2009-10-26T03:51:38Z")
Partly because McAuliffe and Moran spent most of their time going after each other. But Deeds probably was the best candidate. McAuliffe would never have gotten over the carpetbagger charge and the Clinton scandals, and Moran moved so far to the left in the primaries, coming out for gay marriage, and against coastal oil exploration, I don’t think he would have had a chance in the general. Besides, remember in 2005, Deeds had faced off against McDonnell before in the Attorney General campaign, and only lost by 350 votes. So he proved he could be competitive with McDonnell. However Deeds does next Tuesday, McAulliffe or Moran would have done worse. ---
**Author:** ![Karweenie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e79b87/32.png) [@Karweenie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karweenie)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/28 "2009-10-26T05:38:10Z")
Eh, I don’t care so much about McDonnell’s old thesis. What bothers me is that he got it from fucking **Regent.** Our former _Attorney General_ got a shit law degree from a shit school. A shitty, ricockulously conservative, laughable Liberty-at-the-Beach school. That, and his social agenda crap in the Assembly, tell me all I need to know about his plans for the governor’s office. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/29 "2009-10-26T14:31:16Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > For those of you who don’t know, I live in Northern Virginia, near Washington, DC, and this year, because Virginia can’t be like normal states that have elections on even years, we have a governors race this year. We’re also electing members of the House of Delegates, the lower half of Virginia’s legislature. I actually like the fact that most of the time our races don’t go up against national elections. Sure, we get the down side of getting more national attention from it, but it also means that people aren’t just going in to vote for president and then, not really knowing much about the other candidates, end up voting a party ticket or off of name recognition. That is, I’d rather have a lower, but more informed, turnout than the alternative that tends to happen with national and especially presidential races. That said, I have been rather underwhelmed with the governor race. As has been pointed out, I’ve seen a lot of negative ads, but I haven’t seen a lot of positive ones. In general, I dislike negative ads because a lot of time they’re saying that a candidate voted for something that’s bad or against something that’s good, but saying that is utterly useless because maybe they voted against something because of some silly last minute amendment, or because it was a poorly written bill, or because the funding wasn’t there, or any number of other reasons. I want to see more candidates come out and unambiguously tell me their stances and their experience. Seriously, I’d rather choose who I want to vote for than who I don’t want to vote for. Either way, it really looks like it’s the Republicans’ race to lose in all three state-wide races. It seems to me that Kaine has upset a fair number of people and that’s probably going to cost the Democrats. I think calling these elections a referendum on Obama, as I’ve seen in a few places, is rather silly. Instead, it seems to me more that the fact that the state is fully blue now, and that it happened so quickly, was more a referendum on Bush at the time and, of course, Allen’s massive screw up a few years ago. So, I think we’ll see Virginia go back closer to where we really are, as I’m quite sure we’re not as nearly as blue as we currently appear to be. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/30 "2009-10-26T15:11:19Z")
I’m moving this from The BBQ Pit to Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share. **Gfactor** Pit Moderator ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/31 "2009-10-26T16:24:16Z")
I gotta agree about the hilarious negative commercials. There’s one Deeds ad talking about how McDonnell hates women or whatever. It has these women talking about McDonnell’s policies in a converstational tone, then after making a “shocking” statement they just stop and stare at the camera for a few seconds like they’re staring down a young child for misbehaving. I cracked up! ---
**Author:** ![Elza\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Elza\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elza_B)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/32 "2009-10-26T17:15:26Z")
> [@Gfactor](#): > > I’m moving this from The BBQ Pit to Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share. > > **Gfactor** > Pit Moderator Dammit, the first political thread I think I’ve ever ventured into in the Pit, and you have to move it?!? :mad:😛 The ads seem especially nasty, but since I wasn’t here for the last gubernatorial race, maybe I just don’t have anything to compare them to. Were the ones for Kaine vs. whoever he beat mostly negative? I admit, I hate the ‘lesser of two evils’ excuse most of the time when it pertains to an election, but sadly, I find myself using it this year. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/33 "2009-10-26T18:08:15Z")
> [@Elza\_B](#): > > The ads seem especially nasty, but since I wasn’t here for the last gubernatorial race, maybe I just don’t have anything to compare them to. Were the ones for Kaine vs. whoever he beat mostly negative? I don’t remember them being nearly as negative between Kaine and Kilgore. In fact, the only negative part that I remember (though, it was a pretty big one) were Kilgore’s ads attacking Kaine on his strongly held beliefs against the death penalty, which eventually forced Kaine to counter with ads stating that, while he had strong religious beliefs against it, he would uphold the law. For those not from Virginia, you simply will NOT get elected to state office here if you don’t at least pretend to embrace the death penalty. That ultimately backfired on Kilgore since it afforded Kaine an opportunity to speak about his religious convictions and gain some points with some traditionally conservative Christians. However, since he’s done some things that seem to go against his pledge to support the Death Penalty, I think that’s done a lot to undo the ground the Democrats had gained in the state. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/34 "2009-10-26T18:21:39Z")
> [@Karweenie](#): > > Eh, I don’t care so much about McDonnell’s old thesis. > > What bothers me is that he got it from fucking **Regent.** Our former _Attorney General_ got a shit law degree from a shit school. A shitty, ricockulously conservative, laughable Liberty-at-the-Beach school. That, and his social agenda crap in the Assembly, tell me all I need to know about his plans for the governor’s office. Another Northern Virginian here. I agree with **Karweenie**. McDonnell doesn’t look too bad on the surface but the idea of putting another Pat Robertson drone in a position of power is down right chilling. I grew up in VA Beach and have watched that hatemongering, lying, greedy SOB (Roberston) for decades. I think anyone who goes to that tax-dodge of a school (Regent) should be watched carefully. The Dems don’t look like they are going to try very hard though; even Warner looked like he was endosing Deeds reluctantly. For now, I’m going to have to get used to the idea that Virginia is going to have to have 4 years of Pat Roberston rule for us to learn a lesson. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/35 "2009-10-26T18:51:01Z")
Now hold on. He didn’t go to Regent University. He graduated in 1989 and it didn’t become Regent University until 1990. He went to CBN University. Anybody can go to Regent University, but it takes real dedication to go to a school named after Pat Robertson’s TV channel. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/36 "2009-10-26T19:16:54Z")
I stand corrected. The Devil has more than one disguise. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bb73d2/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Joe\_Meager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Joe_Meager)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/37 "2009-10-26T20:31:55Z")
> [@Elza\_B](#): > > I don’t know if I’d go as far as _Really Not All That Bright_ and say that he’s completely disowned everything he said in his thesis, it’s more than he’s being indirect and disingenuous by saying that your opinions change as you get older, and he’s not the same person he was when he wrote the thesis. I haven’t heard him refute his stance on anything in his thesis (and I did watch both debates, and have read the articles in the Times Dispatch and Post), but I have heard him attempt to turn it into a ‘I was a different person then’ kind of thing. > > I have no issue with him using that for his reasoning, but it would be nice to know exactly where his opinions lie on those issues, instead of the ‘let my record speak for itself’ move that he’s pulled. How come Sonia Sotomayor got a pass by doing essentially the same thing (re: “wise latina woman”)? “Disregard what I said all those years ago, I don’t really mean them now.” What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. ---
**Author:** ![St.Anger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@St.Anger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/St.Anger)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2009, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938/38 "2009-11-04T06:28:13Z")
> [@5-4-Fighting](#): > > Chris Christie. Whatever. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-virginia-governor-race-and-assorted-state-elections/514938.md?page=1)