Elections in Virginia on Tuesday yielded huge gains for the Democratic Party in the state. Despite having wildly popular Governors (Kaine and formerly Mark Warner), Republicans had controlled the House of Delegates and the Senate.
That all changed on Tuesday when Democrats picked up four seats in the Senate to take a majority of seats. How did this happen? What were the issues?
According to the Washington Post, the Republicans’ loss was based on their almost single issue focus on illegal immigration while the Democrats talked about growth and traffic, especially in Northern Virginia.
Voters across Virginia chose candidates in state and local elections
yesterday not out of anger over illegal immigration but based on party
affiliation, a preference for moderation and strong views on such key
issues as residential growth and traffic congestion.With a few notable exceptions, the trend benefited Democrats and not
those who campaigned the loudest for tough sanctions against illegal
immigrants.
Is this just an affirmation of Former US House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s adage that "all politics is local" or is it something larger? Are the issues in our neighbor to the north the same as the ones here?
I would say so and the message to Republicans here is pretty clear. Yes, you can talk about immigration and the need for reform or any other red-meat typical Republican base issue, but you better have a clear message and a plan for the other things — the backyard or pocketbook issues. Immigration is a concern for voters, rightly so, but issues like growth, transportation and education seem to be what they are voting on.
Continue to demagogue illegal immigration and retain your minority status or present voters with a plan and a vision for the future of North Carolina and have a chance to win some races.
As I was reading this story what was interesting was not the media spin that it was “anti-Bush” (which it wasn’t) but the real impact of volunteerism as stated in the story, but largely ignored.
“That’s a culmination of a coordinated campaign effort that’s been going on since the spring,” he said. “We had 12 full-time staffers working in Fairfax County. We had a trailer at the back of our headquarters with 20 or 30 computers. We made 10,700 phone calls yesterday alone.”
Volunteerism and grass roots organization is the key to almost EVERY race.
If the GOP wants to win in NC, they need to focus on the message and ground game. If the opposition in Fairfax, VA had the kind of organization the left did, the story would be entirely different.
Patrick Ruffini also discusses the Virginia elections here: http://www.patrickruffini.com/2007/11/07/va-fire-the-consultants/
A large part of the Democratic take over of the Virginia Senate is due to changes in demographics. The DC suburbs are growing considerably and following the same pattern that all other areas do that experience growth.
First the main city starts growing with people and becomes more and more liberal as that happens. As the taxes go up and cost of living increases, the more conservative people flee to the suburbs where the neighborhoods are generally better and taxes lower. Then the suburbs start to grow and the same thing happens. City liberals who no longer want to pay for the high tax hell they created also start moving to the suburbs, but continue to vote the same way they did in the city, thus electing the same tax and spend politicians who will eventually ruin their new home as well. Furthermore, people from other areas who immigrate to the area also put their homes in the suburbs compounding the issue. Eventually, the suburbs become the homes of the “limousine liberals” and that is what is happening to Northern Virginia. People are moving out of DC and many people are emigrating to NoVa from the northeast, but still voting Democrat like they did back home, even though the Dems screwed up the northeast.
The same will happen to North Carolina with all of the emigration here from the north. Of course, in NC the Dems already control most of the state, much of it due to gerrymandering. What will happen is the southern conservative Democrats that N.C. generally has will slowly be replaced with the newly arriving ultra leftist Marxist Dems moving in from the north. They’re like those African killer bees that are invading the American honey bee colonies and taking them over, spreading their killer offspring throughout the southwest.
If you want to see what I mean, go to BlueNC and read some of their posts. It didn’t take long for me to notice that the majority of them are transplants from up north. They want to bring their hell to North Carolina that they created and left behind in New Jersey.