Democrat Tim Kaine is the Governor-elect in Virginia. Along with New Jersey electing a Democrat, the analysis centers on the predictive nature of yesterday’s results for next November and beyond. I think they’re a faint warning to Republicans. I doubt they’ll listen, but the next election is still twelve months away. Way too much could happen. However, one lesson that I think Republicans shouldn’t learn from Virginia is this message:
I think this loss is Kilgore’s, as his other ticketmates appear to be headed to tight wins. But even here, Bolling won in large part because downstate voters rejected the liberal Leslie Byrne.
The big disappointment was the fact that turnout was down and the GOP turnout effort appeared to do very little overall. It appeared to boost some rural areas, but not by much.
The turning point appears to have been the Democrats ability to turn a Kilgore attack ad back on Kilgore through their use of their allies in the press.
I’m not going to delve into the MSM liberal bias nonsense here, because I don’t think it’s the cause. Even if the press beat that drum, my opinion formed the moment I saw the series of ads; I needed no other help from the media. From the people I spoke with about this election, most everyone had the same reaction. Media bias or not, the Kilgore campaign created sleazy ads. Who’s to blame for that? Take responsibility for the mistake in running the ad instead of falling back to the standard whining about liberal media bias.
As someone who wants the current Republicans gone, I won’t cry if they learn the wrong lesson. As someone who wants limited government, I understand that current Democrats offer little better and will probably learn the wrong lessons from this victory. Such is life.