Guest Column by Not Mike Henry (i.e. Mo Elleithee)
OK, OK, I know the decade isn’t over for another year. But everyone else is doing their “decade lists” so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon. Below is my list of the top eleven political stories in Virginia over the past decade. (I tried to keep it to ten, but couldn’t figure out which to cut.) Some of these I was fortunate enough to be a part of. (Some of these I was UNFORTUNATE enough to be a part of.) But I think most would agree that these stories all helped make the last 10 years a pretty interesting time to be involved in Virginia politics.
In picking this list, I focused on specific news stories that had an impact on either Virginia or national politics, as opposed to highlighting political trends (like the growing influence of the netroots, the resurgence of the Democratic party over the decade, etc.). There were a number of other stories that didn’t make my top 11 — please feel free to chime in with your thoughts in the comments section.
(And thanks to Ben for letting me post!)
11. Mark Earley Porn Scandal (2001)
Just days after securing the Republican nomination for Governor, former Attorney General Mark Earley traveled to Alexandria to announce the formation of “Northern Virginia tech business leaders for Earley.” The signal couldn’t be clearer — Earley was going to battle Mark Warner for his own people in his own backyard. But Earley’s press conference became explosive when Robert Melton of the Washington Post dropped the blockbuster that Thruport Technologies (the firm at which Earley was holding his event and whose owner was one of Earley’s biggest donors) aggressively and proactively marketed its services to internet porn sites. Earley (who had made a name for himself by taking tough stands against internet child pornography) was completely caught off guard, and his team completely mishandled the story — allowing it to live on for the next FIVE days. In the end, he was forced to return over $50,000 (half of his cash on hand at the time). The story stung so badly not because Earley was connected to porn — but it demonstrated just how unready he and his team were for prime time. His campaign never found its footing again.
10. McDonnell Wins! (2009)
This race has been much discussed and analyzed in recent weeks, so no need to delve deeply here. But it is worth noting that Bob McDonnell’s lopsided win put an end to the growing narrative that Virginia was becoming a blue state. His victory one year after the Democratic sweep of 2008, however, did reinforce the notion that Virginia (including the suburbs of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads) is likely to be a battleground state for the forseeable future.
9. Sexual harassment and eavesdropping scandals rock Virginia Republicans (2002)
Despite Mark Warner’s win in 2001, Virginia Republicans had some reason to feel good that year when they strengthened their majority in the General Assembly. That celebration was short-lived, however, when a couple of self-inflicted wounds in 2002 sent them reeling. In the spring of that year, the Executive Director of the Republican Party of Virginia was caught illegally eavesdropping on two conference calls in which Democrats discussed their lawsuit against Republican redistricting efforts. A few short months later, Vance Wilkins (Virginia’s first Republican Speaker of the House) came under fire after accusations that he had sexually harassed two women and paid one of them $100,000 for her silence. The scandals resulted in the criminal prosecution and conviction of the RPV’s executive director, and the resignation in disgrace of Wilkins.
8. Webb wins! (2006)
A lot has been said about Jim Webb’s shocking upset over George Allen. Having endorsed Allen six years earlier, Webb’s entry in the race was a surprise to many, but he was still considered a long shot until the very end of the campaign. Webb’s victory can be credited to a “perfect storm” -- a strong populist message; strong Democratic headwinds nationally thanks to growing anti-Bush sentiment; George Allen’s repeated missteps; and energized grassroots and netroots army. The impact of Webb’s stunner reached far beyond the Commonwealth’s borders — his narrow victory gave Democrats control of the United States Senate, and ended George Allen’s burgeoning run for the presidency.
7. Jerry Kilgore’s death penalty ads (2005)
When I first went to work on Tim Kaine’s 2005 campaign, many people asked me why. “Don’t you know how ‘liberal’ he is? He’s against the death penalty! Kilgore will have a field day with that!” That’s what we were counting on. We knew that Jerry Kilgore was going to attack Kaine on the death penalty, and that he would use family members of victims to do it. What we didn’t know was that he’d invoke the name of Adolph Hitler in his ads! Kaine spent much of the spring introducing himself to people across Virginia as a man of deep faith — undermining Kilgore’s attack that he was some sort of bed-wetting liberal. The day after Kilgore launched the attack, Kaine held a conference call with reporters for nearly an hour in which he dealt with the issue head on. His message was clear. “I’m a man of deep faith, and my faith teaches me that the death penalty is wrong. But I’ll take my oath of office as seriously and enforce the law.” That early work, along with Kilgore’s overreach and Kaine’s discipline in sticking to a message focused on kitchen table issues rocked the conventional wisdom. Kilgore ended up being the one on the defensive, as Kaine demonstrated that Virginians were more interested in economic/quality of life issues than they were in social issues. (Of course, Bob McDonnell studied this closely, and followed the Kaine model four years later when dealing with the stories about his thesis.)
6. The tragic passing of State Senator Emily Couric (2001)
Heading into the 2001 elections, it was widely believed that Mark Warner would be the Democratic nominee for Governor, and would share the ticket with rising star Emily Couric, a state senator from Charlottesville. Couric was considered a lock for the nomination, and a strong contender in the general election — leading many to believe that she would be Virginia’s first woman governor. However, it was not to be, as she stunned the state by announcing that she would not run for statewide office due to a battle with pancreatic cancer. (Following her announcement, Richmond Mayor Tim Kaine decided to enter the race for Lt. Gov. and won the nomination in an upset.) Couric lost her battle with cancer and passed away on October 18, 2001. She was 54 years old.
5. Warner wins! (2001)
In 2000, with the defeat of Chuck Robb, Democrats hit rock bottom. For the first time in a long time, there was no statewide elected Democrat in Virginia. Enter Mark Warner. A successful businessman who had helped create jobs across the state, he promised to bring a business-approach to Richmond. Virginia was facing record budget shortfalls, and Warner’s post-partisan style was exactly what people wanted to hear. “It’s not about the D’s or the R’s,” he would often say. “It’s about whether we want to move forward or backwards.” Warner also was able to tap into rural areas of the state that had long been considered hostile territory for Democrats. By sponsoring a NASCAR truck and adopting a bluegrass song for his campaign, he appealed to rural Virginians as someone who respected their culture. But while this was considered an innovative approach, it’s not what won so many of these voters over — it was his economic message. Warner’s victory redefined how Democrats ran in Virginia.
4. Budget reform (2004)
While Mark Warner’s 2001 victory was historic, it was how he governed that truly redefined the Democratic brand in Virginia. Upon taking office, Warner governed how he promised to — by bringing Democrats and Republicans together to get results. Make no mistake — Republicans weren’t thrilled to give him any victories, and his first couple of years were not nearly as successful as he would have liked. But he was able to accomplish some impressive early goals. He immediately pulled out a scalpel and began cutting fat from the state budget. At the same time, he looked for opportunities to help middle class families, such as eliminating the food tax. Then in 2004, Warner was able to piece together an impressive coalition of Democrats and Republicans, business and labor, and people from every region of Virginia behind his historic budget reform — which resulted in the single largest investment in education in Virginia history. The earlier work of cutting spending and cutting taxes established his credentials as fiscally responsible. And having the support of key Republicans like Senate Finance Chair John Chichester gave him his bipartisan bona fides. Budget reform and the Warner style of governing resulted in key accolades that we all continue to hear about and enjoy today — Best Managed State in the Nation, Best State for Business, maintaining the state’s AAA bond rating (which was in jeopardy thanks to Jim Gilmore’s fiscal mismanagement). Warner left office as the most popular governor in Virginia history. The brand “Virginia Democrat” was suddenly out -- “Warner Democrat” was in.
3. Kaine wins! (2005)
No one capitalized on the success of the Warner years better than his Lt. Governor, Tim Kaine. Kaine’s campaign slogan was simple and direct -- “Keep Virginia Moving Forward.” He spoke every day about his record of accomplishments in the “Warner-Kaine Administration.” As discussed earlier, this record and his focus on kitchen table issues like education and transportation, helped him overcome Jerry Kilgore’s relentless death penalty attacks. But Kaine’s victory was also critically important and historic in two less-celebrated ways. 1) Just one year after GW Bush won reelection, Kaine was the first Democrat in a swing state to see and tap into a growing anti-Bush sentiment among base AND independent voters. Kaine even ran the first paid media in the country hitting the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. And he constantly spoke on the stump about how bad things were in Washington and that we couldn’t afford to abandon the Virginia way. This approach, at first questioned by national political watchers, ended up being the precursor to the 2006 wave that swept Democrats into office. 2) Kaine was the first Democrat to see that there was a growing number of “federal Democrats” (people who voted Democrat in federal elections, but who didn’t vote in state elections) in the exurbs of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. The campaign aggressively targeted those voters — much to the surprise of most state political watchers who believed that the Warner model was the ONLY model for victory. They were wrong. Kaine ended up winning the previous Republican strongholds of Loudoun and Prince William Counties, and was the first Governor to win every jurisdiction in Hampton Roads since Chuck Robb in 1981. And it was THIS strategy of targeting the exurbs that was used as the model for Barack Obama’s historic 2008 win in Virginia. Which brings us to...
2. Obama wins! (And helps a lot of other Democrats along the way!) (2008)
Let’s see...
Mark Warner wins, giving Virginia BOTH U.S. Senate seats.
Gerry Connolly, Glenn Nye and Tom Periello win, giving Democrats a majority of the state’s Congressional delegation.
Barack Obama wins Virginia, putting its electoral votes in the Democratic column for the first time since LBJ.
Yeah, that was a pretty big night.
And while the election results one year later proved Virginia isn’t yet a blue state, Election Day 2008 proved that NO ONE can say it’s still a red state.
1. Macaca
Let’s be clear. George Allen did NOT lose his reelection bid in 2006 because of the infamous Macaca moment. He lost it because he was no longer in touch with the people of Virginia, and because of his unwavering support of George Bush’s economic policies and war in Iraq.
But Macaca didn’t help.
This story dominated the news during the late summer and early fall of 2006. It took a safe incumbent U.S. Senator who was considered a front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination, and completely pulled the rug out from under him. It raised serious doubts about his character, and resulted in a number of subsequent stories about his long record of racial insensitivity in the past.
First broken on this blog, this story also demonstrated the potential of the netroots, put YouTube on the map as a political medium not to be ignored, and introduced the term “Macaca” into the national political lexicon as shorthand for a politician’s verbal gaffe.
Simply put, there was no political story with a bigger impact in Virginia in the last decade.
Honorable mentions:
* George Allen defeats Chuck Robb, leaving Democrats with no statewide elected official for the next year (2000)
* The Washington Post endorses Creigh Deeds in the Democratic primary for Governor, dramatically altering the race for the nomination (2009)
* Democrats recapture the Virginia state senate (2007)
* The infamous Creigh Deeds press scrum following the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce debate (2009)
