I was sitting here musing about the fact that Virginia, with a population of 8+ million people and with relatively high levels of educational accomplishment among the populace, the best they can do for Governor is McAuliffe and Cuccinelli. And then, twenty seconds later, I slapped myself in the face and got my shit together.
I realized I had just caught myself in the same sort of “I’m above it all” facile bullshit that so much of our media gets involved in because they are just serious people. Look, McAuliffe may be a corporate whore, and I fully think he at times represents the worst of the Clinton era, but the simple fact of the matter is that on the issues that count, Terry McAuliffe is on the right side and is worth electing. With so much going on in our “laboratories of democracy,” I’m ok with a pro gay-rights, pro-woman, pro-minority, corporate whore who will do everything he can to implement the ACA the way it should be, not to mention he was doing what he could to advance the Democratic cause for decades while I was an asshole Republican.
You don’t even have to make a Devil’s choice if you think about it. On most every issue that matters to me, and more importantly, to our friends of color, our female friends, and our LGBT friends, McAuliffe will be light years better than that troglodyte Cuccinelli. Ask your self this- can you imagine McAuliffe ever trying to threaten an academic?
So, good luck, Terry.
FWIW- I think this might be my favorite Terry moment, but I also remember him showing up looking hammered on Morning Joe on another occasion.
Cacti
I’m damned impressed that he’s run such a disciplined campaign and is poised to win going away.
His years at the helm of the DNC gave me little hope that such a thing would happen.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and, again
Yatsuno
Terry had his moments of DLC and Third Way wankery, but truth be told he’d be quite the progressive for the northermost state of the Confederacy. Plus maybe this will wake North Carolina the fuck up and they can get to throwing their wingnuts out. Add in Nunn as Senator from Georgia and maybe Nashville asserting its blue influence even stronger and the Confederacy might really be under seige. Inasmuch as a Democratic Senator from Mississippi would be nice as well, I’m not looking for miracles here.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Lesser of two evils. I am too old to like it or pretend it is anything but settling for the least awful alternative most of the time, but a lot of life is settling for the least awful alternative.
In this case, fortunately, the “least awful alternative” is really easy to pick out. Cucinelli is a genuine psychopathic monster. McAuliffe just is in everyone’s pocket, won’t do very much damage and probably will accidentally do a couple of decent things along the way. That’s an VERY easy choice to make.
Honus
I’m kind of tired of people dumping on Terry. I’ve lived in Virginia 40 years and I supported Deeds over Terry in 2009. Terry has run a good campaign and he’s run like a democrat. He told the shad planking to fuck off, which I think was great. He supports more spending for education and infrastructure. He’s openly advocating gay rights, in Virginia, instead of trying to be republican lite. I keep hearing he’s sleazy, but how about an example? Lesser of two evils my ass. Terry is one of the better democrats I’ve seen in the last few years and certainly the most progressive to ever have a chance to govern Virginia.
Yatsuno
@CONGRATULATIONS!: He gets Medicaid expanded and the ACA actually working properly in Virginia, that’s a huge thing. If he can get maybe a few civil rights & pro-labour laws on the books as well that will be even sweeter. Reversing the worst of the McConnell bullshit would help as well, but one step at a time. He has to win tomorrow first.
Bobby Thomson
Hopefully Democrats in Virginia are smarter than DougJ and realize they actually have to vote.
leeleeFL
Welcome John Cole. This is a familiar place for progressives. We pray regularly for the second coming of FDR.
But we accept the people we are offered who we know are imperfect but well-meaning. And likely to do some good and undo some damage.
Gin & Tonic
It’s not a contradiction to recognize that Mac is way better than Cooch in every way that counts, while also lamenting that there isn’t a more palatable candidate than Mac.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
an idealized, affectionate, historically air-brushed version of FDR. “Lesser of two evils” is the phrase that drives me crazy; imperfect =/= evil, FFS
Cacti
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
It’s really kind of jarring that the current GOP is defined by their desire to make disfavored groups suffer when they gain seats of power.
Cuccinelli wants to be governor so he can put the screws to people he doesn’t like.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I was just going to say that.
Sometimes I think our side of the aisle is as nuts over FDR as the other one is over Reagan. (I’ve been known to be guilty of this too, mind you).
Poopyman
In his defense, I think the only way you’d get me to go on Morning Ho is if I were hammered.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Cacti: Precisely. And the truly scary thing about him is that he seems to hate pretty much everyone. As I said, genuine psychopath. Sadistic fucker, too. Glad I’m not a Virginia voter (hate that state more than most) but if I were I’d be crawling over broken glass to vote for McAuliffe tomorrow.
Honus
@Gin & Tonic: Please give me an example of a more palatable Virginia democrat that terry. The only one I can think of in the last 40 years is Henry Howell and he lost in a landslide to Mills Godwin.
Cacti
@leeleeFL:
Yeah, if only they could all be as perfect as FDR…who interned the Japanese Americans and completely disregarded civil rights issues.
If only the ACA could be as progressive as Social Security…which when enacted didn’t cover domestic or agricultural workers (women and minorities), and didn’t provide disability or survivors benefits.
If only the drone attacks would stop…attacks that didn’t kill even 1/100th of the casualties of the incendiary bombings of Dresden and Tokyo.
Good old, flawless FDR.
leeleeFL
@leeleeFL: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: absolutely true. But he got lots of good stuff done and left us with Truman and not Garner. Not a saint but really damn good
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yowza! I wouldn’t go that far. Whatever his very real flaws, FDR did far more good in this country than damage. I won’t say off the top of my head Reagan did nothing good domestically, but I can’t think of anything.
NotMax
Says the man one of whose senators is Joe Manchin.
leeleeFL
@Cacti: where did I say flawless? Anywhere? He made lots of mistakes but he also left behind a much better country for ordinary people. So yeah, I pray for bunches more just as flawed.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Go ahead and say it. Reagan did nothing good domestically. Behind the Hollywood smile was a very mean and small man who made white people feel comfortable with their prejudices again.
amk
@Chris: You left out LBJ.
Honus
“I was sitting here musing about the fact that Virginia, with a population of 8+ million people and with relatively high levels of educational accomplishment among the populace, the best they can do for Governor is McAuliffe and Cuccinelli”
Yeah. You say that sitting in a state that elected Manchin, Tomblin and Rahall and will shortly replace jay Rockefeller with Arch Moore’s daughter. McAuliffe is too liberal to get elected to the Ohio County school board.
ALurkerHere
No political candidate is perfect. I am female, black and an immigrant. I got my US citizenship too late to vote in 2012, so I will happily cast my vote for a straight democratic ticket in Virginia tomorrow.
chopper
@NotMax:
I know. that’s some soft-ass bigotry.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
LOLZ! Well,
1) I did say sometimes,
and 2) I didn’t mean it that way, sorry. FDR definitely left the country a much better place than he found it, and Reagan did the opposite. I’m just talking about the way future generations remember them as patron saints of their ideology, sometimes to the point of forgetting the things that happened under them that would probably have had us tearing our hair out if we’d been alive at that time. (Same way conservatives like to forget that Reagan raised taxes, cut and run in the face of terrorist attacks, sat down and talked with our enemies… etc).
Like I said, I catch myself doing this, but it’s not just me.
Jean
@Honus: I agree! I’ve lived here 29 years and say the same thing.
David Koch
@leeleeFL:
Who’s praying for someone who firebombs entire civilian populations and imprisons 120,000 american citizens in concentration camps?
chopper
@leeleeFL:
I don’t want another FDR. that dude turned away my people when they were fleeing liquidation by the nazis and sent them back to fucking Germany. please, let’s have someone better than that.
agorabum
Terry didn’t seem to come across to the public well as the DNC chair – and those were some tough years to be chair (2001-2005). I can’t say I’ve ever felt much affection for him – but he raised a lot of money for the Dems, took the DNC out of debt, and laid some of the groundwork that paid off in ’08. He’s been a staunch Dem supporter since he worked on the Carter campaign, and while we look at the DLC / 3rd way as rather wanky, it got Bill Clinton elected.
So he holds the right positions and has been working for Democrats in some way or another since he was a kid.
And he can say he’s a successful businessman; job creator and such.
He’ll be fine, provided he wins. The initial panic was that he wouldn’t win, too unlikable. But he’s actually not (apparently), except for the ‘holier than thou’ crowd.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris: I’ve been thinking about Beirut as Pittypat Graham and CBS try to re-gin up BENGHAZI! It really is extraordinary to watch Lindsey use Chris Stephens corpse as a soapbox while all Right Thinking People say, Well, he has a primary challenge, so what else can he do?
Jean
@Yatsuno: Yes, and he hasn’t tried to avoid running on Progressive issues. He’s stood up for all the issues and policies I care about. I’m casting my vote for a straight Dem ticket because first, I always do. And second, the Republican ticket is downright insane.
LeftCoastTom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: True. But for anyone tempted to believe FDR could do no wrong I’d recommend a trip to Manzanar. I explored around the site before it was designated a National Park, haunting to say the least.
Yatsuno
@ALurkerHere: This made me smile. Enjoy your first American election!!!
Mike in NC
Lived in VA when that turd George Allen was governor. Didn’t think the GOP could puke up a candidate worse than him.
Chris
@amk:
I thought about him, but between the awe at his domestic accomplishments and the fury at his foreign policy, I feel like LBJ’s public image ends up being a lot less black and white, even in liberal circles. He’s not the kind of idol the other two are (he is for some people, but not for an entire movement) and I don’t think he ever will be.
Cacti
@LeftCoastTom:
Or read George Takei’s writings about when he was 5-years old, and removed from his Los Angeles home at gunpoint with the rest of his family for forced relocation at Rohwer and then Tule Lake.
ALurkerHere
@Yatsuno:
Thanks! I am definitely looking forward to it.
Marc
Whatever you do, John, don’t watch tonight’s “Daily Show.”
Gian
@Cacti:
the Italians suffered relocations too, to a lesser extent than the Japanese.
http://www.amazon.com/Una-Storia-Segreta-Evacuation-Internment/dp/1890771406/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383625407&sr=8-1&keywords=italian+interment
”It is little known that Italian Americans had been interned, evacuated and otherwise restricted during World War II. In California, Italian resident aliens were subjected to an 8PM to 6AM curfew, there were searches of their homes and seizure of their property, and there was an evacuation of thousands from prohibited zones along the coast. ”
Redshirt
Yeah, when is WV going Full Wingnut? Seems like only a matter of time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris: LBJ became an idol to elements of the Left, and the Medai, as they fell in to the cult of presidency.
as a sidenote, I wonder how many pundits who knowingly allude to Caro’s books on LBJ have actually read even one volume.
Redshift
@Yatsuno: Even just getting elected, he’ll have accomplished something important. He’s leading a ticket who are all running as openly pro-choice, (mildly) pro-gun control, pro-LGBT rights, pro-ACA, in favor of action on climate change, pro-public education (up to and including state colleges), and in favor of having enough tax revenue to pay for the things we want, in a state that the Village likes to think of as reliably conservative even when we vote for Democrats. He’s not pandering to the good ol’ boys and the rural voters and coal country (though he’ll almost certainly be better for their lives than the GOP.)
That’s some serious Overton Window shifting there. I grew up in NoVa, and all my life the assumption has been that no matter how large a portion of the population and economy of the state we are, we have to temper our expectations and not talk too loudly about things the folks downstate don’t agree with, because, you know, that’s just the way it is. I may not like McAuliffe’s personality and DLC past, I have to give him some serious props for that.
Redshirt
@Redshift: They’ll be talking secession soon enough. Southern Virginia would be a fine Confederate state.
amk
@Redshirt:
An aussie map of ‘murka has all sortsa of virginia.
Donald
I don’t see anything wrong in having two thoughts in one’s head at the same time–Terry would be nobody’s choice as the ideal progressive standard bearer, but he sure beats the alternative.
Hill Dweller
@Marc:
Care to give a summation? I refuse to watch it.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ll say it: Reagan did nothing good domestically. Reagan did even worse internationally. Reagan “ran” a crime syndicate disguised as an administration.
Yeah, I’ll take a fifth Roosevelt term, thanks. Maybe he’ll build Michele her reeducation camps and move in the wingnuts.
Mike with a Mic
I was born in VA, NOVA to be exact, live here now, and I don’t think The Macker is a bad fit. Democrats here tend to be rather well off (NOVA houses the richest counties in the entire US), pro business, pro defense, pro money types. Sure people might not like a money man for the business community in other areas, but Mark Warner is loved here and is the same damn thing. Sort of how pro Wall Street stuff doesn’t sell that well outside of NYC, but there it’s what they do.
Plutocrats, business men, defense contractors, that’s the sort of Democrat we like here. We’re well off because of plutocrats, the military, and big business. The Republican shtick only doesn’t fly here because they are so socially backwards nobody wants to be associated with them… oh and by the way the sequester, shutdown all fucked the defense contracting community… aka they laid off all of NOVA and the Tidewater/Hampton area.
Pro business, pro defense, aggressive energy policy including carbon fuels, rich as hell, that shit sells to Democrats here, it’s a plus. The biggest mistake Democrats could make in regards to VA is to actually attack defense spending, or even worse cut defense spending to keep domestic spending, then we will all vote blood red social issues be damned.
If you aren’t from the area you don’t understand how bad the entire Tea Party “shrink the government, including defense” sells here. I see BAE, Boeing, and others outside my window in downtown Arlington, I pass the Pentagon daily on my morning run. When those Tea Party fuckers say “shrink the government including the Pentagon” people round these parts here “I want to fire you and take your job”, shit just doesn’t fly.
The Tea Party Cooch is running on a platform of “no DOD jobs, and no blow jobs” that just doesn’t sell here.
eemom
Thanks Cole.
And y’all still dumping on McAuliffe, who know jack shit about what his campaign has been about, can plz go fuck yourselves. kthxbai.
rikyrah
Charlie Crist is a human oil slick.
Yet, if I lived in Florida, that wouldn’t stop me from making sure I packed my car full of any voters that need a lift to get them to the polls in order to defeat that piece of evil they have now.
Same thing with McAuliffe.
..perfect candidates are rare.
Most times, you’re choosing the lesser of two evils.
But, every once in awhile, while your guy might not be the best….the other choice is so obvious an example of walking evil, that you know you best get your ass to a voting booth.
Cooch and everyone on the ticket wants all up in my uterus. ..and, we haven’t even gotten to the voter suppression stuff.
So…combine my uterus and voter suppression and that’s enough to make sure I would get myself to the polls.
Jay
@Yatsuno:
“Inasmuch as a Democratic Senator from Mississippi would be nice as well…”
Isn’t there an ongoing effort to get John Grisham to run for the US Senate as a Democrat from Mississippi? I’ve heard he & Jim Webb became friends through writing, and that Grisham was one of the people out on the left-leaning Southern scene who convinced Webb to run the first time around (I wouldn’t be surprised if Tom Wolfe had something to do with that, too, because Wolfe, while no Democrat, has repeatedly gushed about Jim Webb & their friendship publicly.).
amk
@Chris: But I have been told repeatedly that Obummer ain’t no LBJ?
Mike with a Mic
@eemom:
Doesn’t matter what he ran his campaign on. The Tea Party went after defense spending, Macker could have boiled a puppy alive on camera and it wouldn’t have mattered.
Irony Abounds
Cole, you’ve read “This Town” and know exactly how much of a corporate whore McAuliffe is. He definitely is preferable to the POS Cooch, but it does go show just what rotten shape the country is in. I don’t think I’ll ever vote for a Republican again, but I sure as shit wish there was a good solid non-wacko non-corporate shill Democrat who really does vote to benefit the middle class.
amk
@Redshift: This. Effing overton.
burnspbesq
@Cacti:
Reagan was surprisingly good on tax policy. After giving away the candy store in 1981, he took it back in 1982 and did some much-needed loophole-closing in 1984. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was really Bill Bradley’s baby, but somebody in the Reagan White House had the good sense to tell him to sign it.
Mike with a Mic
@Irony Abounds:
NOVA (the blue part of VA) is not the middle class. It has 3 of the top five richest counties (including 1/2) in the entire US. All those educated socially liberal types with nice jobs only have them and live here for the defense economy. As far as regions in the US go, we are the 1%. We are also recession proof and housing keeps going up, as long as that sweet defense cash keeps flowing.
Pro business is a plus here.
burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
You should incorporate your uterus. Then they’ll stop trying to regulate it.
Omnes Omnibus
Jesus fucking Christ. Cole (and eemom) is/are right. Get a win with a guy whose positions on most issues are pretty damn decent. Can anyone find a candidate in any race with whom they agreed on more that 80% of the issues? I doubt it.
spanky
@Honus: You realize that you just Godwined this thread, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Those articles of incorporation would be interesting. Corporate purpose: To conduct lawful business activities. The mind reels a bit.
Steeplejack
DVR Alert!
Whatever DFH has commandeered TCM’s late-night programming is at it again tonight (well, early tomorrow morning). They’re running the first two parts of Patricio Guzmán’s trilogy The Battle of Chile, a documentary about “the political tension in Chile in 1973 and the violent counterrevolution against the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende.” Part 1 (1975) is at 5:45 a.m. EST, Part 2 (1976) follows at 7:30 a.m. This will be of interest not only to Balloon Juice film club members but to the “Just politics, please” wonks as well.
And you can warm up with Wim Wenders’s Alice in the Cities (1974) at 12:15 a.m. EST, an episode of The Story of Film about ’70s films at 2:15 a.m. EST and Ousmane Sembene’s comedy Xala (1975) at 3:30 a.m. EST.
This is more of TCM pushing the envelope a little, and it’s great.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I have read some of Ousmane Sembene’s novels but never seen any of his movies.
Maeve
@Gian:
If Joe DiMaggio,had been Japanese, he’d have been interned. But he wasnt.,Not quite the same. Don’t quite know why. What was the difference???
Tom Q
@Steeplejack: It’s all in connection with The Story of Film — each night they run an episode, they surround it with some of the films covered during it. It’s really been quite an interesting, if opinionated series — I’m a long-time film fan (60 years old), and I’ve been exposed to all kinds of new material.
Mike with a Mic
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s more than that. Many of his “flaws” to progressives aren’t all that bad for the blue part of VA. Pro business goes over well considering it’s the richest area in the nation. Mark Warner is the most loved Democrat in the state and is a flat out plutocrat, because he’s a tech plutocrat, and big tech (because of the Pentagon, Langley, and all the money they bring us) is massively fucking popular here.
Pro business corporate type, yes please can we have more of that type :)
It’s as stupid as bitching that Booker is so pro Wall Street, where he comes from that’s a feature, not a bug.
Narcissus
Such a stark contrast
fuckwit
Well said and amen.
Also, I was doing some mail debugging and looking at Gmail’s SSL and saw this nice strong encryption they use on SMTP:
ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256
And at first I thought, well done Google, then I realized, who the fuck cares what encryption they’re using, the NSA has wiretaps right in their data center, bypassing it! SSL and encryption are irrelevant, nothing more than security theater.
Yeah yeah, if I’m worried about skript kiddiez stealing my gmail password, this encryption is plenty damn good for that. But if I really don’t want anyone spying on my customer’s proprietary data, now not only does Google know everything already but so does the NSA and who knows how many eavesdroppers sitting around bored at some contractors.
This whole cloud thing is stupid. I think we need to get back to corporations running their own data centers and buying/installng/maintaining their own servers and hiring their own linux sysadmins instead of farming everythign out to Google and Amazon. It’ll be good for the economy (well, good for MY economy anyway).
Omnes Omnibus
@Maeve: The people of Japanese ancestry who were interned were primarily citizens. The Italians who were interned were resident aliens – people who technically owed loyalty to the Italian government. FWIW my dad has a copy of an enemy alien registration card from WWI for one of my German ancestors. She was well over 80 when the US entered WWI, but she was still a German citizen so she had to register as such.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike with a Mic: For the most part, I don’t care where the flaws are. If the candidate and I have a 75% or greater agreement on issues, I am an enthusiast.
Pink Snapdragon
Being as how I’m a Fairfax County election officer and have to show up at the polling place I will be working at tomorrow at 4:45 am sharp, I am out of here. Redshift is right about the Overton window thing. I moved here from Wisconsin (Madison) in January of 1986 and even six months ago, I would not have believed that we would be seeing the kinds of campaign advertising we are seeing in this election. This is not your grandfather’s south anymore.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t know if Xala is his “best,” but it’s probably his most popular and/or well known. Worth a look, definitely.
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think I’ve ever hit 75% agreement with a candidate
FlipYrWhig
I thought John’s OP was intended to say, at least as a point of departure, that VA _could_ do better but had chosen not to, with the silent corollary that WV couldn’t do better and wouldn’t. So the smack talk about WV seems out of place, because he practically admitted it was jacked up to begin with.
Also, I think McAuliffe will be fine. He’s not inspiring, but neither was Tim Kaine, and that didn’t hurt anybody.
fuckwit
@leeleeFL: FDR was NOT A PROGRESSIVE for his day. He was a plutocrat, a McAuliffe in policy, by the standards of his day. At the time he was elected, there was a functioning Communist Party in the USA. Functioning Socialist movements. Left-wing anarchists who planted bombs and blew shit up. Unions had muscle; they staged strikes in which the corporate bosses brought out goons to kill them, and they had to break heads to survive. There were people like Huey Long running around too. THAT was the left. FDR was not the left. The mood of the country was towards bringing out the tumbrels and chopping off the heads of the Roosevelts of the day.
FDR was a moderate. He saved his people’s– the plutocrats’ — asses with the New Deal. The New Deal was the ACA of its day: a compromise, a moderate incremental approach to the problem, an attempt to save the system and not overthrow it. If you look at what happened in some of other industrialized countries at the time, the mood of the time was not towards well-measured tweaks to the system.
Mike with a Mic
@Omnes Omnibus:
I discount Republicans entirely for social issues. However given that I’m in NOVA I want the most pro business, pro defense, low tax, low regulation Democrat possible. Given the income levels of this area and what our major business and hiring types, that makes logical sense.
What I’m saying is that other than “he’s a sleaze ball” his “negatives” are actually massive positives here. Three of the five richest areas in the entire US, including spots 1 and 2. All of which is because of big business and big defense, which is where all the upper income, well educated, socially liberal types work. Boeing, Lockhead, BAE, CIA, Pentagon, all here. The other blueish area of VA has a similar economy.
So for me, I hear pro business and I want to stand up and cheer.
But it’s (like our talk about Jersey assholes the other night) a regional thing. I don’t hold it against NY that they love Wall Street, it’s the local product. I don’t hold it against CA that they love them some tech plutocrats, that’s their local economy. Here in VA big business, upper class, big defense is our product.
As damning as the Cooch might have been on issues like say birth control, the impact of the Tea Party on sequestration and the shutdown was massively worse. It was pretty much “let’s furlough all of NOVA and not pay them, because fuck the Pentagon and the FEDS”. The damage and impact of that idiocy in this specific area is something you cannot grasp unless you live here. Everyone either works for them, or their business/schools depend on the money generated. People are fucking furious. Hell I could get seats at places for lunch that normally are reservation only, even the waiters and valet parking people got royally fucked.
ruemara
@leeleeFL: speaking as a female minority, I’d like them less flawed. Bunches, yes, but less flawed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike with a Mic: Hey, I am in Wisconsin. Any candidate who doesn’t support dairy subsidies and support for the tourism industry won’t win. A Louisiana Democrat is bound to be pro-oil. And so on.
fuckwit
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t do it by percentage, because often that’s really really low. I do it by importance. The BIG issues of the day. For me, my must-haves are action on climate change, crackdown on corporate crime, full committment to secularism (meaning, full rights for women and LBGT, and no religion in government), a full committment to civil/voting rights for minorities/immigrants, and support for gun safety. If they’ve got those, they’re on the good team in my mind. All the rest of the issues and all the details thereof? I’ll take what I can get when I can get it.
FoxinSocks
Saw a commercial for the Republican candidate for AG, Mark Obenshain. You know, the guy who introduced a bill that would jail women for not reporting their miscarriages to the police.
His daughter spoke for most of the commercial, going on about how much her father respected her and had taught her to be a strong woman. Words like “bi-partisan” and “pragmatic” got thrown around a lot. I’ve never seen a Republican in VA pretending to be a Democrat before. It’s always been the other way around!
Jean
@Pink Snapdragon: Thank you, Pink Snapdragon, for working the polls tomorrow. I moved here from Wisconsin in 1985 and completely agree. I am voting for T-Mac with enthusiasm–and for the whole ticket.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Phrasing! LOL.
fuckwit
@rikyrah: Actually, Bill Clinton said it best, about the D vs R voter approach to candidates, though it’s a bit outdated now: “Democrats want to fall in love, Republicans want to fall in line”. What’s changed since the Shrub era, is that D’s have become a lot more unified and pragmatic, and R’s have become much more purity-trollish.
Omnes Omnibus
@fuckwit: That’s probably a more accurate way of characterizing it. Call it a weighed average of 75%.
fuckwit
@Cacti: 1/1000’th. Tokyo and Dresden were absolutely horrifying massacres.
mclaren
Hey, Cole, at least McAuliffe isn’t actively trying to blow up the economy. At this point, any Democratic politician who’s not actively attempting to do insane things like, oh, say, plunging the United States into a debt default, or blocking unemployment benefits, or trying to shut down the ACA, is one for the plus column.
That’s how low we’ve sunk in America. We, as Democrats, can point with pride to our candidates and proclaim with a big wide smile, “But at least he’s not wearing a suicide vest!”
Steeplejack
@FoxinSocks:
And none of Obenshain’s TV ads mention the minor detail that he is a Republican.
mclaren
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He died.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: I wouldn’t call Obama flawless and perfect either. I would say that both were the best electable person at their time and that both did/ are doing a pretty fucking job overall. Relative perfection comparisons is a suckers game.
Mandalay
@Honus: I think you make a good point – maybe we are too stuck on our perception of McAuliffe from years ago. I certainly viewed him as nothing but a $$$ and big business shill, but he is rock solid on social issues. FWIW, here are his policy positions (in mind numbing detail).
If you find yourself disagreeing with a lot of that stuff then you might want to look in the mirror to research the problem further.
Chris
@mclaren:
Forty or fifty years too late.
GregB
Poor libtards, still living in a fantasy world. Ken Cucinelli and E.W. Jackson are going to get swept to victory on wings of eagles wearing suicide vests with Sarah Palin buttons and carrying Bibles and Glocks. God wills it.
lamh36
IOT But, Damn it. you people are up too late and taking to long to do a late night thread, but I’m sure as soon as I post this some FP will post one…but fudge it….I’m postin’ anyway…
Good night and happy dreams people. I’m hoping for a dream I had before. Where I was at my wedding…TO DWAYNE “THE ROCK” JOHNSON. I swear the dream went through the ceremony, the reception, and the wedding night, and jsut as it was getting good….MY DAMN ALARM WENT OFF!!!
it was the WORSE PRE-BDAY DREAM EVER!
The good thing tonight is that I’m off tomorrow, so NO ALARM WILL BE SET! WINNING!!! And now I’m hoping for a “double wedding” with both these guys: Idris Elba and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Happy Dreams peeps.
ETA: I’ll leave you with a pic of me and my hubby Idris Elba, hugging it out. What??? That’s really me! Just squint your eyes a little bit and “expand” the screen a bit…
IT’S TOTALLY ME…lol
Mandalay
@fuckwit:
Whatever his virtues, I wouldn’t expect much from McAuliffe on that front.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: TMI. But happy birthday anyway.
Raven on the Hill
Yeah. I’ve generally found that at the state and local levels there is a clear lesser evil. Put it another way: better a centrist Democrat than a Tea Party Republican. Nationally…I didn’t hold my nose and vote for Obama during the last Presidential election. I lived in a safe blue state and could afford a protest vote. I suppose if I’d lived in a battleground state, it would have been hold my nose and vote.
Raven on the Hill
Bob In Portland
What’s McAuliffe’s position on blowjobs?
eemom
@Mandalay:
Noooo shit. Ya think?
Redshirt
@Bob In Portland: #For ’em!
GregB
@Bob In Portland:
I believe he was for them before Cucinelli was against them.
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Happy birthday! Say hi to Idris for us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven on the Hill: I am tiered of the lesser evil characterization. McAuliffe is a decent candidate. He is one of the good guys – always has been. Are there people who are gooder? Fuck yeah, but he is squarely among the good guys. A crook vs David Duke is a lesser of two evils choice. McAuliffe vs Cuccinelli is a choice of decent versus abhorrent.
kdaug
Distilled, force for good or for evil? Ignore what they say, what are they likely to do? Or, more precisely, what are they likely to accomplish OR block?
I presume the gov has a veto in VA.
Mike with a Mic
@Mandalay:
That’s a feature, not a bug in the well off blue parts of NOVA. Socially liberal, more hawkish and more plutocratic than any place other than parts of NYC and Silicone Valley CA. Populism is as nasty and dirty a thing here as racism and sexism. You aren’t going to win liberals in VA by bashing the DOD, big business, and the well off… 3 out of the five richest counties in the US all because of the DOD and the big business that follow them. It’s why we are so educated, well off, and socially liberal here.
A ton of Democrats need to grasp that keeping the DC, NYC, SanFran, LA power and money centers requires not only social liberalism but neoliberalism and pro defense. Hit us in our wallets and well… we make enough the theocrats can’t hurt us, and we’d like to keep our job. This is no longer the New Deal Democratic Party, stop acting like it.
Mandalay
GFY.
lamh36
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL. Thx.
A lot of over-sharing does happens on this blog…lol
Mandalay
Heh…the Daily Beast did their own “Dewey defeats Truman” several months early….
Mike with a Mic
@Mandalay:
What I said is true. I work close to the HRC, we got gay marriage in NYC from plutocrats, at the cost of a minimum wage hike and paid time off. Like it or not you cannot be the party of the major urban wealth centers and also be populist. There is a price for our votes. We joined the party for the social issues which remain the litmus test, the cost has been that we now own and define the parties economic choices. The results are showing. Without us you lack the money and votes to win. Will you really hand over women and minorities to the Tea Party? I doubt you will and if you tried we’d all scream at the top of our lungs how racist and sexist you are and then go about getting another grand bargain.
Make no fucking mistake, Obama and Clinton moved the party in our direction, and progressive support for them has made their technocratic neoliberal economic views the new progressive normal. You may not like this, but this is where we are, and where we will continue to go. Every Republican driven from the right over social issues does not adopt the old idiotic New Deal values from that bigoted old version of the party. Instead they solidify our social values and help move the party to the right on economics. Throwing them out makes the party no longer electorally viable. This is a good thing.
You can try to fight it, but you’ve already lost unless you plan to purity yourselves into oblivion Tea Party style.
eemom
@Mike with a Mic:
Not sure quite what you’re on about with all those words posted multiple times, but just FTR, I’m not a fucking plutocrat, nor a single issue voter of any kind, and neither are most of my fellow NoVA Democratic voters.
So, like, get off that schtick.
eta: Scratch the schtick part. You’re incoherent.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike with a Mic: Wow, it turns out that you are demented. Who knew?
mclaren
@fuckwit:
From a Democrat????!????
Okay. By “action on climate change” I assume you mean taking huge campaign donations to sponsor bills giving even bigger subsidies to Big Oil and by “crackdown on corporate crime” I’m guessing you mean refuse to allow any arm of the government to prosecute Wall Street financial crime lords for their massive orgy of criminal fraud, while financing their immense yearly bonuses with taxpayer bailouts.
Took a while to untangle your language. I was confused.
But now that we know what “action” and “crackdown” really means, yeah, sure, Democrats will do that. They’ll take all the campaign contributions you want to give Big Oil huge tax breaks. And they will most definitely protect criminally fraudulent billionaires from any and all criminal prosecution.
piratedan
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/media-serves-up-obamacare-scare-stories-61285443903
TriassicSands
The choice between McAuliffe and Cuccinelli is an easy one. It’s trying to decide between McAuliffe and a crusty ol’ cow pie or a piece of rancid meat that would be hard.
I am incredibly grateful that I don’t live in a state that offers such a choice as that between McAuliffe and Cuccinelli. I know what I’d end up doing, but it would make me sick to my stomach to actually cast a vote for McAuliffe. We have 100% mail in voting where I live and we receive our ballots some 18 days prior to election day. If my choice were between McAuliffe and Cuccinelli, I think I’d return my ballot the same day I got it. Otherwise, I’d be miserable the entire time the blank ballot sat around my house. As I said, the choice between these two is an easy one, as it is between virtually any Democrat and any current day Republican. The GOP has become so depraved, so brutish, so despicable that they have created a situation where the lesser evil is so obvious, and the greater evil so incredibly evil that the identification of the Democrat barely matters. When voting for Terry McAuliffe has become a no-brainer, you know you’re in trouble.
Terry McAuliffe is among the worst Democratic gubernatorial candidates of my lifetime; Cuccinelli is among the worst candidates in the history of this country. He’s so bad he should be easily identifiable as the worst ever, except that the GOP has degenerated to such a shockingly low level that Cuccinelli is almost indistinguishable from other Republican candidates of the day. The Republican Party is not unique in history, but what is so horrifying is that there are enough voters in this country who are no better human beings than the Republican candidates to allow the GOP to remain competitive. By any reasonable standard, any political party that has descended this low should be extinct.
SatanicPanic
@fuckwit:
well fuck, outta that bunch I’ll take FDR.
dollared
@Cacti: So you would not have bombed Dresden or Tokyo? Tell us how you would have prosecuted WWII with perfect moral clarity and without harming any civilians.
dollared
@Cacti: So you would not have bombed Dresden or Tokyo? Tell us how you would have prosecuted WWII with perfect moral clarity and without harming any civilians.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
I don’t know enough about Virginia politics or McAuliffe to express an opinion about them. I do know know that the reasons that will be given for Cuccinelli’s defeat will range from hilarious to disturbing.
Gypsy Howell
What? No one has mentioned that Christie is going to win by a landslide in New Fucking Jersey tomorrow? Now THATS a disgrace for a Dem-leaning state.
gwangung
@leeleeFL:
Yeah, but progs and libs spend an inordinately time dwelling on our politicians’ faults and shortcomings rather than what they can and will do….
gwangung
@leeleeFL:
Yeah, but progs and libs spend an inordinately time dwelling on our politicians’ faults and shortcomings rather than what they can and will do….
MikeJ
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): ACORN! Black Panthers! Vote fraud!
We should draw up wingnut electoral failure excuse bingo cards.
Chyron HR
Well, I went to my polling place in blue Arlington this morning and it was almost completely empty, so… shit.
But at least it’s a stunning victory for True Progressivism.
Robert Sneddon
@dollared: Monday-morning quarterbacking, the Allies should have used their massive airpower advantage to go after specific industrial targets rather than use them on primarily civilian areas. It only became clear after the war when the results could be studied on the ground and the leaders of the Axis interrogated that the bombing effort aimed at cities and population was less effective than supposed. Speer said that the limiting factor to keeping the Nazi war machine running was oil, fuel and lubricants and if the Allies had targeted the oil production facilities and transport links then they would have been crippled in short order.
Targetting was the problem; it’s not difficult to cycle five hundred WWII-technology bombers over a city and hit *something* given the primitive navigation and bomb-aiming capabilities of the time. Hitting a refinery or a fuel storage dump covering a few dozen hectares is a lot more difficult unless done at low-level to increase accuracy and that bleeds your attacking force since close-in defences for that sort of facility are usually very effective.
EconWatcher
I did my duty at 6:00 am this morning and voted for Terry Mack and the rest of the D ticket. While I’m no fan of his, I have to give him credit for running a good campaign, which was a relief after the total embarrassment of Creigh Deeds last time around.
So, good luck Governor. Do us proud. Or at least, please don’t embarrass us too much.
–a Virginia voter
JPL
Vote Dems!
JMG
FWIW, one of my brothers, a country club Republican when he’s political at all, is a neighbor of McAuliffe’s and likes him personally quite a bit although regarding him as the neighborhood eccentric.
raven
@Robert Sneddon: And if Charlie had poisoned the creek at Khe Sanh we’d all be eating Pho/
Va Highlander
I’m not enthusiastic about T Mac, mostly because I’m not a big Clinton fan, but I’m going to vote for him here shortly and brag about it after. The Cooch scares the hell out of me, one of the most psychopathic and profoundly stupid people I’ve ever seen in public office. Even my Fox-bot parents have no use for the evil son-of-a-bitch.
Bill E Pilgrim
I don’t think that’s what “serious people” in the media get involved in that at all. I think they’re focused on how Democrats can be more like Republicans, with someone like Bowles of Simpson-Bowles held up as a sort of ideal.
I was reading “This Town” as an audio book on my commutes a couple of months ago, and at one point the writer mentioned going into “Erskine Bowles palatial house” at one point. Of course he has a palatial house, I thought. The financiers destroyed the economy out of greed, the resulting depression pushed many more people below the line where they need a couple hundred a month in food stamps to survive, and creeps like Simpson and Bowles, in their palatial houses, want to punish the people on food stamps.
Now of course because this is Balloon Juice someone will claim that I just wrote that the Republican should be elected mayor instead of the Democrat. Needless to say that isn’t the conclusion at all, I’m just pointing out that our very serious people don’t seem above it all or Democratic purists in the least, they seem to be why all we have is people like McCaullife as the choice for Democrat. Which is still better than the Republican, yes.
Elizabelle
@ALurkerHere:
Thanks for your vote to make Virginia bluer and saner.
Woo hoo!
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Chyron HR:
My brother reported a line at 6:00 a.m. at his polling place in Arlington. I’m going out to vote in Falls Church in a bit.
Matt McIrvin
Wow, Ron Paul is stumping for Cuccinelli with a nullificationist speech.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Steeplejack (tablet): There was good turnout at 9 AM in our precinct in Fairfax County. I was #432.
Fingers crossed…
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Bill E Pilgrim
Dunno which house was cited, but it could have been one inherited from his father, Hargrove, a politician and investment banker who certainly did not suffer from penury.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Goddamnit, FYWP won’t let me change “tiered” to “tired.” Pisses me off.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Used to be a Chinese restaurant in Falls Church, the Inn of the Eight Immortals, which would always find time to visit when in or near D.C, solely in order to savor something on the menu called Pa Shien Steak.
Long gone by now, though.
Elizabelle
Hope also that the Koch Brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity push goes down hard in little Coralville, Iowa (next door to Iowa City).
NYTimes: Koch Group has Ambitions in Small Races
Economic freedom, their version, 2013. Less taxes (revenue) and government spending which benefits residents and voters, vs. the Kochs, who don’t like to pay taxes or face any regulation of their activities.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@Matt McIrvin:
If the nullificationists wanted to live in their own states on their own money I’d accord them some grudging respect. They want to live in their own states, ignore federal laws of which they don’t approve, and still get that lovely money from the federal government. It’s just that “nullification” sounds much more courageous than “We want to have our cake and eat it too.”
Elizabelle
@NotMax:
I loved Inn of the Eight Immortals. It was for special family celebrations. Elegant, atmospheric, and the food was good.
Hate to see old Northern Virginia disappear. Mostly Targets and chain restaurants now.
Ash Can
@Matt McIrvin: The old coot must figure he’s got nothing to lose. I’d like to see him take the next step and start calling for armed insurrection. Maybe the humorless guys in the black suits would pay a visit to him and stuff a sock in his yap and we wouldn’t have to listen to his idiocy for a while.
El Cid
I have nooooo problem with ‘lesser of two evil’ choices when one choice is absolutely completely horrible awful and the other is in many ways good but with some things that are bad.
It’s hard to usefully use the phrase ‘lesser of two evils’ when one choice is at some sane level of acceptableness and the other is horrendous.
It’s like the choice between working a job with some features you like and some major drawbacks you hate versus being kidnapped and dropped into the open ocean in a shark-infested area in seal breeding season.
You might survive the latter, but your chances aren’t great; the former now at least has good health insurance coverage.
Southern Beale
Speaking of laboratories of democracy, Retired Air Force Col./Gitmo prosecutor Morris Davis had to try FOUR TIMES to vote for McCauliffe. That’s what he gets for trying to vote for a Dem in Virginia.
handsmile
@Omnes Omnibus:
And let’s hope that will be the worst of your “White Man” problems today. :)
Earlier this morning, voted for a candidate (de Blasio) with whom I agree on issues 90% or more. For the first (and probably last) time, to be sure. At least for a candidate who will win the election.
@Steeplejack (tablet):
While I have found TCM’s “The Story of Film” series maddening (many disagreements with its interpretations/analyses and a few outright errors), MIGOD!, the films that have been presented in conjunction with it! Astonishing. “Alice in the Cities”! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it listed (and had to watch to make sure). For Sembene, highly recommend two later films, “Camp de Thiaroye” and “Guelwaar” (if available by Netflix or at a very good public library).
Will be thinking, with digits crossed, of you and other BJ NoVa-ers (Elizabelle, eemom, Redshift et al) as Election Day unfolds.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
My eighteen year old daughter gets to vote for Terry McAuliffe her first time in the booth.
Seanly
@leeleeFL:
This.
I won’t be trite by linking TBOGG’s famed Mumia sweatshirt rant, but that says it all.
I voted this morning. Not much going on in Boise, ID, but I wanted to make sure the wife & I voted for the important bond issues for Boise (for which I did some calling).
RP
An acquaintance said he couldn’t vote for either candidate because both parties nominated “extremists.” WTF?
FlipYrWhig
@Bill E Pilgrim: in what way is McAuliffe “Republican-lite,” though? He doesn’t want to do any of the things you’re upset about Democrats doing. This is bizarre.
Steeplejack
@handsmile:
Yeah, I had some problems with The Story of Film, not the least of which was the narrator’s sort of sing-songy Scottish accent, which had a weird echo of Valley-speak in ending sentences on a sort of half-questioning up note? Really distracting. I don’t know if they use him in all the episodes. I have watched only one or two and haven’t seen anything revelatory. But kudos to TCM for putting it on. It’s a treasure trove of references for people who want to broaden their viewing.
When I worked the music/DVD department at Barnes & Noble I was appalled at how little knowledge—or even interest!—many young film fans—even college film majors—had in anything before about 1980 (except for The Godfather and Star Wars). Really surprising.
And I’m with you on the excellent rarities that TCM has been showing around the documentary (and on many nights lately when the doc wasn’t on). Some I’ve seen before, but not in many years, and there have been some that I have never seen. It’s a feast.
eemom
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Mine too!
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Some people just need something to be pissed off about all the time.
Matt McIrvin
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): The funny thing is, Virginia is pretty much the ultimate example of a state that lives off the federal teat, just because so many federal employees and contractors live and vote there. That kind of talk plays well with old neo-Confederates, but they’re not necessarily the deciding vote any more.
Anniecat45
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
the first time I voted, in Florida in the mid-1970s, every single member of the Florida cabinet had either been indicted or was under investigation.
I think that beats McAuliffe for sleaze.
HelloRochester
I am full like a tick with schadenfreude that Terry McAuliffe, one of the Worst People In The World, let alone in the Democratic Party, is going to be governor of VA. It is truly exactly what the GOP extremists in VA deserve. I imagine he’ll send a bottle of scotch to Ted Cruz (or, perhaps, a box of maple-glazed empanadas) to thank him for the shutdown.
handsmile
@Steeplejack:
“Treasure trove.” “Feast.” Yes, those are far better and deserving descriptions of “The Story of Film” and TCM’s related programming. However annoying I may find it to be, the series is a remarkable primer on the glories of Cinema for most viewers. I hope it’s been a success (or at least not calamitous) for TCM”s ratings.
Mark Cousins is the series’ writer/director, and yes, his Northern Irish accent narrates all of its episodes. (Do agree with you about his often peculiar vocal rhythms.)
…and hey, just between us….that lack of interest ain’t limited to B&N customers…have you read the comments on any film thread at this saloon….mnemosyne does the best she can and all but even her advocacy seems limited to American films…sigh….
drkrick
@Southern Beale: That’s disturbing. My polling place in Fairfax County was all paper ballots. No problems and practically no line at noon (last November it was a 45 minute wait at about the same time.
eemom
@HelloRochester:
You got some facts to back that up with, hellowhoeverthefuckyouare?
I am truly, really sick of this shit.
eemom
@drkrick:
I was surprised by the paper ballots but I actually liked it.
Something more emphatic about filling in the little circle.
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: Don’t know what these people expect. My own friends and I have at best about a 75% agreement rate. Christ my wife and I are lucky to hit 90% and that’s when things are going good. Whadda they want in a candidate, the ideal spouse?
They want a pony. No, a unicorn. That farts rainbows. Now.
This is where I understand how wingnuts came up with the term ‘moonbat’ for Teh Left.
NR
@dollared: Obama would have done it. Given Obama’s perfect track record of only killing Evil Bad Men Who Totally Deserve It, we can assume that if he’d been in charge during World War II, he would have done a much better, much cleaner, job of it.
/Cacti
fuckwit
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): They are teenagers. “I HATE YOU AND I WANT YOU TO DIE!! Umm, can I borrow the car tonight?”
lawguy
@chopper: No FRD did not send them back to Germany, although back to Europe, before WWII. There is a difference: the difference being that you are looking back and you know what happened, he could not foresee the future. How much FDR was personally responsible for that and how much was the politics of the times and the hide bound State Department, and for that matter how much FDR was responsible for the hide bound state department I don’t know.
Jewish Steel
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: @eemom:
You guys are married? Ah, now it’s all starting make sense.
Chyron HR
@lawguy:
It’s a good thing you guys were born too late to do anything “mindlessly worship”-ful of FDR like voting for him in an election, or we might start to think he was your “dear leader”.
Seanly
Am I going to have got Full Metal Mumia Sweatshirt on this post?
What the hell do some of you want? I think any adult knows that FDR was a product of his times with likely anti-Semitic tendencies. That Social Security had rascist trappings and severe limitations at the beginning.That the internment of Japanese Americans was a terrible policy. And while the fire bombings of Dresden & Tokyo weren’t as neat & clean as our laser-guided munitions into wedding parties, FDR wasn’t the biggest dictator of the day. I don’t recall FDR systemically murdering Jews, gypsies, political dissidents and the mentally and physically handicapped. I don’t think FDR had the Japanese rape Nanking or march our POWs across Bataan.
I don’t worship FDR, but I’d take some progressive policies over nitpicking.
fidelio
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe as a nonprofit?
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: At Seven Corners, right?
Steeplejack
@NotMax, @Matt McIrvin:
The Inn of the Eight Immortals is gone, but I seem to remember reading on some foodie site that it was located at Seven Corners, where Fortune is now. Fortune is excellent, by the way. Dim sum served every day, not just on the weekend.
Jebediah, RBG
@dollared:
By using the Bully Pulpit, of course!
Jebediah, RBG
@Jewish Steel:
Already you’ve denounced Stew-daism?
NR
@Seanly: People here like to shit on FDR as a way of making the corporate whore we have in office now look better by comparison.
notorious JRT
@Yatsuno:
Seconded!
notorious JRT
@Yatsuno:
Seconded!
Mudslide
@fuckwit: ah-fucking-men!
Heliopause
Corporate whoredom is an issue that counts, too. You might recall that financial deregulation supported by corporate whore Democrats caused a wee bit of unpleasantness a few years ago. In fact, you can make a solid case that corporate whoredom is the most important issue, because social issues won’t mean a heck of a lot in the post-apocalyptic hellscape that corporate whores seem determined to bring about. So it’s best not to advance the career of a corporate whore if it can at all be avoided.
Of course, in a binary election between a corporate whore and a corporate whore who is also insane the choice can’t be avoided, so good luck to McAuliffe, I guess.
Sondra
Bravo and well said. He is also upbeat and energetic and can fire up a crowd. I saw him here in West Palm Beach on his book tour back in 2007 or 2008. He was also here to campaign for Hillary.”Cooch”.
Considering that turnout is hard in an off year election, his volunteers must have worked very hard while some mainstream (? if there are many left) R’s may have stayed home.
Gus
@Chris: Seriously? How often in a Democratic debate do you hear someone invoke FDR’s name? It’s not even close.