Profiles in Cowardice
Glenn Youngkin managed to find the key to unlocking electoral success for modern Republicans. The newly minted governor of Virginia won a narrow victory last night in a state that Joe Biden had won by ten points. His campaign was a campaign of half measures and lip service to the king without openly endorsing the king. It was a thing of beauty.
He refused to campaign with the ex president even until the end and yet somehow managed to convince the forever Trumpers that he was on their side all along. I suppose Democrats should be worried when they they lose a key governorship, but there is a silver lining in there somewhere.
Youngkin refused to kiss the ring. For that, you could label him a lot of things and we will label him those things before all is said and done, but he is no fool. For all his talk about winning, the ex president has never actually won. He didn’t the first time around. He didn’t in the last election and anyone significant that has ever hitched their wagon to him also has failed.
Youngkin’s stance on vaccine mandates alone is enough to make you dizzy. When it was brought up in debate he stuttered and stammered all over the place as if he were trying to solve an algebraic equation. He was for mandates for all of those other vaccines because no one wants to be on the record as the guy aiming to bring back the measles. Yet, he was against a mandate on the COVID vaccine because a majority of his base is against it.
It’s a perfect tactic if one could actually articulate it intelligently. I’m not sure Youngkin ever got there, but I guess he deserves a prize for effort. I suppose he finally settled on the point that there hasn’t been enough research done. If he had thrown out the nugget that everyone should do their own research he might have spit the bit, but he managed to walk a tightrope where he was against the mandate and for people getting the vaccine. It was twisting and turning that would make Simone Biles wince in pain.
In the meantime he just might have given Republicans the blueprint for long-term success. For all of his bravado, the ex-leader always trailed expectations by five to ten points nationally. That probably has something to do with voters that actually care how you say things and voters that actually care about the moral fiber of their candidate. Admittedly, it’s not nearly as many people as we might have hoped, but five percent can make a huge difference on election day.
What Youngkin managed to do is say enough of the buzzwords to signal to the MAGA crowd that he was one of them without uttering the offensive versions of their rhetoric that turn off moderates. This leaves us with only one conclusion. As long as national GOP politicians think they have to kiss the ring and be the biggest ass in the room then things are looking up. As soon as they discover they can ignore him and just borrow the more tame versions of his rhetoric, we could be in serious trouble.
The main factor in his win is that he self-financed his campaign early on because he is a filthy rich hedge fund guy. We have been inundated with commercials for this guy for SIX MONTHS! Talk about being sick of this campaign.
1Republicans know in some states they gain by openly embracing The Fvcking Former Guy and espousing openly Fascist rhetoric whilst in other states they have to give a wink and nod to Traitor Trump and toning down the rhetoric.
2Inverse Occam’s Razor applies: no one factor is ever the sole cause of a political result.
Here, two additional causal factors apply:
1) The Senatorial ego factor, where holding up key legislation to showboat discouraged voter turnout
2) Billionaires own all mass media, controlling the narrative.
It takes considerable long-term effort to defeat those factors.
3@BarbinDC #1 and @RepubAnon #2
I think there’s another thing in play here and that is that McAuliffe is an entitled Clintonista who threw his hat in the ring late in the primary process and coasted to victory on name recognition alone.
We could have had America’s first African American Woman governor. But, no.
4RE #1: Youngkin is reportedly “worth” around $400 million. He tossed in $20 million from his change drawer into his campaign operation.
“The best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity”. ― W.B. Yeats
5He is a rePUKEian, that alone makes him a pile of crap.
6@Malarkey #3: You are correct, of course. I can’t vote in VA elections, so I listen the goings-on there somewhat distractedly. I seem to recall the consensus media reaction as being relieved that McAuliffe was getting back into the saddle, since he would clear the field and then sail on to victory. How’d that work out?
For once I am glad VA has the one-term rule. It limits the amount of damage a Rethug Guv can do. Youngkin is likely to wind up like his immediate Rethug predecessors: Dum, corrupt, or both. I’m just waiting until he tries to outlaw abortion in Va. In fact, I’m praying he does that.
7Harry Truman’s statement still holds:
8“Run a fake Republican against a real one and the real one wins every time.”
A grannie take on this is that a rich guy won. It didn’t help that McAuliffe was a sub-optimal candidate. And I think Manchin/Sinema holding the Dems up here a lot.
9It was McAuliffe’s race to win or lose. He and the centrists/DNC chose the wrong way. They lost. No more excuses, please.
Grandma Ada @8 and Malarkey @3 should be earworms for the DNC and Democratic candidates going into both 2022 and 2024.
10I agree that McAuliff chose the wrong path. The thing about the Democratic Party is the big tent is very inclusive and diverse and has a wide range of priorities and thinking. This is not bad but makes it harder to appeal to all. Not sure how this affected democrat and independent turnout.
11The opposite is true of the repugnantican party which has a small tent but has pretty much coalesced behind trumpf magats even if he’s not running. This is a party where truth is not a virtue and stupidity is rampant. Youngkin hit all the right messages to appeal to the magats and from what I read, had high voter turnout.
I’m certainly not any expert, just my opinion, but repugnanticans won.
I’m with Jane & PKM – “It was McAuliffe’s race to win or lose. He and the centrists/DNC chose the wrong way. They lost. No more excuses, please.”
Also, I think that would be more sustainable to look into what Democrats did/are doing wrong instead of looking into what Rethugs did/are doing wrong. Just my opinion.
12The Democrat got 210,000 more votes in 2021 then 4 years ago in 2017. The Republican played the race card (CRT! CRT!) and the racists and the fascists came out of the woodwork.
13Disgusted Virginia voted here, super upset to have terrible choice in McCauliff. He likely brought down the whole ticket. Of all the teevee ads and nonsensical mailings I have no idea of his plans for Governor part 2. The VA Dem leadership should be ashamed. Google chris hurst if you want to see a state delegate and his girlfriend make 5 yr olds look mature with their antics on election day. It might not have cost him his race but did not help. By God I hope dems can get their act together for 2022.
14Yes, Sara O, Democrats better get their shit together with the right candidates and message. Like it or not, “independent” voters can and will make the difference in 2022. Youngkin won their vote in 2021 in Virginia where Biden got their vote by 13 points in 2020. Wrong candidate with the wrong message. Democrats won in New Jersey (barely) this year, but in 2022, the House and Senate are up for grabs in many states. If we think congress and the Biden administration are in gridlock now, just wait for a congress controlled by repugnanticans. This is very concerning. In my opinion. Manshit and sinema win, too.
15McAuliffe beat two Black women and one Black man in the primary … and as best I, an outsider can tell, did nearly nothing more to bring those candidates and their organizations into his campaign.
McAuliffe beat RWNJ #1 in 2013 by something like 2-3%; and that RWNJ wasn’t nearly as rich and had a much more troubling record from his “public service” career. RWNJ #2, in 2021, beat McAuliffe by something like 2-3%; he’s a lot richer and had NO troubling public service record to work with, since he’d been in private business getting rich until a year ago. Unlike McAuliffe, who had his own record of public service (Carter, BClinton, Obama, HClinton and Biden fundraising; previous term as governor). a 5% swing based on the difference in record seems pretty understandable.
Biden did better than McAuliffe and Trump did worse than Youngkin — margin shift was about 10-12 points in most areas of VA … I figure that is about the margin of voters appalled by Trump and accepting of Youngkin’s no rumpled bedsheets, no bad words, no bankruptcies, and, as yet, no indication he hires the incompetent and corrupt.
16Youngkin’s 17 year old son tried twice to vote in the election. He is given a pass since he was caught both times. The intent to cheat was there, but nothing ever counts against magats and they do start cheating at a young age.
17