Let’s start off the day with something nice: Giving credit where credit is due for an adult response to the events of the week.
The Democratic caucus of the Virginia State Senate yesterday put out a respectful, decent statement congratulating the Republicans who won the statewide offices of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, and pledging to work together where mutual interests allow. Classy move.
But then there are the likes of U.S. Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-11th), whose press office sent out a release with the subject line “Congratulations” to Glenn Youngkin, but the release was not congratulatory at all — it said, to paraphrase, that Connolly would remain ever vigilant to make sure those nasty Republicans don’t undo the efforts of Democrats who came before.
Read the room, Gerry and staff. Wait a day or two before acting like the turd floating in the pool (“Caddyshack” reference there…).
And the king of turds in the punchbowl (er, pool) — Donald Trump — has glommed onto the Youngkin victory for self-serving purposes. Funny, I wouldn’t have expected that from him (ah-hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!). He apparently does not realize that his relevance seems to be inversely proportional to his verbosity. You probably helped Youngkin a bit, Don-Don, but this victory is his and his alone.
(There was a famous scene at the first debate between Arlington commonwealth’s attorney candidates Theo Stamos and Parisa Dehghani-Tafti in 2019 when a group of Tafti supporters were interrupting Stamos. “HUSH UP” bellowed a very tall someone who shall remain unnamed but was standing two people from me at the side of the room. Good advice to Trump at the moment, but of course he will not take it.)
And while it’s been more than a year that I’ve been over on that kooky Blue Virginia blog, I dipped my big toe in yesterday to see how that far-left crowd is holding up, and whom they are blaming for the election debacle.
Turns out they are enraged, although they’re always enraged. As for blame, and this truly is a classic, one narrative is that Youngkin won because he, wait for it, had the press on his side and they conspired to fool the voters.
Cannot make this sh#t up. On the positive side, I can now avoid Blue Virginia for another year.
MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE YOUNGKIN VICTORY? While the focus has been on the election of Republican Glenn Youngkin as governor, perhaps the more substantive change will be in the post of attorney general, where Republican Jason Miyares unseated longtime incumbent Democrat Mark Herring. (Told ya not to waste time and money ridiculously trying to tie Miyares to the Jan. 6 unpleasantness, Herring team, but did you and your ad-makers listen? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo……..)
Suddenly, the left-leaning local governments and school districts of Northern Virginia et al, not to mention the Soros prosecutors spanning the region, are going to have a nemesis rather than a friend in that seminal job. And Miyares, who has ambition written all over him, no doubt will be glad to take on easy targets like those folks.
PROBABLY SILENTLY THANKFUL: Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine weren’t exactly AWOL from the recent election cycle, but they were relatively quiet. And I’d gather that, though they would never acknowledge it, they’re happy to have Glenn Youngkin moving into the Governor’s Mansion rather than, if he’d lost, planning a run against one of them.
Both Warner and Kaine seem like they’re one more term away from retirement, so all they need to do is get over that last hump. And because neither is exactly a world-beater when it comes to running up big margins of victory, they’d probably be happy to have some lesser Republican light nipping at their heels when the time comes.
TO END ON A HIGH NOTE: I should be, but alas am not, cognizant of who was responsible (state legislators?) for changing the election regulations so localities were able — nay, required — to count early-voting ballots, well, early, and report them shortly after the polls closed.
(Fairfax still kinda screwed that up, but not as bad as some years, for which we should be thankful.)
Making that simple change in the counting and reporting process made for a much more seamless Election Night and gave more reason to be sure of election integrity. It deserves applause from both sides of the aisle.
- Scott McCaffrey