Why Romney Won't Win

The Baseball Crank has a very thorough analysis, here, of why Romney should not be the Repub nominee. (Hat tip JustOneMinute). If you are thinking about Romney, or know someone who is, we urge you to read it.

VA Repubs Reassess

Today's Post has a piece chock full of hand-wringing by VA republicans about what went wrong in last Tuesday's elections. (Short answer: lots -- the R's lost the Senate and several House seats). What message the people are sending to the R's (other than we've had enough for now) has provided much fodder for us here at DCPN as well as for others. We continue to think the good folks of Virginia spanked the repubs for straying from core principles, most notably for their willingness to go along with tax increases, and we have taken issue with the Post for suggesting otherwise. But in today's piece, the Post cites repub senators in VA who seem to get it, like Senator Ryan McDougle:

McDougle and other GOP leaders say it's time for the party to hone its principles, refocusing on controlling taxes and spending while developing new ideas for transportation, education, health care and controlling growth.

Let's hope!

UPDATE: The Right-Wing Liberal has an excellent post suggesting the repubs in VA are blithely ignoring the lessons of recent elections. Yesterday, they nominated Rob Wittman for Congress down in Hampton Roads. As a delegate in the VA legislature, Wittman supported Gov Kaine's huge transportation tax increases. Yikes!!

How Blue is Virginia?

What's going on in Virginia?!? Well, blogs to the left of us and blogs to the right of us (not to mention the establishment media) all seem to agree that if those dang republicans would just stop talking about illegal immigration, then everyone would be better off. We here at DCPN continue to think that the election was more about lackluster candidates than it was a message about illegal immigration or a repudiation of conservative ideology. When you've got republicans disagreeing about not whether to raise taxes, but only how high they should be raised, it's tough to say that voters who reject the republican party are rejecting conservative principles.

But in all the Monday-morning-quarterbackery that we've slogged through so far, EJ Dionne's piece in today's WaPo stands out as a startling piece of revisionism. EJ starts out fine when describing Gov Kaine's politicking on behalf of Dem candidates:

Typically, moderate Democrats in swing states keep their distance from party concerns for fear of alienating more conservative voters. Kaine's risk-taking reflected his character -- he could not see himself "sleepwalking through an election," he said in a telephone interview yesterday. It also spoke to his party's growing confidence that voters want to buy what Democrats are selling.

Hey, Gov Kaine did a great job getting out the vote and should be congratulated for his victory, but it was hardly risky for him to go out and beat up on the republican candidates. Apparently overwhelmed by the Gov's show of bravery, EJ lurches unexpectedly to this conclusion:

But the pitch is unexpected: It casts Democrats as the party of nonpartisanship and relegates Republicans to the status of partisan ideologues.

Democrats are the party of nonpartisanship? Aside from its twisted logic (how can you be a party and a non-party at the same time?) the statement ignores (in fact belittles) some of the best attacks launched by democratic partisans in the VA election. And why does it follow that the republicans are relegated to the status of "partisan ideologues" merely because they don't "buy what the Democrats are selling"?

Oh well, I guess that's EJ being EJ. We here at DCPN will continue to study skim the reporting and commentary in our search for meaning in Tuesday's voting.

Congratulations to Tim Kaine & Co.

To the surprise of no one, the Democrats have eked out a majority in the Virginia Senate. Congratulations to those who worked so hard for this. WaPo has excellent coverage of the races. Although WaPo is strangely fixated on illegal immigration in a front-page piece declaring that the results prove that the voters don't care about that issue, or at least don't care about it enough to vote for republicans. Amy Gardner expands on her thesis to make broad conclusions about the state of the republican party in the Commonwealth:

The returns provided the sharpest evidence yet that Democratic gains in recent state elections represented more than a temporary dip in Republicans' popularity. Yesterday's initial results showed that a more long-term structural realignment may be occurring and that voters are increasingly drawn by Democrats' promises to improve schools and ease traffic and away from Republican conservatism on such issues as taxes and social policy, particularly in fast-growing Northern Virginia.

Ms. Gardner may be right. Or it may be that voters are upset about the republican candidates' stands on core republican issues like taxation and unhappy with some of their candidates for other reasons (see below). Or it may be that demographics are catching up with the GOP in VA. Though I have no data to back it up, doesn't it seem to be the case that as areas of the country become more urban, they trend towards the Democrats? (Think New York City.) And it is certainly the case that both the DC suburbs in Northern Virginia, as well as the Hampton Roads area around Virginia Beach are becoming more urban (or at least more densely populated). It may be that the republicans in Virginia need to rethink how they approach the electorate (think Rudy Giuliani). (So am I supporting Ms. Gardner's point or am I disuputing it -- no clear answers!)

And although I have mostly ignored them, there were also elections in Maryland yesterday.