McCaullife's close win in Virginga should have been a blowout

[Cyrano]

Cucinelli is so bugshit insane that he should have lost the VA election by 10 to 15 points. But the fact that the difference was only three or four points isn't comforting to me. It seems to mean that if the Republicans had put up a somewhat sane candidate, they might have won.

Crushing the Tea Party is going to take a hell of a lot more sane voters than showed up in Virginia yesterday. Am I the only one worried about this in terms of future elections?

[LonePirate]

1. Low sane voter turn out and very bad polling are the real stories in VA

We as Dems must start increasing voter turn out in these off year elections. We need a massive core bloc of voters that vote every time, just the righties have.

Also, every poll of the VA gov race was way, way off. How did this happen? Did all of them fail to gauge voter turn out? Or did they fail to capture voter preference? Or both?

We may have won the race but there are plenty of Dem warning signs from that race.

[BeyondGeography]

46. People forget/ignore what it took for Obama to win last year

A massive investment in analytics that was aimed at identifying likely voters in swing states and getting them to the polls. He won 11 of 12 of them, and the margins were tight. Without that, he would have lost. People think it was a blowout (wrong) and we won because the other side is insane (wrong) or because Bill Clinton made a great convention speech (lwrong). Until that national model makes its way down to the state and local level, we will continue to underperform relative to the popularity of our positions vs. the Cons.

[Sunlei]

2. understand your point & media polls also had a larger point spread.

For future elections this shows that Rs can run almost anyone and count on their votes. No matter who wins or won, I really think small Va. county by small county should have their votes recounted. Somehow votes need to be crosschecked for pockets of fraud. Areas with above average high turnout numbers should be flagged for extra scrutiny. To much local control in state elections. I'm not at all confident in the USA voting system especially at the local level.

[DefenseLawyer]

3. McCaullife was a flawed candidate

Third Way, Wall Street Clintonite who looks like he should be hosting an infomercial or selling used cars. Not exactly the guy to fire up the grassroots.

[IdaBriggs]

4. But Cucinelli SHOULD have fired up the grass roots.

Why didn't it?

[DefenseLawyer]

6. I think he was just too creepy

Even among wing nuts, there are varying degrees of crazy. I think he went a bridge too far. I think that's where the Libertarian's 8% came from. Sure they hate "socialized medicine" but they tune out when you start preaching about contraceptives.

[IdaBriggs]

9. My point is still this -- creepy Republican NOT firing up the grass roots?

What the heck is wrong with this picture?

[DefenseLawyer]

20. And I say that it is possible to be too creepy even for Republicans. n/t

[Laelth]

35. Too many people take good government for granted.

Few people really believe that the right-wing Taliban will do exactly what they promise they will do if they get into power. It was the same in Germany in the early 20th Century. Few Germans really believed the Nazis would crank up the gas chambers, despite the fact that Hitler said very precisely what he intended to do.

Similarly, too many people dismissed their doubts about Cucinelli's agenda, and turn-out was low. Not enough people are truly afraid of the right wing of American politics. They should be, but they're not.

-Laelth

[AnotherMcIntosh]

59. Or take bad government for granted

and not show up.

[westerebus]

39. Terry McCaullife was a big turn off.

Folks are sick of being feed a line of bull shit from the DLC.

The grass roots took a deep breath and went in an voted against the cooch.

The belt way in north Virginia loves McCaullife, outside in the Commonwealth, not so much.

[HereSince1628]

10. I tend to agree.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

56. Agreed. The Republican candidate was worse, but would you buy a used car from him?

I suspect that the answer is no, unless there were no reasonable alternatives.

[DireStrike]

5. Dems only won because of the third party candidate. It got closer because he took less votes than he

was polling - people switched from Lib. to GOP.

Nobody was voting FOR "T-Mack", just against the nutjob.

[stevenleser]

13. Not correct. Polling showed that most of the Libertarian voters would have gone to McAuliffe

It's slightly unusual, but consider that there is little chance that someone who self-identifies as Libertarian would vote for the guy who wants the government to criminalize oral sex.

[scheming daemons]

21. False. Exit polls showed even split among the third party voters as to their second choice

[Kingofalldems]

7. McCauliffe has a low NRA rating

Could have had something to do with it.

[bowens43]

19. nonsense. Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of stricter gun control

despite the lies and spinning of the gun fetishists and their psychopathic minions.

[lostincalifornia]

36. It depends on the state. Virginia is one of the states that do not favor stricter gun control

[AnotherMcIntosh]

58. Then he should have run heavily on that issue. Are you going to encourage others to do so?

Don't forget to contact future candidates and suggest that they vigurously use your phrase:

"despite the lies and spinning of the gun fetishists and their psychopathic minions."

[Hoyt]

51. Does show you can stand tough against the gun lobby and still win.

I admire his courage in that respect. Most candidates, especially right wingers, would gave gone out for photo op shooting targets resembling people to show their manhood.

[Kingofalldems]

62. Yes he didn't back down, which showed character.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. I'm glad we've found a 26th thread for the "We never *REALLY* win" crowd to moan in

What, we won something? Well, we should have won by more. We only won because they lost, so it's really like we lost, actually, if you think about it. (deep breaths deep breaths) So, we really lost, yet again, confirming my worldview that everything sucks, always. (deep breaths deep breaths) Whew, that's better. Oh, the agony of victory. The agony!

[IdaBriggs]

14. I am concerned about the difference between the polling and the results.

It should be setting off some "what is going on" meters.

Are the votes being tampered with? Are there so few Democrats in Virginia? Are the Democrats ineffectual?

With a terrifying Republican (seriously, wants to regulate Oral Sex?) the fact he wasn't stomped into the ground should be a subject of concern to most people.

[Awknid]

33. Thank you for mentioning it

Last edited Thu Nov 7, 2013, 10:15 PM - Edit history (1)

When you realize that Cooch was basically in charge of the election as Atty. general, you must wonder about tampering. That was the first thing on my mind. As I understand from watching Rachel Maddow, most candidates resign their post but he refused to do that. Makes me suspicious.

[stevenleser]

40. At least 40,000 voters were purged by Cooch and courts refused to reinstate them.

That might account for a point or two.

[JoePhilly]

15. Its also the Dems fault that Christie won in NJ.

God we Dems suck!!

[SidDithers]

49. Exactly...

Anyone who thinks that the NJ governorship was seriously in play is a living in a dream world.

Sid

[Cyrano]

17. Virginia is a great big warning sign.

We ignore it at our own risk.

[scheming daemons]

27. A flawed Dem candidate won a red state. I am ok with the result.

[Laelth]

38. Very flawed, indeed. I too am satisfied with the outcome. n/t

-Laelth

[DefenseLawyer]

18. The race was closer than the polling

That's a fact. I think analyzing the results is probably more valuable going forward than saying "Hey we won, so let's just assume everything is great and we will always win."

[DinahMoeHum]

26. Predicting election results by polling before the actual election

is a dangerous, misleading game.

When approached by a pollster, people will often tell them what they think the pollster wants to hear.

[leftynyc]

54. +1000

I needed your post. I feel much better now that I know I'm not the only one who thinks the perpetually dissatisfied are tiresome.

[uponit7771]

61. +1

[JoePhilly]

11. Virgina is 2 states, and TM won the one that matters.

[bowens43]

12. why are you surprised? Half the fucking country is bugshit insane.

[Orangepeel]

16. If Republicans had put up a sane candidate in an off year election in Virginia they would have won

Yeah. In other news...

It isn't likely to be easy to win in Virginia.

[marmar]

22. Well let's be honest. Terry McAuliffe isn't the most inspirational guy around.

[Cyrano]

28. I dislike McAullife a lot

However given a choice between voting for McCaullif and Vlad the Impaler, I'll show up and vote for McCaulliffe every time.

[marmar]

31. Agreed. I'm just speculating about a possible reason for how unnecessarily close it was.

[HappyMe]

48. Stephen Colbert said the other night that

it was like a choice between cancer and a heart attack.

They purged a lot of voters from the records also.

[Mass]

23. McAuliffe was a flawed candidate that many Democrats went to vote for with regret.

He is also bad at elections, having lost 2002 and 2004 as DNC chair, and 2008 as Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. Not exactly a track record of success.

So, I am happy he won today, but it should not be taken as a sign of anything except the ineptitude of McAuliffe.

[beerandjesus]

24. It was close because of that voter purge a few weeks ago

Don't remember the exact number, but the state Republicans pushed through a purge of 30-40,000 voters in the last couple weeks before the election, over the objections of many local election officials.

I doubt the polling done over the last few weeks took that factor into account--especially since the voters who were purged were not notified.

[LonePirate]

53. Do the math. If all 40K voted Dem, that is less than 2% of the 2M+ votes cast.

That 2% plus the current margin of victory is still outside the MoE of almost every single poll which had TM winning by over 7 points.

Polls can be off but there is something very unusual about the sheer number of polls being so far off the mark, especially given how polls were closer to reality on the Lt. Gov and AG races.

[Recursion]

25. Yeah? One vote does it.

That's all that matters.

[vi5]

29. McCaullife was the ultimate "hold your nose and vote" candidate.

No matter how bugshit insane his opponent is/was, TM is not someone who inspires much enthusiasm beyond "the other guy sucks".

[durablend]

30. Sorry to inform some of you

But if you're waiting for some day when the generic "insane" GOP/teabagger candidate gets zero votes, you're gonna be waiting a looooooooooooooooooooong time.

Those people are ALWAYS going to be out there...

[kydo]

32. don't forget the 40,000 that had there voting rights removed

baggers pulled as many legally dirty tricks that they could.

The cooch should not have been allowed to hold his office while running. That right there is a conflict of interest. It was under cooch's direction that 40,000 people were removed from the voting rolls.

I'm sure rich red areas had plenty of well working voting machines and lots of polling places. I'm also pretty sure for certain urban areas they had less machines and less polling places.

And of course the bat shit crazy baggers voting plus I think more libertarians changed their mind at the end and voted bagger.

Add the right-wing-media-noise-machine and well we get a race that should have been a big margin win into a narrow victory.

[JaneyVee]

34. Huh? It's a southern state during an off year election and Dems swept Virginia.

Relax.

[hatrack]

37. An off-off-year election, so on balance, not too bad

McAuliffe isn't exactly Paul Wellstone. He's barely Fritz Mondale, but good enough this time around.

[JaneyVee]

42. Exactly. He doesn't actually inspire people to the polls, but guess what?

They made it there anyway and a Teabagger got defeated in the south. And like you said, during an off off year election, which usually heavily favors the opposition party.

[lostincalifornia]

45. I don't know where some of these threads come from. There were some posts yesterday suggesting a

certified liberal candidate should have been run. I think many actually forgot the point you just made, this is a southern state. It is not going to have the same values as California or New York. That is the point that Howard Dean made when he was the head of the DNC, and it was that philosophy when we started taking some red states.

[Baitball Blogger]

41. I can understand the close call.

From what I read about McCauliffe he's a neo-liberal. My impression of neo-liberals is that they just have a better cover story than Republicans (i.e. helping the needy) when it comes to public works projects, but they resort to the same practices. For example, they resort to social networking and bending rules to reward the cronies-- and even resorting to using public job opportunities as incentives.

In the end, if McCaullife resorts to the same practices he will give Democrats a stench that will make it hard to continue electing Democrats in VA.

Just my two cents.

[B Calm]

44. In other words, he's a

Blue Dog?

[lostincalifornia]

47. TM is not a blue dog. A blue dog in Virginia would have done better

[Iggo]

43. Yeah, he should probably concede.

[SoCalDem]

50. McAuliffe is a doofus (and not all that well-liked)

He's a "money-guy"..

This was a lesser-of-two-evils election. People showed up to vote AGAINST Cuccinelli... A more liked candidate would have blown the doors off..

[William769]

52. You don't have blow outs in swing States. NT

[yellowcanine]

55. Cooch is a sitting AG; Terry has no elected experience and off year election.

And this is the first time in years the party holding the White House has won the governorship in Virginia. And the Democrats did win.

[Nay]

57. Oh, yeah, it SHOULD have been a blowout. But I kept warning people. VA is

not, by any means, a purple state in the sense that most people mean it. It would be totally red, red, red, if there wasn't that funny little spot in N. VA. where DC workers live. And a part of Richmond where lots of black folks live. The huge swath of the rest of VA will vote Republican no matter which frothing nut is presented to them -- that's why the vote was so close. And yes, it's worrisome. IMHO, Cooch was hurt by the revelations that he was taking bribes in the form of gifts, and that there was some crazy black guy running for Repub Lt Gov. Not because he is batshit insane. The PEOPLE here are batshit insane, they like batshit insane. But there was baggage, and it was just enough to allow McAuliffe to win.

Mr Nay said if Cooch won, we were going to have the house painted, sell it, and go. It may come to that, because what VA Republicans have learned today is that the guy they run can't be taking bribes (at least not in the year he's running for gov), and the black people here aren't going to vote for a guy just because he's black, and the white Pubs aren't going to vote for a black guy because they hate the Kenyan in the White House and they are obviously all the same. The Republicans here have been slagging Obama with thinly-veiled racist talk, and they wonder why their dim-witted voters won't vote for a black guy?? That was quite a miscalculation. I think that the PTB thought that just an R on the end of the name would be all that was needed, because they forget that the slurs really do work on ignorant people and the ignorant can't ignore such indoctrination - that's how propaganda works.

[FSogol]

60. Virginga? File this post under: Nothing is ever good enough.

McAuliffe won. That's what matters. VA's next Gov? Ralph Northam. GOP shot themselves in the foot by selecting Cuccinelli and Jackson.