Election results
Here’s a thread for you to discuss tonight’s election results in Virginia and New Jersey.
Or anything else you want.
Christie’s victory was a foregone conclusion. And McAuliffe’s always seemed likely, too, although the margin was clearly shrinking. My guess is that, had the election been next week, Cucinelli might have even pulled it out.
I’ll probably have more to say about Christie and Cucinelli tomorrow.
“I still have nothing to say.” (at 1:47)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V42dsOvYvyQ
The Dems are just more clever when it comes to elections. Or rather, it looks like they’re clever because no one calls them on their tactics–their election shanagans never become known to the low information voter because the media refuses to comment upon them.
In addition to controlling the election commissions in every battleground state, in Virginia they funded the “libertarian” third party candidate who took enough votes from Cucinelli to ensure a narrow victory.
Brilliant frelling move, Libertarians! You showed ’em! Took enough votes away from Cuccinelli to make what would have been a solid conservative victory into a narrow leftie one. Good going!
The sad news is that it took all the dirty tricks the Democrats could throw at it, plus the Republican Party leaving Cuccinelli twisting in the wind with respect to financing, to win this election.
With a President’s approval ratings in the 30s, Obamacare a trainwreck and a soggy economy, the voters continue to reward the Democrats. We are truly at or past the critical mass of voter ignorance.
Lesson: a third party assures a Clinton victory in 2016.
Lesson: Motor Voter law allows illegals to vote and provide the margin of victory.
Here in Northern Virginia we were bombarded–by a ratio of something like 7-8 pieces of pro-McAuliffe mailings and TV ads to Cuccinelli’s 1–with the anti-Cuccinnelli propaganda very definitely aimed at women, and centered around the idea that Cuccinelli was an “extremist” who would outlaw all abortions, etc., etc.–with hardly any mention of the real issues like jobs and increasing traffic congestion, and no mention at all of Obamacare. Cuccinnelli, on the other hand, never mentioned McAuliff’s shady past and many ethical lapses, his close ties to the Clintons and Obama, nor his pledge to institute Colorado type gun controls on VA, and it was only on the last day that Cuccinelli propaganda even mentioned McAuliff’s support for Obama care. Cuccinnelli appeared to have far less funds to use for mailings, and TV ads, and the reports that the Republican establishment sat on its hands and did nothing to help Cuccinnelli—perceived by them as a “Tea Party” candidate, certainly seemed to be true.
Meanwhile on election day a report surfaced–why, one wonders, this hadn’t been reported a week or even two ago, when it had a very good chance of giving Cuccinnelli the victory–that it was a wealthy major Democratic donor and Obama bundler who had made the large contribution to the Libertarian’s PAC that made it possible for him to hire the professionals who went out and collected enough signatures to put the faux Libertarian on the ballot; this a “dirty trick” designed to split the conservative vote, and it did the job. Also reported were robocalls that told voters that Cuccinnelli supported Obamacare when, in fact, he was the first State Attorney General to file a suit trying to stop Obamacare.
All in all a dirty race in true Democrat style, with those fools who didn’t really check out their candidate and who voted for the supposed “Libertarian”–who hardly even ran a campaign–depriving Cuccinnelli of their crucial votes, thus allowing McAuliff to win what was a very close election.
Sad day in the Old Dominion State. Another stolen election. How can Va survive with Fairfax County.
Wolla Dalbo, you have my empathies, I am in Fauquier County. You would think that Obama and Clinton support for a candidate would have been the dealh knell for Mcauliff.
Americans used to fight oppression, now they queue up to follow insane directives from corrupt politicians.
It is sad, but not surprising, that New Yorkers elected a mayor who wants to shock it to the rich.
I can’t really understand the logic here.
I suppose those who voted “Libertarian” saw themselves as rebels, as contrarians, voting for “freedom,” as somehow “sticking it to the man,” as thumbing their noses at the Republican establishment while still voting against the Democrats.
But, by voting for a candidate Sarvis, who billed himself as a “Libertarian”–a candidate who hardly campaigned and whose positions were hardly Libertarian–they only succeeded in insuring that, by voting for a faux Libertarian ( see http://www.redstate.com/thelibertarian01/2013/10/28/robert-sarvis-is-a-fraud/ and here http://www.nationalreview.com/article/362690/sarvis-libertarian-nope-charles-c-w-cooke) who had absolutely no chance of winning, they split the conservative vote (the combined vote percentage for Cuccinnelli @ 45.5% plus Sarvis @ 6.6% was 52.1% vs. McAuliff’s 47.9) making it possible for McAuliff and the Democrats to win instead of Cuccinnelli..
Since Neo has said that we can discuss “anything else” on this thread, I wanted to call people’s attention to the issue of increasing black on white violence; a violent and very worrying trend that looks like it is very likely to spread and grow in occurrence and severity.
See, for instance, Thomas Sowell’s recent editorial titled “A Censored Race War,” (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299918/censored-race-war-thomas-sowell), the increasing number of reports of these black on white attacks taking place all over the country, and Colin Flaherty’s book “White Girl Bleed A Lot: the Return of Racial Violence to America,” 5th ed. (http://www.amazon.com/White-Girl-Bleed-Lot-Violence/dp/1479299022) which explores this very real issue.
I’m seeing a lot of hostility directed at Libertarians for having “blown the election,” both here and on other forums.
Well, why should they vote for a permanent bipartisan fusion party? That’s what Bush represented, that’s what Christie and the establishment represent.
Reflexive team-voting is what got us here. At some point, there has to be an accounting.
It’s too easy and seductive to blame our problems on the libertarians. We conservatives bear a large portion of the blame. (Dems obviously always bear blaming)
“Japanese” school of business management says that if there’s a problem, it is ALWAYS management’s fault because they are supposed to be the brains. They should’ve seen it coming.
If we conservatives aren’t getting the results we want, then WE are responsible for changing our strategy.
Wolla Dalbo:
The “logic” is “a plague on both your houses.”
Wolla Dalbo:
The “logic” is “a plague on both your houses.” It often ends up with one house winning, and not the house most simpatico to libertarians, either. As in Virginia.
See this.
Two good articles on events yesterday at Redstate: http://www.redstate.com/2013/11/06/personal-reflections-on-yesterdays-elections/
http://www.redstate.com/2013/11/06/virginia/
And one on the perfidy of the NRSC: http://www.redstate.com/2013/11/06/the-national-republican-senatorial-committee-torches-its-credibility/
From the second article:
“Oh, by the way, it is worth noting that with all the exit polls examined, Virginians split on who to blame for the government shutdown. 47% blamed the GOP and 46% blamed the Democrats. The shutdown too seems like it was not what did in Cuccinelli.”
Matt_SE:
Did you read the post of Ace’s I linked to?
I don’t blame the Libertarians particularly; especially for making a pre-election statement to the pollsters. I do not understand the logic which at the moment of truth, when it is time to actually cast a ballot, allows a person of Libertarian principles to do anything to benefit a McAuliffe; especially when the prospects situation for their preferred candidate are hopeless. Cucinelli offered a clear alternative to the Statist with the slimey personal reputation.
I do blame the GOP establishment. They have drawn their line; they would rather have a Democrat elected than support a genuine Conservative. I used to say that we had to support the GOP because they were the only viable alternative to the committed Statists; now I must rethink.
There are reports that Christie turned down a request to come to Virginia for just one rally to offset all of the high powered Democrats pouring into the Old Dominion. Reportedly, and as always these reports must be evaluated on their merits, he did not want to compromise his own brand of “self proclaimed” Conservatism. It will be interesting to see if he denies, or tries to explain any of the reports.
Kit, you lucky soul. We moved from Fauquier County to SoCal last year to be near family. Grand children are fun, and the winter weather is nice, but, oh, how we miss Fauquier– election day being no exception. I handed out GOP propaganda at the polling place, and greeted all of those lovely, reliable Fauquier voters.
I see a lot of commenters on various blogs saying, “don’t blame Libertarian voters”, and that the blame is Cucinnellis or the Repulblican party’s, anybody else but the poor Libertarian voters.
But, the fact of the matter is that, despite what was reported to be McAuliff’s “commanding” 17 point lead of a week or so ago, by election day the fallout from Obamacare had whittled that double digit lead down to a couple of points. Moreover, despite only token support from the Republican Party (reportedly $3 mil. and that only early on vs. the $9 mil spent and continuing support for the last Republican candidate) and despite whatever flaws Cucinnelli or his campaign might have had, they got within two points (45,000 votes out of more than 2,200,000 total votes cast) of beating McAuliff.
So, if a wealthy Democrat contributor and Obama bundler had not supplied to money to pay professionals to gather enough signatures to put Sarvis, the supposed “Libertarian” candidate, on the ballot, the 145,000 votes cast for him that were siphoned off from the conservative Cucinnelli would have been more than three times the number of votes it would have taken to have given the election to Cucinnelli, who lost by only 45,000 votes.
Thus, it was pretty clearly the siphoning off of those 145,000 votes from conservative voters to faux Libertarian candidate Sarvis that was the decisive factor that caused Cucinnelli’s loss.
Oldflyer:
Did you read Ace’s post?
Neo–Thanks for the link @ 1:26 PM to the “Dissident Frogman” for the perceptive and well written ideas of a Frenchman who is no fan of socialism about this VA election, its significance, and what it augurs for the future of the U.S.
Are people under the impression that the votes for McAuliffe actually consisted of real humans?
Doesn’t take much to fabricate enough to get a minor lead there.
Wolla Dalbo:
You’re welcome, but that Frogman post was written after the 2012 presidential election.
It is still relevant to the libertarian conundrum in Virginia and elsewhere, though.
@Neo
I read that this morning as I was making the rounds, then returned here.
My summary: They [the establishment] kind-of blew it because they didn’t realize how close it would be. In that case, they would’ve contributed more money that might’ve made the difference.
(BTW, there’s no link to Ace’s article in this post…it’s in your most recent post)
This race was close enough that the establishment should’ve contributed. That is, if they were more interested in have a Republican in the governor’s seat than in seeing the Tea Party discredited; which I don’t believe for a second.
Here’s a link to a Protein Wisdom article that accurately sums up my thinking: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=51854